Author: Sadie

Happy Accident

Sadie2 Comments

Ok so usually baking is a rewarding venture for me.  I find a recipe, I follow it, make some tweaks here and there, get a yummy result, and get compliments from whoever I share it with.  Lately, though, I’ve had mixed results and mixed feelings.

This story starts out happy.  There was a birthday cake to be made.  In an effort to use up some extra buttermilk, I strayed from the standard family chocolate birthday cake recipe, to a version that trades regular milk for buttermilk.  It’s an Ina Garten recipe, and it turned out great.  So great, in fact, that it’s making my family rethink the traditional family birthday cake recipe.  With these chocolate cake recipes in my arsenal, buying a chocolate cake mix from the store is out of the question these days.

Fabulous cake: check.  Now onto the frosting.  My plan was to make “White Mountain Frosting” or “Seven Minute Frosting.”  Typically a combination of egg whites, sugar and water that yields a light fluffy frosting.  I have tried two different recipes three separate times (following the recipe to letter).  I can not get the frosting to fluff.  It falls flat no matter what I try.

To mitigate my repeated frosting disaster I used the flat frosting (which still tasted quite good) as the frosting between the cake layers, and a “glaze” for the top of the cake.  Then to disguise this monstrosity, I made a quick, easy chocolate frosting to cover the outside of the cake.aftermath

Crisis averted.  The funny thing was that the combination of the two frostings made for a very moist cake.  The flat White Mountain Frosting was almost like having a layer of marshmallow fluff under the chocolate frosting.

I guess some days the frosting fluffs, and some days it doesn’t…

Chocolate Buttermilk Cake

Yields 2, 9 inch rounds, recipe from Ina Garten

Ingredients

  • 1 3/4 cups AP flour
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 3/4 cups cocoa powder, more for pans
  • 2 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 cup buttermilk, shaken
  • 1/2 cup vegetable oil
  • 2 large eggs, at room temperature
  • 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
  • 1 cup freshly brewed coffee

Method

  1. Preheat oven to 350.  Prepare pans by spraying with non-stick spray and coating with cocoa powder.  If you want to be extra cautious, cut out a circle of parchment paper to fit in the bottom of your cake pans.
  2. Sift together flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
  3. In a separate bowl, combine buttermilk, oil, eggs, and vanilla.
  4. Add the wet to dry gradually and beat with an electric mixer.  Finally add coffee gradually.
  5. Bake at 350 for 35- 40 minutes until a tester comes out clean.  Allow to cool for about 10 minutes before you remove the cake from the pans.almost done

Flat White Mountain Frosting

From a very old Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup sugar (my mom’s hypothesis is that this recipe is lacking the right about of sugar)
  • 1/4 cup corn syrup
  • 2 Tbs water
  • 2 egg whites
  • 1 tsp vanilla

Method

  1. in a small sauce pan combine the water, sugar, and corn syrup.  Cover and bring to a strong boil.  Take the lid off and bring to 242 degrees (use a candy thermometer).
  2. While the mixture is boiling, whip up the egg whites to stiff peaks.
  3. When the mixture has reached the right temperature, very slowly add it to the egg whites while you continue to beat them.  Add the vanilla and beat for about 7 minutes.  At this point the frosting is supposed to fluff up, but in my case it didn’t.  You win some, you lose some.

Chocolate Frosting

From an old Hershey’s Baking Chocolate wrapper

Ingredients

  • 3 Tbs unsalted butter
  • 3 oz unsweetened baking chocolate
  • 3 cups powdered sugar
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • dash salt

Method

  1. Using a small saucepan over low heat or a microwave melt the butter.  Add the chocolate in small pieces and melt it with the butter.
  2. Put melted butter and chocolate in a bowl and add sugar, milk, vanilla, and salt.  Beat with an electric mixer until it reaches the desire consistency.  To thicken up the frosting place the bowl in an ice bath while you mix it, or refrigerate for a few minutes before frosting.Ready for FrostingSo. Much. Frosting.

Movies Over Winter Break

Sadie2 Comments

Since this is my last winter break as a grad student, I took full advantage of the time off to decompress (don’t worry, I’ve had my productive moments as well).  This translates to seeing a few movies.  Especially since there are always good movies in theaters during December.  In light of the Golden Globes last night, here’s what I saw over the past few weeks:

The Silver Linings Playbook

I enjoyed this quite a bit.  First of all, I like Bradley Cooper a lot, and I thought he was good in this.  He plays a man trying to recover from an extremely violent bi-polar incident, and turn his life around.  I found it funny and uplifting because he’s constantly looking for “silver lining developments.”  His love interest, Jennifer Lawrence, has similar goals to make personal improvements, and they end up making a cute pair.  I liked that is was set in Philly because I recognized some of the scenery.  It has story lines that go along with football and dance competitions.  Something for everybody!Bradley

Anna Karenina

This was a tricky one to track down.  I thought it would open in more theaters but it was kind of spotty.  I finally saw it several weeks after it came out.  It was a lot more artsy than I was expecting.  The film constantly made visual references to a stage, making the analogy that all of the characters were either pandering to or subject to a constant audience.  I enjoyed the story (I haven’t read the book) because it illuminated some significant double standards for men and women in relationships. I’m hit and miss with Keira Knightley films because sometimes I find her annoying, but I think she does pretty well with older period pieces like this one.Anna

Les Miserables

I saw this one on Christmas Day with everyone else in New Jersey I think.  The theater was Packed with a capital P.  But prepare to get mad at me.  It wasn’t my favorite.  I knew going in that I’m not a Les Mis person.  I’ve seen it live on Broadway, and it didn’t do much for me.  I’ve seen about 40 musicals live on Broadway, and I can’t say Les Mis is in my top 20.  Anyway, back to the movie.  I’m not so into three hours of the talking/singing thing.  I prefer having normal talking with intermittent songs.  That being said, I thought Anne Hathaway was fine, and Hugh Jackman was, as well.  I loved Eddie Redmayne, who played Marius.  I’ve actually seen him in the show Red on Broadway a couple years ago (he won a Tony for it).  He is cute and fantastic.  I would say Russell Crowe was underwhelming, but frankly, I’m not sure why they cast him in the first place so I wasn’t expecting much from him.  I think at the end of the day the musical is too overwhelming for me.  I find that the musical themes lack cohesion, and there are too many going on at once.  There are several instances when too many melodies are happening simultaneously and I can’t follow any of them.  I could talk about this for a long time, so I’m going to stop.Eddie!

The Guilt Trip

I’m not going to lie, I saw this one by myself.  I knew that I probably couldn’t talk any of my family or friends into seeing it, so I went on a quite weeknight when I was looking for some entertainment.  But, you know what, it was cute.  First of all, who doesn’t love Barbara Streisand.  She’s looking good.  And Seth Rogan played a cute, kind of bashful character in the movie.  It’s a cute mother- son bonding story, and it has a good balance of some real moments, plus positive developments and a happy ending.  It’s not something to run out and see at your earliest convenience, but it had a few good laughs and some cute moments.

Easy Vegetarian Soup

Sadie3 Comments

A few years ago, the concept of cooking a soup at home intimidated me.  Soup recipes seemed to have so many ingredients and be such a long process.  I actually used to not be a big soup fan in general.  Then I slowly started to come around to soup and I developed a few favorites.  I love a good minestrone (Whole Foods makes a great one), a great french onion, or chicken tortilla (Panera has a good one).

Eventually, I decided that I would tackle soup for the first time.  I found a great recipe for an easier version of a chicken tortilla soup from Martha Stewart.  Easier meaning that it’s minus the chicken, so I wouldn’t have to worry about the meat component (I don’t eat much meat in general).   It has easy to find, easy to prep ingredients, and it’s a quick process.

Recently, one of my friends had minor surgery so I thought it would be a nice gesture to bring them some soup.  They are a vegetarian so I made this soup and made sure to use vegetable broth to keep it vegetarian friendly.  He said he loved it!

Vegetarian Black Bean Tortilla Soup

Yields 6-8 servings, Adapted from Martha Stewart

Ingredients

  • 1/2 medium onion, diced
  • 1 Tbs oil
  • 4 cloves of garlic, minced
  • 1 tsp chili powder
  • 2  cans diced tomatoes (14 oz., I use no salt added)
  • 2 cans black beans (15 oz, again, low sodium)
  • 1 can vegetable broth (or chicken broth if you want)
  • 10 oz package of corn kernels
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • tortilla chips to garnish
  • lime to garnish

Method

  1. Warm up the oil in a soup pot on the stove on medium heat.  Add in diced onions and cooks about 5 minutes until translucent.  Reduce the heat slightly and add garlic and chili powder.  Make sure the garlic doesn’t burn.  Cook until fragrant.onions and garlic
  2. Add tomatoes with juice.  Add drained black beans, broth, and 1 cup of water.  Finally add corn.  Cook on medium heat to bring it up to a boil. Reduce it to a simmer and add lime and tortilla chips as desired for garish or wait until you plate the soup.all done

    Packing it up to bring to my friend
    Packing it up to bring to my friend