photo op: BIRTHDAYS cake

RER 12.9.16

The end of the year is pretty sweet and birthday-intense for my family: mine is in October, my sister’s is in November, and both my parents have December birthdays.  That means a lot of cake. This year, we celebrated with one cake for two birthdays in December. I wanted to try to make a sheet cake, and Sally’s Baking Addiction did not fail me, per usual (like the time I made brownies, mini red velvet cheesecakes, and apple pie butter bars). I made the yellow sheet cake with chocolate fudge frosting. It was delicious....

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RER 12.8.16

RER 12.9.16

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And rainbow sprinkles make all the difference #winkwink

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2.9.17

RER 12.9.16

MangiaMore: mini RED VELVET cheesecakes

RER 2.13.16

Valentine’s Day already feels like a thing of the past; buried deep in nostalgia, underneath lesson prep, parent teacher student conferences, and Poe. But it was a sweet thing. A stuffed puppy hidden in my bag and a box of chocolates to be nibbled. A night of homemade pizza and recorded television and peppermint patties. A moment that came and went far too quickly and was hardly relished due to long hours and sad losses.

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RER 2.13.16

RER 2.13.16

As in the past, I made an edible gift for my beau. This time, I went for mini red velvet cheesecakes inspired by Sally’s Baking Addiction. These little confections looked fun and they are a blend of things that my love loves most.

Anything red velvet has instant appeal. And red is a Valentine’s Day given. Cheesecake is divisive: sweet and tangy, smooth, creamy, voluptuous, sensual. So these smaller versions of a classic favorite definitely fit the bill.

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RER 2.13.16

While piling the enchanting red cookie dough into the bottom of the lined tin, I was elated, stunned by the perfect color and taste of the amalgamation. With the cookie bases in the oven and the sweet smells of chocolate, sugar, and butter, pervading the kitchen, I whipped up the cheesecake topping adding that requisite dollop of thick Greek yogurt. Hardly cooked dough served as the foundation for a fat scoop of almost white cheesecake, which made a plopping noise on the pliable surface. Plop, swoop, spread… they were in the oven, complete and beautiful.

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RER 2.13.16

RER 2.13.16

And then, the trouble began. The cheesecake part took longer than expected to firm from a spreadable mixture to a bouncy texture. With each additional moment in the oven, the chocolate aroma intensified and deepened to discomfort. Those pretty red cookie crusts deepened to dark dense scarlet. They were overdone and crunchy, making the proportions of cookie to cheesecake overwhelming and out of touch.

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RER 2.13.16

RER 2.13.16

The mini cheesecakes tasted ok, but they were not what I was dreaming about. They were not the gift I wanted to give. My too-done treats involved too much crunch and not enough creaminess. There was, however, the pleasant play of sweet and tangy, chocolate and butter. All was not lost. Every experience is a learning experience. There’s always next year.

Hope you all had a happy Valentine’s Day, too!

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2.13.16

RER 2.13.16

baking with friend(s) is BEST

RER 1.19.15

To make up for a dinner cut short, my friend decided we would have a baking date. She deffo knows the key to my heart. Of course I wasn’t bothered by our truncated burger binge, but I am always up for whipping up some baked goods, taking photos and devouring the finished product.

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So we started off with this recipe for chewy fudgy homemade brownies from Sally’s Baking Addiction and got a little bit experimental. We added a dash of pretty pink Himalayan salt in lieu of the normal variety, because we’re fancy like that. 

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RER 1.19.15

Instead of making some of that thick buttery frosting following the recipe or even some salted caramel frosting from a different recipe on the blog, we opted to be a little inventive.  To top our brownies, my friend created a caramel glaze with a hit of heat and savory. 

RER 1.19.15

RER 1.19.15

Our brownies were fun to make, but in the end something may have gone amiss. Maybe we added too much flour, resulting in fluffier cake-like brownies, not the gooey fudgy bars we were expecting. Maybe we cranked a tad too much of the pretty salt, leaving the treats a smidgen more savory than sweet. Maybe we mixed two different kinds of chocolate with two chocolate and sugar contents. Maybe we got caught up listening to Robyn and Oh Land and let the bad boys cook a little longer than necessary (I guess, “better safe than sorry” is not a phrase apt for brownie baking).

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RER 1.19.15

This was not about the maybes and things that could have been. It was about hang-time, gossip, and catching up. It was about bonding in a kitchen, playing with a pup, and inhaling the sweet smells of chocolate, sugar and butter.

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RER 1.19.15

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Breaking into that crust of firmed glaze and getting that perfect bite where the chocolate outshines the salt, and the heat and burned sugar come through, is pretty darn good. But baking with friends is best!

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1.19.15

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