An Annual Tradition: Baked Goodies Galore

        As a broke college student, it's become a tradition of mine to bake for my family instead of buy gifts. Often this ends up costing nearly as much as buying gifts would as my recipe book expands, but I think there's something to be said for a gift from the heart and made by hand. This year's gifts included: homemade kahlua (not pictured), oatmeal chocolate chip cookies (pictures 1-3), chocolate and peanut butter fudges (pictures 4 and 5), wheat-free peanut butter cookies (picture 6), and three different types of cake pop (pictures 7-9).

Creaming the butter and sugar
together for my first batch. I ended up
adding a bunch of brown sugar to the
recipe, which made the cookies softer.

It always helps to have a
handsome man around the
kitchen to assist. Especially
when baking for 30.

The finished product. They came out
a little thin, but very soft and chewy.

Stirring the initial ingredients for
fudge. From here you can add either
peanut butter or chocolate (or both).

Finished peanut butter fudge.
I found it sadly lacking in
peanut butter, next time I'll
be doubling the amount.

The batter for my grandma's wheat-
free peanut butter cookie recipe. It
consists of peanut butter, eggs, and
sugar. The cookies are amazing, if
a little sweet.

Cake pops in the pan before
application of sticks. I saw
this pan and had to give it a
shot. It works fairly well.

Allowing the pops to cool upright
makes the stick more secure. I used
a mixture of melted candy coating
and chocolate chips for frosting.

The finished product. I made
three flavors of cake pops:
chocolate fudge with a light
cocoa frosting, vanilla candy
cane cake with chocolate mint
frosting, and yellow cake with
eggnog and a white chocolate
vanilla frosting.

All in all, baking was a success this year. I think next time I'd use a little less brown sugar in the oatmeal cookies, though not much, to add a little more volume and take away just a touch of sweetness. The peanut butter fudge definitely needs twice the peanut butter, and the peanut butter cookies could use a bit less refined sugar. As for the cake pops, they came out pretty well for my first attempt and I'll continue to experiment with them; I think I'll aim for a little more moisture next time.

A Birthday Request: Cupcakes

I should probably add right now
that I am terrible at decorating.

I have a little bit of a reputation among my friends for my cupcake baking. So, naturally, when my best friend Dréa's birthday comes up I am required to provide dessert. The great thing about Dréa's birthday is that it's also Halloween and we tend to combine festivities. This year, she made a couple of requests of me which was great because I like the challenge of fulfilling someone's requests with my own style. First, I was given this picture to work with:

Then, Dréa asked me for a combination I've never attempted before: some kind of citrus cupcake with a cream cheese frosting, if I can incorporate alcohol, bonus points. Challenge accepted.

My original plan had been to perfect a recipe I had been working on modifying a couple of years ago, but time and money became factors, so I chose to spruce up a from-the-box lemon cake and frosting instead.

The Cake:

The ingredients I was working
with. I wanted to incorporate
crushed pineapple, so I used the
vegan trick of replacing the egg
with applesauce (but used the
pineapple instead).

I also replaced the water called
for with 2/3 rum and 1/3 juice.
I used a little less since the
pineapple does add its own
moisture to the batter.

When I was done beating the
batter, it did look lumpy but
that was due to the fruit and
not the dry ingredients.

The Frosting:

Since I wanted the frosting to
go with the cupcakes, I had to
find a way to make cream
cheese frosting more "tropical".
I accomplished this by adding
rum and juice for flavor, then
refined coconut oil (the solid)
to counter the extra liquid.

I wish I had a hand mixer
because I did find a couple of
lumps of coconut oil that
hadn't incorporated later.

Because of all the extra liquid, baking
time was a little longer than anticipated.
It would probably help to not overfill
your cupcake papers, too.

I let the cupcakes cool overnight since
it was ridiculously late when they were
done baking. I need to take cupcake
frosting lessons.

Now, I may have mentioned before that decorating is not my forte. In the least. But, the birthday girl requested spiderwebs, so that's what she got. Unfortunately the store was out of the stupid little plastic spider rings, so she just got webs and no spiders.

To make the spiderwebs, I
took the black writing icing
from a can and drew circles
around a dot. Well, attempted
circles.

The picture is terrible because
it's morning and I was half-
awake. I took a chopstick
(some people use toothpicks)
and drew straight lines out from
the center dot.

This is the tray of my finished
cupcakes. As you can see,
uniformity is not my strong
point.

Drea's birthday cupcake!
Maybe not picture-perfect,
but they came out deliciously.

In the end, the cupcakes may have not been the prettiest, but I'm very proud of the flavor and texture. The only problem I came across is that the cupcakes are so soft, they lack structural integrity. All in all, it was a successful venture.

A Family Favorite: Warm Pear Walnut Salad

When trying to think of something tasty, light, and easy to make I always defer to this salad. It's from a "recipe" given to my parents by a family friend when I was much younger. Every time you make it, it comes out just slightly differently, but always delicious!

These are all the ingredients
needed. The original recipe
calls for sliced black olives as
well, but I always forget them
and, honestly, don't feel like
much is missed.

Tear the lettuce into decently
bite-sized chunks. The recipe
says to use both green and red
leaf lettuce and, if you're making
a large batch, you definitely
should. I was cooking for 3 so
I only used green leaf. Slice enough
red onion for your taste and choose a
soft pear. Drizzle with balsamic
vinegar to your heart's content.

This is another way I deviate
from the recipe: I think the walnuts
are the best part so I always cook
more than called for. You want
the olive oil to cover a little more
than halfway and watch
the nuts carefully, as they burn
easily!

As soon as the walnuts are
toasted, throw them on top of
the salad and toss quickly. The hot
oil will melt the bleu cheese and mix
with the balsamic vinegar to
make the dressing.

Enjoy while still warm with
sliced sourdough!

First Attempt: Fish Tacos

Tonight I attempted something new: fish tacos. We've all had fish tacos and my dad has made them for us before, but I have never done them myself. I had some tilapia that I needed to cook and decided to try it out. The basic concept I started with was a fried battered fish, cabbage, aioli, and pico de gallo. In the long run, I ended up making puffy tacos (fried flour tortillas instead of corn) just because it's what I had around and I also added avocado because, well, I love the stuff. The following are pictures and descriptions of everything that went into it:

My first attempt at aioli. I
looked up basic aioli recipes
online and went from there. I
used mayonnaise, lemon
juice, cayenne, chili powder,
cumin, garlic powder, and a
dab of salsa verde.

Cabbage and avocado.
I used an avocado just on
the verge of being over-
ripe, hence the brown.

Pico de gallo sans cilantro.
I was cooking for my best
friend, who is allergic to
cilantro so I had to leave
it out. A simple mix of roma
tomatoes, serrano chili, and
chopped yellow onion.

Fried flour tortillas. They
puff up and are soft instead
of the crispness of a corn
tortilla. I guess this is more
of a tex-mex thing, but I
enjoy it from time to time.

Fried tilapia. I dredged it
in an egg wash, then flour
with cayenne, chili powder,
and garlic powder mixed in.

The finished product! They
were pretty good, I can see
room for improvement but
it really wasn't bad for my first
try. Next time I'd like a lot more
spice and there would be more
effort put into the pico and aioli.

An introduction of sorts.

If you've stumbled upon my little blog, I should probably tell you what I'm about.

My name is Ally, I'm a college student and barista living in the beautiful East Bay, California. After spending a great deal of time, money, and energy going in and out of school for various subjects I have finally found my calling: I am going to open my own restaurant.

This is a large undertaking, so I'm starting this blog as a means to keep track of the things I cook, methods and ingredients I use, and to help me start planning a menu. A lot of the photos are low-quality, but I hope to start remembering to take decent pictures and keep better documentation of my ingredients along the way.