Emotional Baking

I've come to realize I am an emotional baker.  Not like, I am a baker, and I am emotional (like my boyfriend pointed out much to my chagrin).  I mean that when I'm in heightened emotional states, my therapy is to bake.  See examples below.

When I'm frustrated with my job, I make pizza concotions. 

This one was brussels sprouts, bacon, and carmelized onions.  Then I do my best to not let us eat it all in one sitting.  Then I fail. 

 

When I'm trying to show my love, I make pie.  Either it's an "I'm in the Doghouse" pie.  Or, a "Hey, We All Love Each Other and Let's Eat Pie Together" pie.  Add tea.

Recently, it was a "Sometime's I'm a Dipshit" Banana Cream Pie with a fudgy "I'm Sorry" Ganache.  It turned into a "Let's Eat this for Every Meal" Pie.   I threw in some mini peanut butter cream tarts for good measure. 

When I'm angry, bread is the best medicine.  Kneading is therapeutic.  Really.  When angry tears come, all I want to do is knead the crap out of some dough.  Solution: Pretzels.

You can't go wrong.  You get to knead out your problems.  Then you when you are more composed you get to reflect for an hour while your dough rises (perhaps with a cocktail).  Then you get to focus on something else, like rolling and shaping them into perfect, twisted, salty morsels. 

And when I'm homesick and starting to get burned out from working two jobs, I make my mom's chex mix.

Then I eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  And snack.  And dessert?
Turns out, baking and cooking are how I relieve stress and sometimes how I express my feelings.  I'd have to say turning my frustration into creating something in the kitchen is a pretty healthy way for me to handle everything.  Although the heightened carb intake that comes after this therapeutic creating is likely not so healthy in the long run.  Such is life!

Want some recipes??
For the pizza, similar is here from Tracy at shutterbean.com.
For the pie, I adapted mine from the Williams Sonoma book Home Baked Comfort.  I'll post this later.
Pretzels. YUM!
Chex Mix is as follows!

16 cups of your favorite chex (I did 5 cups wheat, 5 cups rice, 6 cups corn)
2 cups pretzels (If my sister had her choice, she would omit these.  I use about 1.5 cups)
2 cups peanuts (I omit these because I don't like them much)
1 stick of butter
3 tsp Lawry's Seasoned Salt
7 tsp Worcestershire Sauce

Preheat your oven to 250 degrees.    Stick your butter on the pan you are cooking in and stick it in the oven as it is warming until it melts.  Pull out your pan, add the seasoned salt and worcestershire, and stir.  Add all of your chex.  Toss to coat.  Throw the pan in the oven for an hour, rotating chex every 15 minutes.  Add pretzels and peanuts after a half an hour. Let cool and try to keep your paws off of them!  I usually eat them while they are hot because I can't resist.

Peanut Butter Bundt Cake

 

I've acquired a bundt.  It has been my dream for a few months, but haven't actually taken the time to go buy one.  Lucky for me, my friend's mom gave me her extra bundt pan!

I've googled some history of the bundt.  Not only do they make a beautiful cake, there is a method to their madness.  The bundt was formed so that it could cook a denser cake batter.  The hole in the middle allows heat to penetrate heavy cake batters from all sides.  Smart!  Supposedly, the word bundt comes from the German word "bund" which means a gathering of people, or a bond.  The t was added for good form, and to trademark the dish.

This history is fitting for my first bundt.  Hannah and I made it together in Baltimore.  Hannah's and my bond of friendship is pretty grade A in my book.  We roughed it up in Africa and spent almost every day together for 4 months in a village where no one speaks your language, you do your bathroom business in a hole in the ground, and you have no water or electricity.  You try to spend 24/7 with a stranger in the village and not get sick of them! For Hannah and I, and most of our program luckily, it worked.  The bond between us was clearly pretty strong.  You know when people say that stronger relationships form after extreme situations?  Try 4 months of extreme.

One way we've kept it up is with our love for food and baking, as stated before.  Hannah and I send each other drool worthy recipes daily.  We oo and aaahh over tastespotting.  We talk about our woes of our lackluster healthy lunches and not having daily sweet treats in the office. We link each other to joythebaker.com and wish that she was our friend! We both were anxiously waiting her cookbook's debut and bought it within the first week!

Since my Baltimore trip was coming up, we decided it would be fitting to bake one of Joy's recipes.  It happened.  It was glorious.  It was Joy's Peanut Butter Birthday Cake with Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Frosting. Peanut Butter + Cream Cheese.  How great of a bond is that?  Go make it.  Now.  I'm not even one of those crazy peanut butter people and this cake is obsess-worthy.

Bundts are inviting. Their ring form and pretty edges are for sharing.  With this peanut butter cake, everyone will want to be your friend. You'll create bonds with all the neighbors.  Remember that bond that arises from sharing extreme experiences?  Get ready for it. It's gonna happen. This cake is for real!

Tres Leches Cake

 

 For those of you who are lactose intolerant, I apologize.  I actually apologize from the bottom of my heart.  I love dairy.   My friend just unfortunately found out she has a light intolerance to dairy.  Maybe more than light, but light in the sense that she will still travel miles for frozen yogurt just to pay the price later.  Clearly, we are meant to be friends.  I would gladly suffer for frozen yogurt, cheese platters, and not to mention this Tres Leches Cake.  Oh, the suffering would be 3 fold?  Bring it on!

Tres leches is magic.  The three stars?  Evaporated Milk, Sweetened Condensed Milk, and Heavy Cream.  While it sounds intense and heavy, it's actually pretty light because the cake itself is somewhat light.  Maybe others would disagree, but I wouldn't judge someone if they ate 1/3 of the cake in one sitting.  Am I biased?  When I made it, I could easily be found eating for both dessert and breakfast the next morning.  So yes I'm likely biased. When I wanted to make this cake for a family dinner, my mom complained that it was going to be too rich and too much.  I did what I normally do.  Disagreed, didn't listen, and made what I wanted to!  (Just kidding Mom!) But it turned out great!  (and she agreed with me in the end).

 

What helps making this cake lighter than it normally is, is folding in the whipped egg whites.  After making the batter with just egg yolks, whip the whites to create some air, then fold them in gently so that the batter will be lighter and fluffier.  With this step, you have to be careful to keep the air in your egg whites and to not overmix the batter. Be gentle with them and only fold until they are incorporated!  If you have some spots of whites, that's ok!  Folding in the egg whites will make your cake taller and add some air so it won't be as dense.  And it'll create space so it can soak up all the dairy!!

Cook the cake, and cool it.  Get excited.  Then poke the cake with a fork all over. Go nuts. 
Then.... mix your milks, and soak that sucker!!! Let them soak in for about an hour, then top it with whipped cream.

Hello tres leches.  I love you.  I want to have you with tea during a night cap with friends.  Or during breakfast with some cinnamon on top. Maybe alongside some berries.  Maybe always and all of the time! So good!

The Pioneer Woman strikes again!  Her recipes have yet to fail me:

Ingredients

• 1 cup All-purpose Flour
• 1-1/2 teaspoon Baking Powder
• 1/4 teaspoon Salt
• 5 whole Eggs
• 1 cup Sugar, Divided
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla
• 1/3 cup Milk
• 1 can Evaporated Milk
• 1 can Sweetened, Condensed Milk
• 1/4 cup Heavy Cream

• 1 pint Heavy Cream, For Whipping
• 3 Tablespoons Sugar

Preparation Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 9 x 13 inch pan liberally until coated.
Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Separate eggs.
Beat egg yolks with 3/4 cup sugar on high speed until yolks are pale yellow. Stir in milk and vanilla. Pour egg yolk mixture over the flour mixture and stir very gently until combined.
Beat egg whites on high speed until soft peaks form. With the mixer on, pour in remaining 1/4 cup sugar and beat until egg whites are stiff but not dry.
Fold egg white mixture into the batter very gently until just combined. Pour into prepared pan and spread to even out the surface.
Bake for 35 to 45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Turn cake out onto a rimmed platter and allow to cool.
Combine condensed milk, evaporated milk, and heavy cream in a small pitcher. When cake is cool, pierce the surface with a fork several times. Slowly drizzle all but about 1 cup of the milk mixture—try to get as much around the edges of the cake as you can.
Allow the cake to absorb the milk mixture for 30 minutes. To ice the cake, whip 1 pint heavy cream with 3 tablespoons of sugar until thick and spreadable.
Spread over the surface of the cake. Decorate cake with whole or chopped maraschino cherries. Cut into squares and serve.

Super Bowl Corn Dogs

Do I care about the Super Bowl?  Minimally. I'm not that in to football.  I get excited about football if I'm already following the team. More often than not, I get bored.  Watching a 3 hour game when the weather is beautiful outside gets me down.  But maybe in the future, should the man in my life be really in to football, I  could get excited about it.  But know what I'd be more excited about?  Things that you eat when you watch football games!  Yes, I am definitely in to those.

I had a superbowl potluck this year.  I was so ill prepared for this epic sports day that someone else brought their TV because mine wasn't up to snuff.  Whoops, my bad.  But basically, I needed this potluck to happen because I have been wanting to make corn dogs.  Yep, corn dogs!  I said it!  Everyone loves corn dogs.  Am I right?  My vegetarian roommate in college said that what she missed most about eating meat was corn dogs.  That's a hell of a compliment! 

So anyway, Superbowl, I thank you, for allowing me to make corn dogs, among other fried items, and for giving me an excuse to eat nacho cheese, candied bacon nuts, and drink beer with friends that are yelling at the TV!  For that, I'm totally down with you coming around once a year. 

 So back to corn dogs.  These corn dipped dogs were awesome.  I also may or may not have battered and fried various types of cheese cubes.  When I say may or may not, I mean yes I definitely did and in no way regretted it. 

Deep frying things is intimidating.  All that oil and possible splatter burns!  But all in all, frying all these were pretty easy.  The batter held up well, and if you keep your oil at the right temp, splatter should not be much of a problem. 

 

I have to say, the end product was definitely worth it.  Dip them in spicy grainy horseradish mustard!  You can't go wrong!  And the cheese balls?  I don't think they could be any better. 

 

 

When the time came that we didn't need anymore dogs or cheese (I know, I know, how could that happen?)  I started wondering what else we could throw in the leftover batter and oil.  Can't lie, we fried a couple pieces of candied bacon, and a dozen truffles.  We totally went state fair style in my house on Sunday.  Everything tasted good.  Shocker! Deep fried things were tasty?!

 

I stopped after the chocolates.  Please kill me if I ever fry oreos or a stick of butter.  Seriously, just as I wrote "oreos" I got really bummed because we definitely had double stuffed oreos at the party and I definitely should have fried a few.  Damn! 
There's always next year!
I need to get a hold of myself... but I promise I won't ever do butter!

I got my recipe and ideas from The Pioneer Woman but only did half dogs and cheese cubes instead of sticks!  Oh and truffles.  Happy frying!