Antique Silverware, Playing with Piping Techniques, and Chocolate Cheesecake

Now if that isn't a mashup, I don't know what is!

Back in mid-October, John and I went down to Cape May with some friends and we explored the old timey village of Cold Springs, which was putting on a pumpkin festival and craft show. The first table we passed featured jewelry and garden herb stakes made from antique silverware--flattened spoons and forks and the like. But the woman was also selling some still-useable pieces of servery as well, so of course I couldn't want to dive in!

I have been wanting fancy spoons to use for fancy tea with my fancy teacups. I rummaged around and settled on two spoons, and also decided to look for larger serving utensils for things like holidays or hosting brunches or dinners where I want to serve carved turkey or scoop salad up-right! When I found a serving fork with an engraved "R" I knew I could do no better.

The spoon at the right is a bit deep, so I've used it for cereal, soup, and porridge. The spoon at left is shallow and a bit more shovel-like, and I've used it quite a lot for nice, thick Greek yogurt. Both have been amply used for stirring tea and coffee! The cute bowl is actually a find from Home Goods, and is microwave- and dishwasher-safe! Win! I wish I had take a photo with greater detail of the various embossing and details on the silverware, but I had to get a close-up of the "R" for sure!

I've also been messing around with my fear of the piping bag. I found my error was pretty foolish--I had purchased a detail-piping kit, so everything is in a miniature scale--fine for piping fine details onto cakes and cookies, but crap for actually frosting a cupcake! I found this set from Fat Daddio, and John very sweetly surprised me with it one day! I sucked it up, spent three days reading about tips and techniques and stalking tons of photos of beautifully frosted confections before I attempted to do it on my own. I picked the large star tip to start, and was actually quite pleased! I've now used the star tip quite a few times (and even for my first commissioned baking gig--cupcakes for a friend's daughter's birthday party!) and have recently added the large round tip to my repertoire. I'm still gaining confidence, but am at least no longer terrified of the idea, and like that I can frost with both an offset spatula for a really casual vibe, or get a little fancier with the piping bag. I even overcame the witch-hat point I said I wasn't happy with in this post, which talked briefly about my very first attempt.

Round tip frosting at front (vanilla) and star tip frosting at back (chocolate).

I jazzed up the chocolates with white pearls and the vanillas with rainbow pearls!

This is half of the 2 dozen I was commissioned to bake--a reprise of the pumpkin cupcakes from my tea party.

Finally, to wrap up this disjointed bonanza, John's and my third wedding anniversary was last week. I had fully intended to bake us a chocolate cheesecake with a gingersnap crust, but life, as it is wont to do, got in the way, and I simply didn't have it in me to make at the time. So I spent some time in the kitchen this past weekend and delivered on my promise. Plus, I had 30 ounces of cream cheese in the fridge...what choice did I have? I even staved off buying cookies when grocery shopping since we'd be chowing down on homemade sweets for the week.

This recipe called for a water bath for the cheesecake (my usual NY style cheesecake just bakes low and slow but without a water bath), and I didn't have a pan large enough to fit my 9-inch springform, so I instead made an 8-inch cake and a miniature cake in a little 4-inch springform my mom had just gifted me. Everything turned out yummy, and I'm looking forward to eating a slice tonight for dessert. We shared the 4-inch guy on Monday night. Photos of both finished products are here:

The 8-incher on my cake stand.

My favorite plate was a perfect platform for the 4-inch cake!

Fork for scale.

And until next time, this is where I leave you.

I DID IT!

On Sunday, October 26 at 7:45am, I stood in Mercer County Park in the starting chute of the CGI Perfect 10 Miler, wondering what the hell I was about to do. I mean...really, this seemed like a great idea 10 months ago, and it even seemed like a fun idea until my alarm went off that morning... But even with the doubt and nerves and adrenaline, I toed off at 8:00am  to begin a 10-mile journey across pavement and through autumn-dusted trees. The energy was out of this world as the pack was nervously chattering and laughing through miles 2 and 3, then began to thin out over miles 5 and 6 (oh, good--only one more 5K-ish to go!); by the final miles, we were chatting again in partial delirium, wondering in unison why the hell that final mile was so absurdly long.

But once I set foot in the finish chute, it was like I was starting at the very beginning on fresh legs--something deep inside me woke up and pushed me forward, smiling hard, hands in the air, dashing by my mom, my husband, and my friend who had earlier finished her 5K event. I was there--I was over the finish line before I knew it, was being handed a medal and a bottle of water. As I screeched to a halt at the very end of the chute, I leaned against the fencing they had put up and actually cried a little. I did it. I did it. I set a somewhat ridiculous goal, and I actually achieved it.

I took a few moments to be silent, to thank my body for its strength and for carrying me gracefully and bravely over 10 miles, and then I let the energy, excitement, and happiness of runner's high sweep me away and into the arms of my little knot of fans.

I am so thankful to have shared such an important milestone in my running journey with them.

Do You Ever Feel...

Ten points from Slytherin if you thought this was going to end with a Katy Perry lyric.

Does anyone out there ever feel like all the things they're good at are meaningless? I mean, as far as being able to use them to forge a living where you actually get to do what you love as your job?

I apologize if this gets all braggy, but I so seldom feel like I'm worth bragging about (aside from my assorted baking triumphs detailed here...though remember I also point out the failures!), that I think it's okay this time: I am a fairly good poet; I am a rather talented writer; I am a very good alto; I am extremely creative; I am a kickass baker. But what the hell does all of that amount to? Yup...the basic "dreamer" type. Not really the type companies are eagerly seeking.

I am not a math whiz, my scientific base is standard, though it does err toward above-average where meteorology is concerned. All of the skills that are practically and readily sought out by places that pay you money for using those skills have totally evaded me. Sure, I make a comfortable living as an administrative assistant, but saying that that is my profession is sometimes like chewing on tin foil. It hurts my teeth to have to chomp it.

I should say this: I am very good at my job. The above-listed talents mean I am also a natural people-person. I have great communication skills that somehow in the professional setting transcend my otherwise social awkwardness. So yes, in a small way, I am leveraging my "gifts" into a career, but not necessarily in the most gratifying way.

I'm not saying doing what you love for a living is a fun-fun-carpet-ride with no drawbacks. I've read enough from people who love baking and bake for a living who reach a point where they get frustrated that their passion sometimes, and often, has begun like a chore. Writers can get so caught up by deadlines or assignments that they may worry they are compromising the reasons they got into the biz in the first place.  It happens. It's real.

There are obviously ups and down on both sides of the coin. I am comforted by the fact that I can continue to write, sing, bake, and tinker as hobbies, and so those activities never feel tired or forced or tin-foily. The fact that they remain beloved hobbies tempers my discontent and frustrations in the workforce.

But some days...some days I really do close my eyes and picture opening a little tea-and-sweets shop along the Irish Atlantic coast, where I can be covered in flour all day and I can fill the walls with quotations from my favorite writers and watch patrons sip and munch while watching the Celtic weather outside... I should also point out I jump right to the part where my business is so successful I no longer have to wake up at 3am and do all the work myself. No, no...I like the bit where I can roll up to my well-oiled machine, where I have cute little Irish lassies and laddies employed to take care of the small tasks and I get to design menus and create new recipes. Hey: it's my fantasy! Don't hate.

And then when the fantasy is over, I realize I'm back where I started, feeling utterly stymied and stuck and unsure how to turn what I love into a more fulfilling career path, or how to feel less useless. Because I often feel useless. My talents are who I am--I am a poet and writer. I am a baker. I am a singer. But I feel like I have to throw a veil over all of that from 9-5 Monday-Friday cuz dem bills ain't gonna pay themselves. I also often realize I have no idea what sort of real-world work I would find appealing and fulfilling. Which is, perhaps, even more crippling.

And so, my non-existent readers, if any of you are of the artsy type (or any type--I have a hunch this is an existential and interdisciplinary crises!), and if any of you ever feel this way, too, please offer advice. How do you temper the frustrations? How have you found ways to make your talent-hobbies more of talent-livings? Am I totally crazy? (Maybe don't answer that last one...)

Tea for Two, and Two for Tea. Except There Were Three of Us.

Don't be fooled--this isn't some fancy dining establishment!

Today I hosted some friends for a formal tea at the house. The initial plan was to have four lady friends over, but one is currently attending a wedding and one is unfortunately getting over a very nasty cold. So we three who were able came together for a lunchtime tea.

The initial plan was also to dine al fresco on the deck, but rainy weather had other ideas. To be honest, lugging a lot of very fragile china and servery all the way out onto the deck was probably going to be a disaster. So it all worked out and simply tucked into the dining room table, which I of course spruced up to rival that of any of the tea houses I've been to. White table cloth? Check. Mismatched collected place settings and teacups? Check, check. Teapots, sugar cubes, and milk? Well, see for yourself:

It was a potluck event, for which I provided the location and all the fixins as well as scones baked this morning and pumpkin spice cupcakes which I baked last night. Dianna brought a very yummy quinoa and spinach salad and Jeanette brought an assortment of hors d'ouerves that just needed to be popped into the oven to cook.

The party also afforded me an opportunity to work on my piping skills. I am determined to master this whole frosting thing. When lazy, I will still totally just grab my offset spatula. But sometimes I want to kick things up a notch, and I am slowly learning the intricacies of using a pastry bag and piping tips. This first attempt was with a large star tip, since I wanted to create little grooves to catch the pearl sprinkles (yeh, still patting myself on the back for that notion). While I wasn't very happy with the dismounted tips on the cupcakes, I was overall happy with the look!

It also felt good to be working with my own scone recipe again. After trying the two pumpkin varieties here, to knead the familiar dough was like slipping into my favorite jeans; I knew perfection was only a short blast with 400 degrees away. Yum.

Everything was delicious, and I would--and will!--totally host another fancy tea. We even dressed up formally. I channeled Jane Austen because really, what better muse could I have (disclaimer: I've never seen Downton Abby, if that was going to be your retort).

I crafted these little treat bags so the girls could take some goods to go.

Believe it or not, these amazing flowers are from Shop Rite's floral department!

Offering up some cupcakes in my best adaptation of Miss Jane.

It's a Pumpkin Scone Showdown

As with pretty much everyone in the northeast, pumpkin fever has taken hold of me. I've not yet had a pumpkin spice latte, mainly because I finally broke down and looked at the calories and sugar and it is basically equal to five years of my life. Sigh. But eventually.

For now, I've settled on an excuse to bake a lot of scones. I mean...how ELSE would I decide between two pumpkin spice scone recipes? Muah ha ha!

I first went to my girl Joy the Baker and her recipe. I omitted the pecans, but followed everything else. The dough stayed pretty wet, as it had a considerable amount of pumpkin puree in it, in addition to browned butter. It was so wet, in fact, that the directions said to scoop out the scones with an ice cream scoop (the finished product for this recipe is up there on the left).

It starts in the usual way. This recipe actually had no egg--all the moisture came from pumpkin puree and butter, plus a splash of buttermilk.

Here's the buttermilk, pumpkin, and some vanilla. Looks like a crazy flan, right?

 Even after adding the dry ingredients the dough stayed loose. Normally, this is where I'd panic. But if Joy tells you to scoop the dough with an ice cream scoop, then you do it. Thankfully they held their shape when plopped onto the baking sheets. Since this was a scoopable dough, my hands stayed nice and clean: no kneading!

Of course I stood by my usual ritual of sitting on the floor in front of the oven while they baked to make sure nothing went horribly awry. As the kitchen started to smell incredible, I settled in and felt confident they'd be good. While the scones were cooling off I made the glaze, which was mainly browned butter and confectioner's sugar. It whisked up nice and thick, not quite like Royal icing, but not too far from that consistency.

It was torture not to just inhale them on the spot!

With recipe one completed, it was time to turn to the second recipe. I happened upon this one thanks to simply Googling around for "pumpkin spice scone recipe." After reading through a few, I landed on this one, which claims to replicate the pumpkin scones at Starbucks (well, before La Boulange took over as the bakery suppliers for the coffee chain).

From the get-go, I had a hunch this recipe might eek out over Joy's. I've learned from making a few scones from Joy's website that she prefers cakeier and fluffier scones, whereas I prefer the variety that are drier and almost biscuity. This dough had a smaller wet team (still using pumpkin, butter, and buttermilk, but in smaller proportions). This was going places.

Kneading the dough in flour helped absorb any lingering moisture so it could be rolled out and cut.

I got a pretty intense case of club hand, so John had to come to my rescue to add a bit more flour to knead the dough. I could have pressed it out and used a round cutter like I typically do, but since the recipe said to cut it into triangles, I figured I'd give that a whirl.

I was a little worried at this point--the instructions said to roll it to an inch depth in about a 10X17 rectangle. But there was no way that amount of dough would stretch to that size and stay that thick. So I said, "Well, time to improvise." So I rolled it out to a rectangle big enough to let me cut out 8 triangles. They were pretty thin, so I was just hoping they'd rise up nicely in the oven!

Thank goodness they did! These guys got a double shot of glaze, too.

And now...which scone reigned supreme? After testing amongst myself and John as well as a handful of my coworkers...








Triangle scone won! It got points for texture, glaze, and flavor. Though supporters of Joy's liked the soft texture, lack of crumbs, and better spices. John prefers the rounds, I prefer the triangles. A house divided. But everyone still wins. Yum yum.

Cooooooooooooooookies

I have made Joy the Baker's best brown butter chocolate chip cookies. Much like Ree's knock you naked brownies, the recipe title does not lie. Honestly, all other chocolate chip cookies are ruined for me. I've now made this recipe twice, and the second time wasn't as good as the first, but I know exactly why, so the next time I make them I should be right back on course. Let me be clear--the second batch was still good. Just not swoon/call-911 good. The first batch...? I needed to be resuscitated.

I made a few tweaks to the recipe, partially due to what was in my baking cabinet, partially due to what was available at the grocery store, and lastly due to personal preference.

Here are the willing volunteers for greatness. The recipe calls for light brown sugar, but I only had dark brown sugar and was too lazy to buy another variety, so I just rolled with it (tweak 1). The dough starts with a twist on the usual--one stick of butter will be beaten with sugars (brown and white), but the other. The other is browned on the stovetop, and left to cool its delicious nutty jets before being added to the batter as well.

Pardon the blue bowl, but here's the brown butter--you can see the caramelized bits doing their thing.

Once the butter and sugars are creamed, some flour is dumped into the mix, finished by folding with a spatula to avoid over-working and to incorporate all the chocolate once it's added. This recipe uses more salt than a typical cookie recipe because the point is to taste the salt, not just have it enhance the other flavors. Even without the salt sprinkled on top (tweak 3), the cookies left an extraordinarily pleasing salty taste after the sweetness of each bite quiets down.

The other tweak (2) I made was using semi-sweet chocolate chunks instead of the called-for bittersweet. I was worried that it would be too sweet, but actually, the balance was pretty nice. I'd definitely try this with bittersweet, but our grocery store is heavy on semisweet varieties. I'd like to try adding some coffee to see what depth that adds, but for now I'm happy with keeping it simple. Maybe as prime holiday baking season comes, I'll experiment a little. I'll keep you posted.

A key to these is also to let the dough chill in the freezer for 30 minutes. Much like a shortbread recipe, the dough needs time to let the flavors marinate and for the butter to relax into the floury bits. It also makes it easier to scoop the dough into nice little portions. I just used my regular old ice cream scoop, which is about 2Tbsp, and allowed for about 36 cookies--perfectly in line with JtB's estimation.

I found what worked best for scooping was to flatten the dough into a disk (like shortbread) and let is chill. Then, just at the end I rolled it into a brick sort of thing. haha I dunno...it felt scientific at the time.

When I made the cookies the second time, I didn't let the dough chill quite long enough (I tried rolling the dough into a log first, but it didn't chill enough because it didn't have the benefit of surface area). What I learned from not-cold-enough dough is that it will result in a flatter cookie that is crispy throughout. When the dough gets nice and cold and is then baked, you get lovely cookies that are crisp around the edges, and then chewy gooey centers, thanks to the bit of rise they get. Perfection. Absolute and irrefutable perfection.

GOALS

Our first year as homeowners has been especially challenging. Would the speed bumps we've hit have felt as treacherous had we still been merely renting our adorable Bordentown apartment? Probably not. But here we are, and we are muddling through it all.

Wasn't that delightfully vague? If we regularly interact in the real world, that likely made sense to you. Anyway. I'm very eager to put our struggles behind me, and as such, I am setting some personal goals to get me through to 1/1/15.

This fall, I will conquer pie in anticipation of peak holiday baking season. The more I read about baking them, the less intimidating they sound. Will I make a perfect lattice-work crust? No. But I can manage a double-crusted pie where I just cut out a few venting slits. (Plus, I can buy a few pretty, plain and simple Pyrex pie plates--new toys are always good incentive to face my fears!) I mean, I've already done homemade rainbow cookies and macarons, so...bring it on, pie! Bring. It. On.

This fall, I will complete a 10-mile race at the second annual Women's Perfect 10. The following week I will run a 10K as part of the Trenton Double Cross Half Marathon weekend. The 10-miler has been enticing me since I ran the 5K event in the race last year. Then I saw the Trenton Marathon Weekend enticed me mainly because I get to run across the Trenton Makes, the World Takes bridge as well as some pretty farmland over in PA. Am I nuts? Yup.

These are the big goals I have in mind at the moment. I'm sure I'll be adding more, and then I can start working on resolutions and larger-picture goals to sprinkle about in 2015. But for now, I'm looking for ways to challenge myself, but also for specific challenges that are juuust out of reach so when I accomplish them I'll feel like I totally crushed it.

Here's to hoping. And to hope.