11/11/11 Silliness and Stevie has a new hobby
Feast your eyes on this tasty morsel! Believe it or not, this is the final, cooked, product of Stevie’s new hobby: Baking.
This really has nothing to do with 11/11/11 but I thought it was a good way to work in a post about it AND talk about my daughters new love of baking things. We can use this date as the starting point of a new, potential career choice or as the date we can tell the ER that we first started having the symptoms of food poisoning. Either way it’s a memory immortalized on a historic date in time that I will never live to see again.
The way she starts a project is by looking up something she wants to make on the internet. Then she gathers ingredients, measures, stirs, mixes, combines and then cooks. This particular recipe is her 6th attempt at it. First off, let me clarify that this was supposed to be a cupcake recipe. That’s what she looked up but this is what she created: The brown lump you see above.
It was only at the very end, after the batter was in the liners, in the muffin tray, that she realized something was not right. The batter was way too thick and sitting in the cups like dough balls. Like, cookie dough balls. Then she looked back at the internet and saw that her recipe was NOT for cupcakes, but actually for chocolate chip cake cookies. Not chocolate chip cup cakes. See, it’s those words that can be confusing! You see cake, you automatically think cupcake! Her only other fleeting clue was that there was only enough “batter” to fill 4 cupcake liners. She even had her brother in the kitchen wondering what the heck they were looking at. I can just imagine both of them staring at those lumpy “cupcakes” and trying to figure out what went wrong. Then they scraped all the dough out of the liners and put them on a baking tray to cook. Her finished recipe made this many cookies, plus two, that we ate for quality control purposes:
They are not pretty. They are not really good either. They kind of taste like brownie bites with lots of edge. They do have chocolate chips in them though! The problem, besides following the wrong recipe all together, is that when she does find a recipe, she reads it off the internet and doesn’t follow the order of ingredients. She tends to measure and mix things out of order and then loses track of what’s in the bowl already and what is not. Her last cookie attempt, deliberate cookies, may have had salt as an ingredient at least 3 or 4 times. Her motto is: “If you can’t remember, add it again! Then double the recipe!” What you end up with is twice as many salty, chewy cookies to feed to the big, fat squirrels we have growing outside. I swear they gather near the backdoor like they’re having a company meeting when we turn our oven on.
Since I was actually at a job fair for most of this, (2 fairly good interviews I think!! Cross your fingers please!! I really need a job. If anything, just to be able to afford more butter and flour and sugar) I walked in on the turds just coming out of the oven. And heard the story while she was already preparing her next assault on my kitchen and baking supplies. Before she got too deep, I suggested she might consider printing the recipe and then using a pen to check off each item as she used it. She did. She carefully checked to be sure it was really a cupcake recipe. It was. And then she put them together. Obviously baking is a skill that takes time and practice. I was mostly in the room when she mixed and measured, but for some reason, something goes wrong somewhere in the process and the finished product ends up just slightly “off.” These are her vanilla cupcakes with chocolate frosting:
They are not the worst cupcakes you have ever eaten by any means. They look pretty good. Mostly “risen”. A lot are flat, but that’s ok. The chocolate frosting is good. The problem is that they taste like corn bread muffins and not vanilla cupcakes. We can’t figure out why. It’s a basic recipe. The only difference is that it asked for egg whites instead of whole eggs. It’s weird. Either she is completely missing something or reading the teaspoon/tablespoon/½ and ¾ type measurements wrong. So they can just sit there for a few days and I’ll throw them at the squirrels on Monday. Keep them off my bird feeders for a few minutes. Totally off subject…but I have a red-headed woodpecker that I have been trying to take a picture of for the last few weeks. He was here today so I have to think he’ll be back regularly if I keep the bird seed out and full. I don’t know why it’s exciting to see new and different birds eating in my backyard but it is!! Yay winter!
Anyway, she is done for the night now and I will wrap this up and clean the kitchen. Again. Despite this posting, which she fully read and can appreciate the humor behind (because my kids are cool like that!), she will try again soon, and I will let her. How else is she going to learn?? Send her some love and encouragement so she doesn’t give up because, heads up!, she’s planning on baking ALL the Christmas cookies this year. And unless you want to break a tooth or outright lie, and shatter the holiday dreams of an overly ambitious teenage girl, you all better hope she gets really good at this super FAST! Later!
Sorry Sister!
Apple Pie! My first apple pie in many years. We will see. Juices are supposed to be bubbling and it’s done. That would be a crumby streusel type topping. It tastes good. I already tried it. Now hopefully the apples will be soft and sweet and the inside will not be runny!
Just have to dash out for some ice cream, milk, caramel, toilet paper, wine….well you don’t want my whole list. I’ll post later to let you know how it all turned out.
And for you Amanda…check the reply to your comment on the previous post. It explains it all in a witty way. XO. Dream sweet!
Catching Pieces of Christmas Spirit…
This was from last Saturday morning. It was snowing, really snowing for the first time this season. And sticking. I guess north of where I live has had it already and probably doesn’t feel all cheery inside when it happens on a Tuesday. I get that. Now that school is over I am fine with whatever day it wants to snow…but this was Saturday. The kids were home and we had no where to go. They played outside and I baked cookies. Yes haters…they were oatmeal raisin and from a fund raiser (dough balls that you place on the pan—it counts if you have to put them in the oven—I still have to make sure they don’t burn up). My little mouse was running back and forth with his belly full of poison (we have a mouse—been here since Thursday—eating poison and looking cute—haven’t seen him today though—it’s probably the end for him) and I think I even had some Christmas music on the ipod. It was nice. Here’s a few pics:
Friday afternoon salad break
That’ a bad headline, but I have to hurry. I am taking advantage of the no-car thing and trying to do stuff that I SHOULD have been doing all along. Things like dusting, vacuuming, laundering, bathroom cleaning, baking, purging old papers, clothes, crap stored in drawers and on table tops, that I could have just threw out in the first place…but mostly cleaning. I am a terrible housekeeper. I dust, like, never. I have cobwebs in all the corners, and I should vacuum 5 times more than I do. I even have the very awesome Dyson Ball Vacuum. I love it. It is so easy to use and picks up so much dirt off the floor its like it’s vacuuming stuff up from UNDER the house! Maybe not, but it is fun to use.
So it’s Day 3 of Week 2/ EFS. Not doing bad, been busy so its easy to not eat. I just made a lovely veg salad with the optional hard boiled egg. It’s the non-exercise day so you have to eat leaner…but I wasn’t going to exercise anyway…isn’t that terrible? But I did walk with the kids to school (only 5/6 of the way there—I have to stop just short of the “kid group” so as not to cause death inducing embarrassment). Then I walked home.
It’s a quick little burst and then I started cleaning. This is MAJOR exercise for me. No kidding. Looks good but it gets dusty fast where I live. I have a problem with moving stuff off shelves and whatnot and using a rag and spray–I hate doing it–so I am always looking for the easiest thing possible–like a stick with fuzzy material that you run all over everything and the dirt comes off–no moving objects required. Enter the SWIFFER DUSTER. My new love. After putting it together…it’s easy, but I am just lame today and it took longer than it should have—pathetic….but after that, I just sweeped all around the house dusting and humming and generally being happy that it was going so well! I wondered if you could re-use the raggy thing on the end, and in most cases of people who dust regularly, you probably could, but not me. Straight to the garbage. It was kind of nasty. Dust is so dirty. And not in any of the good ways…but the house is clean. Bathroom is de-grossed, clothes are washed. I even used things like “Windex” and something called “Clorox”.
Well, that seems kind of boring. I had a point when I started typing this day thing, but I’ve forgotten what it was. Hmmm…..I also baked bread and a cake. I have, seriously, like 7 dips to make for Sat and Sun. In case you aren’t following along I have a Crawfish Boil on Sat to go to and a Party to throw at my house on Sunday. Hence, the clean and bake…I also have some music to come up with. I thought I could do one every day but I don’t think that is going to be possible. I am still trying to add pictures to this and get it looking…good…or at least interesting….something to get people here—where they can then drift off…anyway, I have a word of the day coming and I think I’ll just save the next music list as the crawfish list. Or maybe a cleaning the house and baking list? People do like music when they are doing things like that. I do.
Ok losing the thoughts, kids just got home and it is report card time! Mason is all A’s but one! (Excellent job but also too bad… again…(his Dad promised him a cell phone if he could pull off all A’s—so close–twice in a row now! Better luck next time! Only one more chance!) Stevie is all A’s and B’s. She don’t get nothing either! She wants Slurpee’s for a year. I’m going to miss these easy days. It’s surprising how many individual grade scores they hand out in the middle school years…I don’t remember having all of that…but maybe I missed some stuff. Mason also got a packet for next year already. He’s moving to the big school. Boo hoo. Needs a dental and physical and shots! Definitely don’t miss that…
Ok this is getting a little rambly here and its longer than a salad break, so to sum up: Clean house. Baked bread. Made cake. Mixed dips. Laundered clothes. List Music and Word Day. Done.
psst…hey…I also have a present to wrap…don’t tell the boyfriend….it’s kind of hush hush….thanks…
just shy of pretty 