You can't keep a good griot down! It's been a rough 2014 with lots going on. I've been trying to keep in the kitschen but, it's been hard to document my work. There's been some successes and some flops. I've learned, laughed and eaten with those I love and that's the most important thing. Most recently I organized a meeting of the minds. I had me sweetie over (yes, I've got one of those now) to meet my PaPa. Now, if you follow my life, you know that my PaPa is a big deal around these parts. So I thought I'd give the occasion the sweetness it deserved with a new cake recipe. Since my PaPa loves strawberries so much I decided to try this upside down strawberry cake recipe.

The cake was simple enough.... but it called for making a strawberry syrup reduction and a meringue. Ya'll know I'm not a fan of egg whites but, with the help of my kitchen aid mixer and some creme of tartar I made it through. Check out the process!

...and I'll treat you better than you ever had before. I think that's the chorus of a Slackers song. It's Valentine's day mofos! I may be single but I still like to play cupid and spread a little love. It's my personal assault on the holiday industrial complex. In the name of Saint Valentine I'mma make a massackery (massacre+mockery) of V-day being all about couples.

As usual I began combing the interwebs for DIY crafty projects to make/bake and include in my Valentine packages early... Like the beginning of January. I needed things that were both foodie and kid friendly. I made 2 sets of V-day treats. One for my nieces/nephews and another for friends.I found quite a few kid Valentines I liked online.

• Lego jewelery valentines
• Animal valentines
• Mustache valentines
• Funny valentines

In the end I chose (surprise!) the punny (funny+pun) one. As my nieces and nephews get older I am finding it hard to transition the crafts I make them for them into more age appropriate things. Small tchotskes no longer really cut it, so the animal bracelet valentines were out. I wanted something a bit more gender neutral so the Lego jewelery valentines were nixed. That left the mustache and funny valentines... I chose the funny valentines because ALL kids love a good fart joke! I couldn't find mini-whoopie cushions at my local dollar store. So I bought regular sized ones and made do.

FLAVOR BUTTONS

I saw this instructable for not-Altoids online. The whole process was so easy! How could I not take half a day hunched over a counter top and making these little pieces of sweetness? I'm hesitant to call them mints since they don't really have mint flavors...except for one. I chose 2 foodie and 2 kid friendly flavors:

• red licorice
• cola
• mint chocolate chip
• mango

COFFEE LOLLIPOPS

Hard candy... I've been wanting to make gourmet lollies for a while. The first time I burnt the sugar and had to scratch the whole batch. I then took the time to test my candy thermometer and found out it was 50 degrees off! With this mental note in mind I gathered together some sugar and tried it all again.  Sprinkle Bakes has a lot of fun with sugar recipes and this is one of them.





Having a good  candy thermometer is the key! Also, I like to think making hard sugar candy is kind of like BBQing. Low and slow is the way to go. I started my mixture on medium heat and gradually cranked it up to a boil. I was wary of everything boiling over, making a mess, burning or melting my skin off. It takes a bit of time but keeping your eyes on the prize (and the thermometer) is worth it.

Friends' packages included these lollies, some flavor buttons and those crispy chocolate wafer cookies. My momma also didn't raise no fool so I included a hand written note too. Both the friend and kid packages got wrapped up assembly line style and shipped out.

A paper bag... simple and classic!

ME MUM

Who's my greatest love of all? My mother of course! She birthed me. What's a greater gift than that? I love my mom lots and sometimes I want to give her more than a hug. She's a busy lady and it can be hard for her to take the time to do something she wants to do. I spotted a great Valentines day deal on Travelzoo and conspired with my siblings to get it for our mother. The voucher was for a massage with wine and chocolate! The sad thing about online vouchers is there's really no tactile opening experience. So I got out my craft crate and made something for her to open. I've seen similar set ups used for save-the-date/wedding announcements. Kelly over at Studio DIY even took the idea and put it in a box (literally).



I cut out some ID card sized pieces of white card stock. The 1st included a "dear mom we love you lots" message. The 2nd were the details of her massage voucher. Finally the 3rd promised a ride to said spa and dinner after. I strung the cards/tags on the bakers twine and some craft punched holes to make a garland. I taped one end into the envelope and carefully layered it all in. I used some double sided tape to keep the pull-tab of the garland separate to make it easier to pull it out.




That's how I do Valentine's Day. What about you?

So remember how I made those oatmeal cookies with malt powder? I had some left over right? So what's a girl to do? I needed to cull my pantry in order to make room for more, newer, ingredients. I decided to take my malt powder and turn my favorite ice cream into a cupcake. Enter the Chubby Hubby cupcake.

For those not in the know... Chubby Hubby is a Ben & Jerry's flavor. It's got malted vanilla ice cream, chocolate covered PB filled pretzels, chocolate swirls and PB swirls. In short. It is awesome. Sweet, salty, and malty!

First task... integrating the pretzel element. I chose the crumb crust route. I figured it'd give a bit of texture to the cupcake experience in the form of a buttery, crunchy, bottom layer. So I took out my food processor and crushed up some pretzels.

Then I mixed them with a couple table spoons of melted butter and smooshed them into the bottom of my cupcake liners.




Next up? Chocolate! I used a chocolate cupcake recipe from How Sweet It Is. I wanted something with actual chocolate and cocoa powder. I'm a glutton like that. I also recently realized that I left my hand mixer's beater blades at the summer rental house my family stayed at so I wanted something that didn't require creaming butter and sugar for the batter.







Now let's get to the best part.... make some plain old vanilla butter cream.... Dump the remaining malt powder into it.... Beat the hell out of it with a fork. As you work on your arm muscles don't be upset you left your beaters in Michigan City, because now your forearms get that work out they've been needing!


 Cupcake assembly line!

Finally... it was time for a garnish? What's my rule about garnish? It should give you a hint as to what flavors to expect in your food. Is this what Alton Brown would do? Alex Guarnaschelli? I'm not sure. But it's how I role.

Okay. So I have a confession to make. This post is a month in the making. I originally planned to make these cookies for my big sister's birthday. I went out. Bought the pistachios. Made the cookies... and ate them. Not in one sitting. But first my mom tasted one or two. Then my sister. Then a friend came over and wanted a snack. Before I knew it there were only 3 cookies left and I just couldn't send only 3 cookies. So I vowed to make them again and send some at a later date. I eventually did and promptly put a dozen in the freezer to keep them fresh and away from prying hands until they could be sent.

I snagged this recipe from Joy the Baker. But if I remember correctly it's originally posted on Smitten Kitchen. Or you could just take your favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe and swap for dark chocolate chips/chunks and add pistachios. Oh! Note to self.... if you can pay $0.50 extra for pistachio meats pre-hulled do it. I spend waaay to much time prying those bad babies open. Although it did give me the time to listen to another podcast. I recently started listening to podcast when I bake instead of turning on the TV. It gives me something to do AND I feel better about myself afterwards b/c it's not TV.

So the first time I made these cookies I just scooped them out onto the baking sheet and put them in the oven. But, they didn't spread as much as I wanted... Sometimes I want nice thin cookies with a little chew to them. So I consulted a professional and she suggested I take them time to flatten them before baking them. Cuh-raizy I know! Here I was all worried about butter to flour ratios and/or the need to adjust the oven temperature and the solution was so simple all along. I thought smashing the dough would have been sacrilegious. But, apparently sometimes it is better to K.I.S.S. Also in the background of the picture above you can see a stack of the malted oatmeal, chocolate chip, peanut, pretzel cookies I made. Why? I love cookies with a lot of stuff in them! I also was excited to try malted milk powder in a cookie. I love, love, love malts. I was hoping this would be my new go to recipe. Verdict isn't in yet. My mom likes them though. She's been eating them all week!