Pinspiration Vol.2: Lemons and Blueberries!

I'm back my little whisking buddies! I know it was a tough week without me but I brought my A game this week to make up for it. Not only is this a pinterest inspired post, it is also is some advanced learning for me. I'm doing a lot of things I've never done before and I find that exciting.This week I was clinging to the last vestiges of summer and made Lemon Blueberry Bars. If you click that link, you will be unable to resist making these. You can almost smell the lemon through the interwebs. We start with the one thing I know how to do and that is: making a graham cracker crust. The scary part of that for me was the lemon zest. Believe it or not, I've never zested anything before. It's probably not that hard to believe if you know me. I'm not great at a lot of things. Oh but before I forget, here is a photo.

It was only after I took the photo that I realized the zester is upside down.

Because it's motherfucking fall, I was left with the saddest looking lemons I've ever seen. That one was the biggest in the bag and I swear there is some camera trickery involved here to make it look normal sized. Also, I had to go to a completely different store to get blueberries. "Thanks big unnamed smiley face store." She said dripping with sarcasm. But despite all that, zesting a lemon wasn't nearly as hard as I expected it to be.

Pretty and tasty! Just like me....wait what?

Can I just stop for a moment to say that I fucking love lemons. When all the heavy drinkers are doing the shots, I steal all the lemon slices. Ha ha take that jerks! That being said, this smelled amazing! In fact it was so tasty that I almost forgot to add sugar. Almost. Form that into a crust shape and then bake it for 10 minutes. The second thing I've never done before is separate an egg all by myself. The first one I broke but the second one I mastered. I even did the professional back and forth shell action.

Pictured: Yummy?

Next it was time to grow some balls and do the thing I was scared of the most. Thing i'd never done before three, juice several tiny lemons. I somehow was "lucky" enough not to get any pictures of this but I swear it happened. Let me start off by saying that our juicer is a piece of shit. It's so terrible I couldn't even find a picture on google images that looked bad enough. It's similar to this one, except shitty and made of plastic. It probably took me close to a half hour to squash enough tiny lemons to equal one half cup of juice. Painstaking, is the word I would choose to describe it. So you mix all that crap together and zest some more lemons, which I most assuredly didn't measure. Oh well, graters gonna grate. 

Is it tasty yet?

I'll be honest, I got pretty worried at this point. Mostly because this smell like ass. So much ass. I even double checked the website to make sure I wrote everything down right. I did, so what up! Without considering any other options I baked it. Just like the rules say I kept it in the the oven for 15 minutes. Then I played skyrim so I'm sure however long they said to let it cool I at least doubled it. Then I fridged it for probably less time than I should have so whatever. 

I wanna stick my face in that so bad!

It made the whole house smell great and I couldn't wait to taste it. I'm the only one home today so you are only getting my opinion which is *drool*. I hardly ever eat the stuff I make, so for me to enjoy this so much is crazy. I am totally going to make this again when I get a better juicer, probably with strawberries. Sorry again for taking a week off, I can't say that it wont happen again because in two weeks my show "Honeymoon at Graveside Manor" opens. I'm going to get pretty busy, fighting ghosts and what not. My favorite thing this week though has to be "Good Mythical Morning" Rhett and Link's morning show. They make one every weekday for the past like 2 years or something. My husband and I are watching all of them in order and it is awesome.

Tiny Gay Rainbow Cupcakes

It's the first Friday of the month and that means I baked something fun and literary-inspired for the ladies and gentlemen in my Vaginal Fantasy book club! I always get so excited about it and I usually spend the whole month planning what I want to make. August's book was Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner and it featured a male/male romance, or so I was told because I didn't finish it. We had an alternate book about lesbians too but I didn't finish that one either. I'm bad at book clubbing, but at least I can make a fine ass cupcake.

Tasty tasty words

 I think you know me well enough by now to know that there are several rules here I didn't exactly follow. Let's start at the top, I didn't make tie-dye cupcakes. I have in the past and they are totally awesome but for gay pride, I thought the rainbow was the only sensible pick. Next, I thought vanilla was way too straight-laced. Instead I mixed strawberry and raspberry extracts, so it was fruity and fabulous. Lastly, you know full well I didn't make 12 cupcakes. If you've ever read this blog before you know I made 24 mini cakes. Gaykes. Following the rest of the rules as closely as possible you should end up with this concoction.

Thanks Timmy!

 This is where it gets a little interesting. You have to separate that into as many colors as you want and then dye them. I made six different colors because fuck the difference between indigo and violet. I just now googled the gay pride flag and learned that there is normally only six colors and now I feel good about myself. Yay for me. You want to make sure that you get the pigments right pretty quickly because trying not to over-mix becomes hard if you stir it six times to get the purple just right.

I am that person.

 This is the point where you would start the tie dying. In a normal sized cupcake pan throw in colors at random until they are all full. Or if you are feeling more refined you can make the world's most perfect rainbow flag ever. I'm not even joking look at how cute this is.

Damn it! It's backwards

 Oh I forgot until right now that broke another rule. It's says bake for 20 minutes but I'm thinking I only baked them for 15 because they are small. Then you just wait for them to cool, frost them up with your favorite icing, place them in a delicate circle and you've got something fancy.

Pictured: Fine Ass'dness

I bought some gay bacon strips (also known as Airheads Extremes) for the top to be little gay flags but I lost them. I only found them later, an hour into book club after I had already had my fair share of fancy wine. There are no pictures of this unfortunately but they really helped bring out the fruity flavor of the cakes which I'm sure is a metaphor for something. My favorite thing this week was going to be Release the Mooks 3. It's a fun physics flash game where it's totally appropriate to find yourself shouting "You wobbly mook fucker!" I say "was going to be" because this happened and there was much rejoicing.

Yes, It's cookies again

I'll be honest with you guys, I started playing Fallout and totally forgot today was Friday. Luckily, I didn't forget to bake something this week or else you would have ended up with another article like the one a few weeks ago. I was going to apologize for writing about cookies again but then I remembered "fuck you, cookies are awesome."  While doing research on peanut butter cookies I found a recipe that stated "If it doesn't have flour, it can't be called a cookie." I call bullshit on that theory and I brought proof of my statements. Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you The Paper.

Exhibit A

If you will notice, not a drop of flour goes in this and I defy any one of you to make it and not call it a cookie. I love this recipe so much that I gave it to all of my friends one year at a Christmas cookie swapping party. These are so popular that I made around 42 of these things and they were gone in a day. I did have them around hungry actors though, so maybe that was my fault. These are super simple to make but not so easy to stir. If you have as little upper body strength as I do you are going to want to invite some muscles over to help you. Like most cookies, these start with sugar and butter and more sugar. Then, after the vanilla, baking soda and what I consider to be a shit load of eggs, it looks a little something like this.

Hey there Timmy

Did I mention peanut butter, because I'm pretty there is some of that in there too. This is where the muscles come in handy. I used the one's conveniently attached to my husband. Add the oats, m&ms and chocolate chips. Funny story, I threw away my only semi-sweet chocolate chips, literally minutes before trying to make these. The moral of that story is that I am an idiot. But it was a happy accident because I had to use chocolate chunks and those are never not amazing. Double negative used for dramatic intent.

Put it in your mouth!

Melon ball that shit onto some parchment paper, like the bad ass you know you are. I baked nine at a time instead of a whole dozen since they are so monstrous. I left them on the tray for a few minutes after baking but if you've been paying attention and can do math you should know that I baked a shit ton of batches. I only have two baking sheets but I discovered the secret to cooling metal fast. Wave it around in the air for a few minutes like a fan, stick it in the fridge for several minutes, then freeze for 10 seconds and it's room temp again.

Damn that's pretty

Did you know that cookies are not photogenic. That's why I'm extra proud of that picture. Normally, even the tastiest cookies look like shit but, seriously just damn! You will not be disappointed with these. Make them or I will cut you! We've gotten to the point of threats of violence so maybe I should just leave you with this weeks thing of awesomeness and head back to the Mojave wasteland. If you are the kind of person who appreciates a casually profane baking blog then you need to buy Cards against Humanity. Wil Wheaton and I agree BEST. GAME. EVER.

I'm better than a wizard, I'm a baker!

In a brave attempt to make something other than cookies, I pulled a recipe from the oldest parts of my cookbook. This was back when I hadn't made anything and I cried every single time I tried. Yes, even when the results turned out perfectly acceptable. It's been a few years since then, and while I don't cry as often, I certainly fuck up just as much. I really expected this to be one of those fuck ups, but surprisingly everything turn out pretty okay. So let's start where it starts, with a little bit of this. 

Behold!

Yes, my dear kittens, This week, we are making a pie. And here's a quick warning that I should have jammed in sooner, this will probably be image heavy. If you're viewing device can't handle it, I apologize, but you've been warned. To be clear, I only made the crust of a pie and Comstock handled the filling, but fear not as I have some big plans in the future. Enough stalling, on the the first step. Throw all that powdery shit in a bowl, mix at it a little, then add little butter squares. 

You can tell this is old because I wrote it down verbatim from the source, which I think was a book I got from the library. It says use a food processor, but I have never owned one. I paced around my kitchen trying to figure out how I did this last time. I had several good options but I decided, screw all of them and I used my hands. That's right, just to prove a point, everything other than measuring and rolling was done with just my mitts. 

Proof

After you squish the hell out of the butter, you add all the liquids and then keep squishing it around. Da' rules seem to be very specific about the amount of time you should do things. I took much longer than 15 seconds, but you can imagine my surprise when I ended up with this. 

That looks pretty normal

After that it's just a tear and some finagling to get two discs of pretty awesome looking dough. Then you bag em and shove them in the fridge for an hour. Feel free to use this hour in any way you like. Sadly, that's all the information we get from that recipe. the rest is the just guesses and dreams. This really shouldn't have turned out. So, you let them thaw a bit and then rolling pin it. I posted on facebook asking friends to let me borrow a rolling pin and they told me to use a cup. Anyone who thinks that's useful advice has never done this before. 

That looks like poop and shit! And that's with a pin that I bought just to make this. (Totally worth it) Make sure you cover everything in flour. The pin, the stove, your hands, arms, face, every fucking thing. The best way I've found to get crust in a pan is to fold in in fourths and then move quickly. Unfold it in the pan, goop some fruit on top and do the exact same thing to the top crust. I suppose you could mix up some brown sugar and butter so make a crumble top, I did not do that. Make sure you slice some vents in the top so your filling can breathe and not explode in a fiery ball of horror. I'm not sure if that's what happens but I'm assuming so. I baked it for around 45 minutes and kept a close eye on it the whole time. 

Normally, I tell you all the dangers of overworking flour. Even my grandma said not to mess with dough to much. But, I made this mother fucker with my bare hands and I wasn't gentle with it. It was amazing! So, flaky and crisp and the bottom wasn't soggy. I could go on and on but I don't want to waste your time because, seriously, GO MAKE A PIE! You'll like it, I swear! 

That's all for now, my little biscuits. but before you run off, did you know that all four seasons of The Magic School Bus is available on Netflix streaming! I'm counting on all of you to "Take chances, Make mistakes, and GET MESSY"

The Essentials

Up until about an hour ago, I had no idea what I was going to write about today. It has nothing to do with my laziness and I can't even blame Papa's Cupcakearia. I actually ended up making 48 cookies this week. I only had to throw away 5 of them, which I'm pretty sure is a new record. The bad news is, that all the cookies I made were just variations of something I already wrote about. That's what I get for blogging my favorite recipe. So, instead of rehashing an old post, I decided it was time to talk about the essentials. That being said I would like to introduce you to a very close friend of mine, who has appeared on this blog before but now it's his moment to shine. Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for, my wooden turner, TIMMY!!

Not to be confused with any other Timmy's or Turner's

Look at that handsome stirring utensil! I could not bake a damn thing without him. I recall mentioning in a previous post how I snapped a wooden spoon in half while mixing cookies. Well, let me tell you, that will never happen with Timmy. If I tried hard enough, I could probably murder someone with this guy. I mean, I won't, or whatever, but it's a possibility. I could go on about the benefits of using wooden spoons over metal, and I probably should but, for now, I just want to say that I love Timmy the turner. So there!  And, while on the topic of tools I like,

The little melon baller looking mother fucker!

That's him officer, that's the guy responsible for my perfectly shaped cookies! I can not oversell getting a little melon baller looking mother fucker. If you make a lot of cookies that don't require cutters, then you really need one. I checked last time I was at the store and the price is pretty much identical to an actual little melon baller mother fucker, which is like 4 bucks at the most. Like I said I made 48 cookies just this week, so that's less than half a penny per cookie. Shit, if I were selling these I would have earned this thing back already.

It's now time for another installment of Bake Tips 101, with Professor Kitten J. Whiskers. 

1) Creativity is encouraged, but remember the balance. You want to make something no one else has done before? That's fantastic news, but for every new ingredient you add something's got to be taken away somewhere. Add too much cocoa powder and you end up with a dry ball of dust, too much lemon juice and it's a splat. Baking is just a tastier form of chemistry and it really helps to keep that in mind.

2)Parchment paper is a gift from the heavens. I only have two baking sheets and now that's all I need. Thank you parchment paper. I don't have a whole lot to add to this but it's an essential to me so it needed to be mentioned. 

3) Instead of an actual third tip, I'm just going to throw some words at you so prepare yourself. Unsalted butter, All-purpose flour, cooling rack, cute antique-store aprons as seen on my dog last week and Ghirardelli chocolate. Seriously, if any people at Ghirardelli are reading this, send me some free stuff because everything you make is the best thing ever! I use the chips, the cocoa and I am actively eating one of the candy bars as a type this.

Pics or it didn't happen

I know this wasn't the most interesting post, but I swear I have some good things coming in the future. I've got some cherries that shall be made into something, and I'm planning on learning some new more difficult shit. Maybe in a few weeks you will be reading about bread or muffins. 

My favorite thing this week unfortunately involves you having to leave your house and do stuff. I am really sorry for this. The thing this week is go out into the world around you and find a local theatre house and volunteer some time. Build a set, audition for shows, buy tickets and support that shit because it's awesome and you will meet some of the best people ever. Including me!

Pinspiration Vol. 1

Hey Kittens!  As you can see by the title, I've got a new feature for my bloggins. This is where I find recipes on pinterest, make it, and show you all the results, for better or worse. Then I give it a rating from Nailed it and the way down to *Sad Trombone* (Yes, I found those on pinterest. Yes, I made those. Yes, they are nightmare fuel.) I've never made any of these recipes before and I expect a lot of sad trombones in the future. I'll try to do this once a month, but honestly you are just lucky that I picked a day to update regularly.

You can expect the first full week of the month to always be a bake for my Vaginal Fantasy Hangout. It's a book club, I swear! This months theme was douche-bag elves, or something. I hated the book but I always get really excited about baking things for people who will eat it. I throw away a lot of tasty things and that make me die a little inside. Usually, I make something that reminds me of the book. But since I hated the book, I just made whatever the hell I wanted: Peanut butter cookies and a Brownie batter dip. That's right babies, not one but two pinspirations for you.  Let's start with the easy one shall we! (normally I'd put the recipe picture here but it's not mine so...

Bam?

Brownie batter dip, is AMAZING! Fo reals, I had no troubles making this and it was more tasty than I expected it to be. Which is saying something because that shit looks like heaven. It really does taste exactly like brownie batter, except no raw eggs to make you puke all over. Here's what mine looked like.

It also kinda looks like shit

The reviews were through the roof. Most people simply demanded a spoon, which I think says a lot about my peanut butter cookies.  I am totes going to make this again and use it for something amazing you just wait. My rating is a solid Nailed it!

Now I have to regale you with the tale of Me vs. The Peanut Butter Cookies.There's a bit story before the recipe but I didn't read it. In fact, I didn't realize until I was half way done writing it into my book that you have to refrigerate it for at least 3 hours. Had I known, I might have tried to find something easier but it was too late. I started off really well.

Trust me, this looks great.

I shoved that in the back of my fridge and thought I could just pick back up the next night. Apparently there are more steps between fridge and bake that Mr. Whats-his-face neglected to tell me about. Because when I went back to my dough it was a rock. Like a solid rock, which I broke into several smaller rocks.

what the fuck do i do with this!?

I dont enjoy any cookie that takes longer to prepare than to eat so I'm already pissed and then this. I have no experience with this. I've never made a peanut butter cookie in my life and I was under the impression that they were easy. I mean, look at the way they dress! I spent the next 10 minutes heating them up in the oven and then doing some kind of weird ass cookie CPR. There are no pictures of this stage because I was wrist deep in frozen anger dough. Through some combination of luck and skill I somehow managed to end up with this.

Wha...how?

Seriously, Internet, I was writing it in my head as I was working. Expecting to tell you all to stay far away from all peanut butter cookies, for they are the enemy of civil men, but honestly look at that! They are perfectly forked even! I don't know how this happened, I think I was in a cookie coma. That still wasnt the last of my troubles, either the CPR I did over mixed them or the times on that recipe are really high. One of those two things cause them to be way over baked and dry. Oh, and if you are wondering what a PB cookie looks like if you don't fork it, I have the answer for you.

Little melon ball looking mother fuckers!

If I had to give a rating, and I do, I would give it a half-hearted Meh. Overall, I'm not too mad with the way they turned out but I doubt I will be using this recipe again. But that opens up all kinds of doors for me. Now I'm going on a journey to find and make the best damned peanut butter cookies on the face of the planet! I promise you, I'll tell you all about it. 

That's it for this week, but if you still desire more sweet baking action may I suggest you play Papa's Cupcakeria. I have played all the papa's game religiously and this one just came out this week. You guys are lucky that I stepped away from my virtual oven long enough to see my real one. 

New bakes, Every Fri(day)

How's it going kittens? I'm just sitting here with fingernails so pink that they break the pink time continuum, waiting to talk about something tasty. When I first started baking the only things I wanted to make was pies and ice creams. Eventually I moved on to cupcakes and then cookies. Now, all I ever want to be making is cheesecakes. If we are friends through any form of social media, you already know this as I've posted way too many pictures of such things. I'm going to apologize right now and say that I'm probably going to continue that trend today. Starting right now, with this one. 

I'm going to take a moment,right now to say that I'm sorry if something in this blog isn't the way it normally is. I'm trying to do this on a laptop for the first time ever and it literally took me 5 minutes to find the delete key. Alright back to the business. I adore this recipe so much that I actually use something other than a wooden spoon to make it. I know that sounds stupid, but I swear if something takes longer than 30 seconds to set up I'd rather just do it by hand. Basically, all you have to do is add thing, blend until thing is smooth, repeat. It's just that easy. Add things and blend, Add things and blend. 

Just keep saying the mantra

One of my favorite things about cheesecake is how versatile it is. I've made it with an assortment of crusts, flavors, and toppings. Seriously, I've never made a bad batch of cheesecake.  I guess now I have to tell you about that time I mad a bad batch of cheesecakes. It's all down to the timing, my friends. The times for that recipe at the top is designed for a full sized cheesecake made with a spring form pan. That's great and whatever, but i find it much more satisfying to make mini-cheesecakes. I know we've discussed this before, but smaller is always better when it comes to baking. At least as far as I'm concerned and since this is my blog my opinion is the only one that matters. Well as it turns out, if you cut down the recipe and not the bake times you end up with the baking equivalent of a bouncy ball, but without any of the fun. Just as long as you always keep in mind what fraction (or percentage, if you are that kind of person) of the batter you are using and just make sure to use that same amount of time. Having fun with math is what I do, bitches! Time for the pictures! 

I'm pretty sure this is food porn

That's Oreo crust, Raspberry flavored cheesecake and topped with magic shell, whipped cream and more oreos.

You need a valid ID just to look at this

This is your basic graham cracker crust but with instant coffee added for flavor, coffee flavored cheesecake and topped with chocolate sauce, whipped cream and cocoa. 

Aaand now I'm pregnant

Chocolate teddy graham crust with a strawberry cheesecake, topped with a smaller strawberry cheesecake and topped with an actual strawberry. What can I say, smaller is always better! Oh also I guess I threw some powdered sugar on there too. Whatever man, it's totally cool, you can put whatever the fuck you want on top of these bad boys. I would love to get stories in the future of people telling me all the cool cheesecakes they've made. If I had to go down in the annuls of history for one thing, cheesecake is definitely not the worst thing. 

No hidden links this week because this took for god damn ever to write but I will still leave you with my favorite thing of the week. BAM! So don't say kitten whiskers never gave you anything.