Addiction

I'm wondering how many (legal) things you can claim to be addicted to before you realize maybe you actually just possess no self control.

Besides being addicted to shoes, clothes, cheese, popsicles (I almost took one in the car with me on my way to work this morning), sparkly things, cooking utensils, post it notes in fun shapes, and hot cocoa, I'm also addicted to buying cookbooks. And in the immortal words of one, Miss Britney Spears, oops, I did it again.

To be fair it's an awesome cookbook. About baking savory things. Which might actually make me want to bake. In fact it did already because Lana and I used one of the recipes (with some modifications) to make parmesan topped rosemary muffins.

The book is called Savory Baking by Mary Cech. Go make something delicious from it and tell me about it. Or better yet feed it to me.

My most favorite cooking thing ever. For real this time.

It's no secret I'm not into recipes and that for this reason, I won't say I hate baking...but I do sort of hate it. I find it incredibly boring to follow a recipe and I guess I like a challenge and the reward of having actually made something delicious all on my own. To me baking is sort of like a paint by numbers Monet.

But I actually like baked food, I mean who doesn't? So I have a predicament right?

Wrong.

I found this book online and immediately ordered it online. I didn't even ship it, I just paid for it to be picked up in store. That's how anxious I was/am to have it. The book is called Ratio by Michael Ruhlman. It takes all kinds of foods that people make frequently and breaks them down into ratios (obviously). So rather than following a recipe for a pie crust you can see that to make a pie dough you need three parts flour, one part liquid, and two parts fat. Do you see what possibilities this opens?! I am beyond excited. Now I can use savory ingredients to make typically sweet things and vice versa. This is seriously awesome and I cannot wait to use this book for everything.

Treats for the Sweet

This past Saturday Lana and I took a baking class. It was held at Sur La Table and the menu consisted of, in their words, "flaky potato dinner rolls, classic lemon bars, parmesan-herb popovers, double-vanilla pound cake with rum-ginger glaze, feta, roasted red pepper and thyme muffins, and pumpkin spice cake with maple-cream cheese frosting." What we actually did differed slightly. We ended up putting a chocolate ganache on the pound cake rather than the ginger glaze (but we did put rum into the cake) and with the savory muffins we used basil rather than thyme.

So the first thing we made were potato rolls. They were really good and I really liked taking the squares of dough, pinching in the corners, and rounding the opposite side to make them into pretty roll shapes. I didn't like when someone asked how to serve them and when another lady asked what you do if you don't have buttermilk. That's when Lana and I looked at each other and said "You go to the store and get some."





We made lemon bars but I seriously think that our instructor was trying to reinvent the wheel with these. And predictably, it turned out terribly. I used to make lemon bars with the girls I nannied when we wanted to bake and there were no ingredients in the house. You pretty much need flour, sugar, and lemons. Okay, there are a few other things but not many. I've made lemon bars a thousand times and they're super simple. Somehow ours turned into a ridiculous mess. Lana and I each took a bite and while not terrible definitely not pretty.

The parmesan herb popovers were delicious in my opinion. They took a little longer to cook so we had to wait about five minutes after class to eat them. By then I had forgotten to take pictures and my mind was solely on acquiring more snacks. My stomach is growling just thinking about them.

Our pumpkin cake was my all time most favorite thing in the entire world. I pretty much want to eat it every single day of my life. Everything about it was perfect, it was simple to make, and it was incredible. We topped it with walnuts which added this wonderful sort of roasted taste to it.







Our roasted red pepper and feta muffins were another of my favorites although I think I would have done them with a cheese more apt to melt. Feta just sort of stays dry. I also would have added some ground black pepper to give the dough a little more flavor. I think next time I try these I'm going to make them with rosemary and brie.





So, we made this vanilla pound cake with chocolate ganache and it was pretty much the worst thing I've ever tasted. It was only my inclination to be a somewhat together young woman that kept me from spitting it out when I tasted it. If I had to explain it, it was like taking a bite of baking soda. Gross. But it was pretty.



As much as I have loved cooking classes at Sur La Table I wasn't so into the baking one. I learned a couple things I suppose but overall I feel like baking is about following directions, and that's not so hard to do. I did enjoy eating all the treats though! Except for that one.

Bake It Super Adorable

Cupcakes are having a moment. Or rather, a lot of moments. They may be the trendy treat of the moment but it really doesn't make them any less adorable or delicious.


I recently stumbled upon Bake It Pretty, a site full of the cutest little baking accessories ever. I don't even really like baking but I could not resist these fantastic cupcake papers. Adding to the adorable, everything came packaged like so. Also Javier was apparently very dissatisfied with not being the center of attention while I was photographing these so you get to see lots of him as well.


Here are some other things I got. First up, purple polka dot papers.


Some cupcake papers reminiscent of flowers. Or Mesopotamian architecture. Whichever really.


Treats. The flowers are for topping cupcakes with and while I am unsure exactly what they are made of it is something sugar based and they are edible. I cannot vouch for their taste however as I have not tried them. I have tried the delicious crunchy toffee crumbles and it is pertinent I make some cupcakes with those and promptly gift them before I sit on my bed watching The Hills and eating the entire bag.


These are gorgeous. The green is a really dark blue forest green and the pattern is in gold. They're super sophisticated and I can't wait to have an occasion to use them.


These are some of my favorites. I can see them working for so many different occasions. I have a birthday coming up...I may just use them to celebrate myself.