This post is a little bit different from the other posts because it's not about baking desserts, but it is about experimenting in the kitchen. In this case, I tried making Ethiopian food. If you've never had the chance to try Ethiopian cuisine, you are missing out!
There are several wonderful things to enjoy about Ethiopian cuisine, including the fact that it has a lot of vegan and vegetarian options and that injera (flatbread) is gluten-free. I've gone out to Ethiopian restaurants when I know that I'm going to be eating with people who have dietary restrictions. The main Ethiopian meal of the day generally has several different types of vegetable stews and may also have a spicy meat dish, which are served on large pieces of injera. You rip off smaller pieces of injera and use it to scoop up mouthfuls of food. The injera also absorbs the flavors of the food that's on top of it, so when you're done eating the stews there is flavor-infused injera left to finish off the meal.
There are several cities in the US with large Ethiopian and Eritrean populations, and I ended up living in three of them: Washington DC (largest Ethiopian population in the US), Los Angeles, and Oakland. While my Ethiopian cooking skills may be lacking, I have extensive practice at eating in Ethiopian restaurants.
After a really nice dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant several weeks ago, I was lying on my bed in a food coma and googled Ethiopian recipes to see how difficult it was to make what we had had for dinner. To my surprise, all of the recipes looked very easy. The biggest problem was that I was missing two major ingredients: teff flour and berbere spice.
Tuesday, March 01, 2016
Sunday, January 10, 2016
Macaron Madness: 10 Batches in 2 Weeks
Everybody describes making macarons as difficult. Everybody also has a set of rules for making macarons: the egg whites must be aged! the egg whites must be at room temperature! you must sift the powdered sugar and almond mixture at least three times! the French meringue method is better! no, the Italian method is better!
I took two week off work for the holidays at the end of December and made lots of plans, of which I actually did none. What I ended up doing was lying in bed and binge-watching the Great British Bake Off. This is a fantastic show and I recommend that anybody who is into amateur baking should give it a try. It is literally just about baking, and the judges' comments are very helpful. One contestant made a quick comment while making macarons, which got me thinking about how all of my macarons came out perfectly in DC and failed miserably in SF. So I decided to fix the problem.
An important point to know is that macarons (mah-kah-rohns) and macaroons (mah-ka-roons) are not the same thing. They're derived from the same word which is why the names are similar, but the cookies are not:
I took two week off work for the holidays at the end of December and made lots of plans, of which I actually did none. What I ended up doing was lying in bed and binge-watching the Great British Bake Off. This is a fantastic show and I recommend that anybody who is into amateur baking should give it a try. It is literally just about baking, and the judges' comments are very helpful. One contestant made a quick comment while making macarons, which got me thinking about how all of my macarons came out perfectly in DC and failed miserably in SF. So I decided to fix the problem.
An important point to know is that macarons (mah-kah-rohns) and macaroons (mah-ka-roons) are not the same thing. They're derived from the same word which is why the names are similar, but the cookies are not:
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| This picture is supposedly from I Do Believe I Came With A Hat but I got it from this Pintrest page. |
If you're Ashkenazi Jewish like me, you are mostly likely unfortunately aware of macaroons because they don't contain any flour and are commonly served as dessert during Passover, straight out of the Manischewitz tin. They are terrible.
Macarons, on the other hand, are small sugar bomb sandwiches that have a softer filling and a crunchy outer shell of meringue. It's these shells that have the reputation for being so difficult to get right.
This blog entry is a little bit different from the others. It only has one recipe and details all of the various things I did to get these suckers to come out right.
Tuesday, November 03, 2015
California Cottage Food Law: Cardamom Cupcakes with Plum Swiss Meringue Frosting and Pomegranate Seeds
In one of the more "San Francisco" things that's ever happened to me, a couple of guys showed up to my last baking potluck and hustled us for their new baking internet start-up. Yes, you read that correctly: a baking internet start-up. Ah, the joys of living in SF.
Their basic business plan is that they have arranged all of the pesky non-baking details, like setting up a secure online payment system, contracting out with a delivery business, etc. This leaves bakers with only thing to worry about: baking.
They've got several bakeries signed up and using their website but they specifically came to my potluck because they're trying to get home bakers who want to have their own from-home baking business to use their website. They wanted to get some of us interested and to essentially be the from-home baking beta testers.
This is where the California Cottage Food Law comes into play. As of January 1 2013, cottage food business became legal in the state of California. A cottage food business is any food production business where the food product is manufactured in a non-commercial cooking space (i.e. a home kitchen). Commercial food production facilities are monitored by the state for health and safety and food production business are licensed. Before the Cottage Food Law was passed, all cottage food production was illegal.
So these guys are aiming for this new business area. Leaving aside issues such as if it's worth it to run a cottage food business and if it's really possible to make money from a cottage food business, there's one major problem: frosting is not legal.
As odd as that sounds, there's a very logical reason for this and it's codified in the law. "Baked goods, without cream, custard, or meat fillings" and "Flat icing" are legal, as is "Buttercream frosting, buttercream icing, buttercream fondant, and gum paste that do not contain eggs, cream, or cream cheese". Now if you're wondering exactly how it is that you're supposed to make frosting that doesn't contain eggs, cream, or cream cheese, the answer is that it's very difficult. I suppose you could make something vegan but I have yet to try a vegan version of buttercream or Swiss meringue frosting that doesn't taste like a gigantic sugary mess. The law specifically excludes eggs, cream, and cream cheese because of problems with refrigeration. Eggs especially can be vectors for bacteria and the state cannot inspect and license non-commercial food production facilities, so the compromise is to allow cottage food businesses to make and sell food types that aren't well known for spreading illnesses and food poisoning.
Basically, the start-up guys didn't do their homework. If you want to (or already are) run your own cottage food business, do your homework! Check your state laws and make sure that you're not accidentally breaking any laws. I had no idea about the restrictions in the California law until I looked it up. Ignorance is not an excuse for breaking the law. If you have a cottage food business and make somebody ill by selling any illegal food types, you are going to be in serious trouble.
The theme of the potluck where I got hustled was "autumn spice". Although Americans seem to be obsessed with pumpkin spice, I decided to use cardamom, which is a spice that I ate a lot of when I was kid and we lived in the Middle East. It's a standard spice in the Levant but for some reason it hasn't really got any traction in the US. I don't know why - it's fantastic. I also made the Swiss meringue frosting again for practice and I think that I've finally got the piping figured out. Check out how pretty this cupcake was:
Then I accidentally washed the piping tip down the drain when I washed up. Oops.
Their basic business plan is that they have arranged all of the pesky non-baking details, like setting up a secure online payment system, contracting out with a delivery business, etc. This leaves bakers with only thing to worry about: baking.
They've got several bakeries signed up and using their website but they specifically came to my potluck because they're trying to get home bakers who want to have their own from-home baking business to use their website. They wanted to get some of us interested and to essentially be the from-home baking beta testers.
This is where the California Cottage Food Law comes into play. As of January 1 2013, cottage food business became legal in the state of California. A cottage food business is any food production business where the food product is manufactured in a non-commercial cooking space (i.e. a home kitchen). Commercial food production facilities are monitored by the state for health and safety and food production business are licensed. Before the Cottage Food Law was passed, all cottage food production was illegal.
So these guys are aiming for this new business area. Leaving aside issues such as if it's worth it to run a cottage food business and if it's really possible to make money from a cottage food business, there's one major problem: frosting is not legal.
As odd as that sounds, there's a very logical reason for this and it's codified in the law. "Baked goods, without cream, custard, or meat fillings" and "Flat icing" are legal, as is "Buttercream frosting, buttercream icing, buttercream fondant, and gum paste that do not contain eggs, cream, or cream cheese". Now if you're wondering exactly how it is that you're supposed to make frosting that doesn't contain eggs, cream, or cream cheese, the answer is that it's very difficult. I suppose you could make something vegan but I have yet to try a vegan version of buttercream or Swiss meringue frosting that doesn't taste like a gigantic sugary mess. The law specifically excludes eggs, cream, and cream cheese because of problems with refrigeration. Eggs especially can be vectors for bacteria and the state cannot inspect and license non-commercial food production facilities, so the compromise is to allow cottage food businesses to make and sell food types that aren't well known for spreading illnesses and food poisoning.
Basically, the start-up guys didn't do their homework. If you want to (or already are) run your own cottage food business, do your homework! Check your state laws and make sure that you're not accidentally breaking any laws. I had no idea about the restrictions in the California law until I looked it up. Ignorance is not an excuse for breaking the law. If you have a cottage food business and make somebody ill by selling any illegal food types, you are going to be in serious trouble.
The theme of the potluck where I got hustled was "autumn spice". Although Americans seem to be obsessed with pumpkin spice, I decided to use cardamom, which is a spice that I ate a lot of when I was kid and we lived in the Middle East. It's a standard spice in the Levant but for some reason it hasn't really got any traction in the US. I don't know why - it's fantastic. I also made the Swiss meringue frosting again for practice and I think that I've finally got the piping figured out. Check out how pretty this cupcake was:
Then I accidentally washed the piping tip down the drain when I washed up. Oops.
Thursday, August 27, 2015
Nectarine Peach Cupcakes with Mango Swiss Meringue Buttercream Frosting (aka Still Alive!)
It has been roughly 15 months since my last post. If anybody is actually following this blog, I apologize for disappearing. There are lots of reasons for not updating but they all boil down to the same idea: life happened. My job got very busy, I moved, traveled to other countries, got a lung infection that knocked me out for 3 months, my father got meningitis, my sister had a baby, I got called for jury duty, my sister had a baby, and various other stuff. Unfortunately the jury duty was not for anything even remotely resembling My Cousin Vinny.
When I am stressed out or low on time and/or energy, I end up baking the same set of trusted recipes over and over again. Last month I decided that it was time to start trying new recipes again so I signed up for a cupcake potluck with the theme of "Summer Cupcakes". This summer has been very bad in the Bay Area: for all intents and purposes, we are out of water. There are large wildfires all over the state and the Pacific Northwest, to the point where sometimes the air looks like the smog back in LA in the 1970's. We are supposed to get a massive El Nino this winter but I'm not putting any faith in the weather predictions. I did not make "on fire without any water" cupcakes but I was tempted to.
My new kitchen is large but old and very run down, so there's no counter space and very little storage space. The oven is so old and disgusting that I have to remove the battery in the smoke detector every time I turn it on since it produces enough smoke to set the stupid thing off. I've cleaned the oven numerous times but nothing can remove the build up due to 40 years of use. I get a real sense of accomplishment when I produce anything from this oven that looks good, tempered with some serious frustration about how gross and difficult to use it is.
When I am stressed out or low on time and/or energy, I end up baking the same set of trusted recipes over and over again. Last month I decided that it was time to start trying new recipes again so I signed up for a cupcake potluck with the theme of "Summer Cupcakes". This summer has been very bad in the Bay Area: for all intents and purposes, we are out of water. There are large wildfires all over the state and the Pacific Northwest, to the point where sometimes the air looks like the smog back in LA in the 1970's. We are supposed to get a massive El Nino this winter but I'm not putting any faith in the weather predictions. I did not make "on fire without any water" cupcakes but I was tempted to.
My new kitchen is large but old and very run down, so there's no counter space and very little storage space. The oven is so old and disgusting that I have to remove the battery in the smoke detector every time I turn it on since it produces enough smoke to set the stupid thing off. I've cleaned the oven numerous times but nothing can remove the build up due to 40 years of use. I get a real sense of accomplishment when I produce anything from this oven that looks good, tempered with some serious frustration about how gross and difficult to use it is.
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
Portmanteaus: Canmoneesecake and Doffins
Portmanteau recipes have become really trendy in baking circles ever since the cronut became so popular. Ridiculously popular, really - the wikipedia article for cronuts says that people were selling them on the black market for $100. A black market for upscale New York City bakery items. My mind is officially boggled.
Now that I'm going to a monthly potluck (thanks, M and S!), I've got a regular schedule for experimenting. This time I scrolled through my enormous collection of untried recipes and selected the first two that caught my eye: candied lemon cheesecake and sugar doughnut muffins (aka doffins). I hadn't tried any portmanteau recipes before this so I figured I'd jump on the bandwagon. Who doesn't want a sugar doughnut muffin?
I've also been making lots of cheesecakes lately. Although I don't really like cheesecake that much, I do enjoy making cheesecakes. It's a win-win: I make it and somebody else eats most of it. This recipe was intriguing because it included candied lemons, which I've been wanting to try making for a while. It also has a crust that isn't made out of graham crackers. The question of what to use instead of graham crackers if you're outside the US has been discussed by lots of people (1, 2, 3, 4) so I figured I'd give that a try as well.
With the exception of the candied lemons, both of these recipes were very easy to make (almost). I put together the doffin batter while the cheesecake was baking and still had time to wash the dishes.
The cheesecake had a really nice, light texture. I'm planning to use this recipe and swap out the lemon zest for other flavors (matcha green tea, cocoa, vanilla).
The only snag was that the ingredient list for the cheesecake didn't list the amounts of the ingredients very clearly. The crust is made with biscotti, and the recipe said "12 biscotti". How much is 12 biscotti? I had mini-biscotti instead of full-sized biscotti and I started off using 24 biscotti and then kept adding until there was enough crust to cover the bottom of a 9-inch springform pan. I have fixed the recipe so that it has volume, mass, or weight measurements.
Now that I'm going to a monthly potluck (thanks, M and S!), I've got a regular schedule for experimenting. This time I scrolled through my enormous collection of untried recipes and selected the first two that caught my eye: candied lemon cheesecake and sugar doughnut muffins (aka doffins). I hadn't tried any portmanteau recipes before this so I figured I'd jump on the bandwagon. Who doesn't want a sugar doughnut muffin?
I've also been making lots of cheesecakes lately. Although I don't really like cheesecake that much, I do enjoy making cheesecakes. It's a win-win: I make it and somebody else eats most of it. This recipe was intriguing because it included candied lemons, which I've been wanting to try making for a while. It also has a crust that isn't made out of graham crackers. The question of what to use instead of graham crackers if you're outside the US has been discussed by lots of people (1, 2, 3, 4) so I figured I'd give that a try as well.
With the exception of the candied lemons, both of these recipes were very easy to make (almost). I put together the doffin batter while the cheesecake was baking and still had time to wash the dishes.
The cheesecake had a really nice, light texture. I'm planning to use this recipe and swap out the lemon zest for other flavors (matcha green tea, cocoa, vanilla).
The only snag was that the ingredient list for the cheesecake didn't list the amounts of the ingredients very clearly. The crust is made with biscotti, and the recipe said "12 biscotti". How much is 12 biscotti? I had mini-biscotti instead of full-sized biscotti and I started off using 24 biscotti and then kept adding until there was enough crust to cover the bottom of a 9-inch springform pan. I have fixed the recipe so that it has volume, mass, or weight measurements.
Friday, March 28, 2014
Organization! Bitter Orange and Blueberry (Blackberry) Tart
Second post in a month! Even though I wrote the last one in February but didn't hit the "publish" button until March, it still counts! I am an organized and responsible adult! Right? *crickets*
First off, the internet needs a sarcasm font. Second, I really am trying to be organized and get new recipes written up in a timely fashion. As strange as it sounds, being sick all of last week has been helpful for this because I've been compiling a very long list of all of the things that haven't gotten done while I've been lying in bed, awake and not hungry and on drugs.
My doctor gave me ephedrine (edit: actually pseudoephedrine) to help with the sinus infection. Holy crap is that stuff a strong upper! I was up all day Tuesday and part of Wednesday, about 30 hours total. I was so completely exhausted but I could not fall asleep. I lay in bed and watched the sun rise on Wednesday morning and couldn't figure out what was going on. I also didn't eat for a couple of days because I just wasn't hungry even though I could feel literal hunger pains in my stomach. And I was still pretty congested. So I ended up with a very detailed list of everything that I needed to do as soon as I was better.
Blogging isn't very high on my priority list but to me it is symbolic of organization, probably because it isn't necessary for my life to keep functioning and therefore if I have time to blog then it means that I have finished all of the truly important items on my life to-do list. At least, this seems to be what my subconscious thinks. In reality, there are an infinite number of important items on my life to-do list that are breeding with each other and spawning more important items when I'm not looking. But at least I'm blogging. Priorities!
I've made this recipe twice, once to try it out and which I completely forgot to take pictures of, and the second time because lots of people liked the first attempt and to take some photos. The original recipe is from Nigella but isn't on her website. Food.com has it, complete with automatic US/metric conversion. Unfortunately the automatic converter is literal so it doesn't convert mass to weight (maybe I should do a post on the different measurement systems...). This means that the recipes ends up with ingredients like "0.39 pounds plain flour". The recipe below is from the American version of How To Be A Domestic Goddess and has more useful measurements.
Although the recipe title says "blueberry" and the recipe calls for blueberries, I used blackberries. This doesn't have anything to do with what's in season. The first time I made this tart, I saw the recipe and thought, "orange and blueberry sounds like a great combination!", wrote down blackberries on my shopping list, bought blackberries, made the tart, made the blackberry topping, and was putting it on the tart before I realized that I was using the wrong fruit. I liked the result enough to make it a second time.
This tart is not as sweet as most fruit tarts, so it's perfect to make if you or a friend don't like desserts that are too sweet. If you want more sweetness, whipped cream or ice cream is a nice topping with the blackberries.
First off, the internet needs a sarcasm font. Second, I really am trying to be organized and get new recipes written up in a timely fashion. As strange as it sounds, being sick all of last week has been helpful for this because I've been compiling a very long list of all of the things that haven't gotten done while I've been lying in bed, awake and not hungry and on drugs.
My doctor gave me ephedrine (edit: actually pseudoephedrine) to help with the sinus infection. Holy crap is that stuff a strong upper! I was up all day Tuesday and part of Wednesday, about 30 hours total. I was so completely exhausted but I could not fall asleep. I lay in bed and watched the sun rise on Wednesday morning and couldn't figure out what was going on. I also didn't eat for a couple of days because I just wasn't hungry even though I could feel literal hunger pains in my stomach. And I was still pretty congested. So I ended up with a very detailed list of everything that I needed to do as soon as I was better.
Blogging isn't very high on my priority list but to me it is symbolic of organization, probably because it isn't necessary for my life to keep functioning and therefore if I have time to blog then it means that I have finished all of the truly important items on my life to-do list. At least, this seems to be what my subconscious thinks. In reality, there are an infinite number of important items on my life to-do list that are breeding with each other and spawning more important items when I'm not looking. But at least I'm blogging. Priorities!
I've made this recipe twice, once to try it out and which I completely forgot to take pictures of, and the second time because lots of people liked the first attempt and to take some photos. The original recipe is from Nigella but isn't on her website. Food.com has it, complete with automatic US/metric conversion. Unfortunately the automatic converter is literal so it doesn't convert mass to weight (maybe I should do a post on the different measurement systems...). This means that the recipes ends up with ingredients like "0.39 pounds plain flour". The recipe below is from the American version of How To Be A Domestic Goddess and has more useful measurements.
Although the recipe title says "blueberry" and the recipe calls for blueberries, I used blackberries. This doesn't have anything to do with what's in season. The first time I made this tart, I saw the recipe and thought, "orange and blueberry sounds like a great combination!", wrote down blackberries on my shopping list, bought blackberries, made the tart, made the blackberry topping, and was putting it on the tart before I realized that I was using the wrong fruit. I liked the result enough to make it a second time.
This tart is not as sweet as most fruit tarts, so it's perfect to make if you or a friend don't like desserts that are too sweet. If you want more sweetness, whipped cream or ice cream is a nice topping with the blackberries.
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
Second Time's the Charm
Edit #1: This used to be a wonderfully amusing write-up of what I made for K and B's Super Bowl potluck. I saved it multiple times, got the pictures exactly the way I wanted them, and even bothered to spellcheck the post. And then, for some unknown reason, everything except the first couple of paragraphs disappeared.
So the entire post is gone, never to return. Instead, I will leave you with the best part of it:
That is the team with possession of the ball for the first play of the game loosing control of said ball and then everybody running crazily after it. It set the tone for the rest of the game.
K and B had a potluck at their new place to watch the Super Bowl. B was interested in watching because he's from Alaska and the Seattle Seahawks are the closest football team to Alaska, so he grew up rooting for them. The rest of us were just there to have a potluck and hang out. Luckily, the Denver Broncos played so badly that we all sat around and laughed at them for 2 hours. It's nice to have something to bond over.
The "second time" in the title is actually a reference to the fact that I used the potluck as an excuse to fix a couple of recipes that hadn't turned out well the first time but which had promise (and to try something new, of course). In January, I had tried making a nutella cheesecake and Nigella's gooey chocolate stack. The cheesecake never solidified but tasted great and the chocolate stack melted but tasted great. My course was clear: get the great tasting desserts to have the right consistency. I also made a batch of cookies just in case things didn't work out.
The "second time" in the title is actually a reference to the fact that I used the potluck as an excuse to fix a couple of recipes that hadn't turned out well the first time but which had promise (and to try something new, of course). In January, I had tried making a nutella cheesecake and Nigella's gooey chocolate stack. The cheesecake never solidified but tasted great and the chocolate stack melted but tasted great. My course was clear: get the great tasting desserts to have the right consistency. I also made a batch of cookies just in case things didn't work out.
Sunday, January 12, 2014
Everything's New But The Recipes
The original draft of this entry had a very long and complicated explanation of what happened after I moved, but I deleted it because a) it was boring and b) it can be summed up in one sentence: my new commute is much longer than my old commute. It really has taken me 5 months to get my work/life balance sorted out, and even that isn't really done yet. I will be transferring to a different office that is much closer, hopefully in the spring. (I have also been procrastinating and have not gotten myself organized, which wastes most of my free time.)
The other thing I'm missing is a potluck group. Right now I don't bake very often because there isn't anybody to eat the results. As I meet more people and make some new friends, I will also acquire new guinea pigs.
Because I haven't had that much time to bake, I've been falling back on old recipes that I know like the back of my hand. I've blogged about some of them before (my mother's hallah), thought I blogged about them but apparently didn't (pavlovas), and blogged about something similar (pumkpin souffle) that I then combined with yet another recipe that I thought I had previously written about but which also doesn't have a post (sufganiyot). I posted pictures of pavlovas and sufganiyot on facebook but never got around to making blog entries for either one. Did I mention that I'm disorganized and procrastinate a lot?
So this post has 4 months worth of experimentation: 3 new recipes, 2 explanations of things that I haven't written about but should have, and 1 success.
The three new recipes are apple stuffed cardamom hallah, pavlova with raspberry-pomegranate topping, and pumpkin sufganiyot. These are all adaptations of recipes that I really like, so I've posted the original recipes and the changes I made.
Moving takes weeks longer than just the actual act of moving physical things from one location to another. Usually I spend the first two weeks unpacking things and then wandering around the apartment, vainly trying to remember where I put all of my stuff. My apartment is from the 1950's and hasn't been updated since then except for the oven and fridge. Things it doesn't have: lots of electrical outlets, muted color schemes, a dishwasher, or a garbage disposal. This is the kitchen:
Check out the bathroom:
The other thing I'm missing is a potluck group. Right now I don't bake very often because there isn't anybody to eat the results. As I meet more people and make some new friends, I will also acquire new guinea pigs.
Because I haven't had that much time to bake, I've been falling back on old recipes that I know like the back of my hand. I've blogged about some of them before (my mother's hallah), thought I blogged about them but apparently didn't (pavlovas), and blogged about something similar (pumkpin souffle) that I then combined with yet another recipe that I thought I had previously written about but which also doesn't have a post (sufganiyot). I posted pictures of pavlovas and sufganiyot on facebook but never got around to making blog entries for either one. Did I mention that I'm disorganized and procrastinate a lot?
So this post has 4 months worth of experimentation: 3 new recipes, 2 explanations of things that I haven't written about but should have, and 1 success.
The three new recipes are apple stuffed cardamom hallah, pavlova with raspberry-pomegranate topping, and pumpkin sufganiyot. These are all adaptations of recipes that I really like, so I've posted the original recipes and the changes I made.
Moving takes weeks longer than just the actual act of moving physical things from one location to another. Usually I spend the first two weeks unpacking things and then wandering around the apartment, vainly trying to remember where I put all of my stuff. My apartment is from the 1950's and hasn't been updated since then except for the oven and fridge. Things it doesn't have: lots of electrical outlets, muted color schemes, a dishwasher, or a garbage disposal. This is the kitchen:
 |
| Lucy Ricardo would have loved this place. |
Check out the bathroom:
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| It would be so classy if it was tiled in black and white. |
I always laugh when anybody says that the 1950's were so glamorous, people knew how to dress and decorate, etc. No. Some of the worst color schemes ever showed up in the 1950's. While I'm living here, I pretend that I am a time-traveling anthropologist who is studying how the natives live in their pink-and-maroon habitat. This is a very nice apartment with the exception of the color schemes (one for every room!).
Monday, September 23, 2013
Too Much Stuff: The Moving Experience
Everybody who has moved has said this at least once during a move: why do I own so much stuff? I'm no different, and packing to move across the country made it clear that I needed to be more organized and to get rid of quite a bit of extra stuff. When I was unpacking, it was even more obvious that dumping things into baskets (my old method of organization) just wasn't going to work anymore. It also became clear that I own a lot of earrings. Lots and lots and lots of earrings. So I decided that for my new place, I would make a new system for organizing little things like earrings and hair clips that take over when you're not looking.
I was inspired by a popular blog post on magnetic make-up boards. Although I am way too lazy to wear makeup, it only takes a minute to put on a pair of earrings. A magnetic board with small hooks would save space and make it easy to see all of my earrings at once. I had to change several details to make it work, but I'm happy to say that the result is worth the work.
To make a magnetic hanging board, you need a pretty strange collection of things - but they don't cost very much. I only owned the spray paint from a previous project and it was about $40 for everything else. I had planned to do the entire project in one day but it ended up taking three days due to some moving shenanigans. If you have the items you need, you could make this type of board in a day. Paint and glue in the morning, wait for everything to dry, and assemble in the evening.
I ended up using:
I was inspired by a popular blog post on magnetic make-up boards. Although I am way too lazy to wear makeup, it only takes a minute to put on a pair of earrings. A magnetic board with small hooks would save space and make it easy to see all of my earrings at once. I had to change several details to make it work, but I'm happy to say that the result is worth the work.
To make a magnetic hanging board, you need a pretty strange collection of things - but they don't cost very much. I only owned the spray paint from a previous project and it was about $40 for everything else. I had planned to do the entire project in one day but it ended up taking three days due to some moving shenanigans. If you have the items you need, you could make this type of board in a day. Paint and glue in the morning, wait for everything to dry, and assemble in the evening.
I ended up using:
- 2 picture frames (no glass needed)
- spray paint (primer and final coat)
- gold magnetic paint (optional)
- cotton fabric
- spray adhesive
- Goo Gone
- tin snips (shears)
- sheet metal
- magnets (neodymium)
Sunday, June 30, 2013
Moving On: Dulce de Leche Cake
All kinds of interesting things have happened over the last few weeks. For the purposes of this blog, the only important thing is that I'm moving at the end of the month. Since my stuff will not be delivered until the middle of August, this post will most likely be the last one until September. That's probably how long it would have taken me to write up another entry anyways.
I decided to try something a little bit different for my last potluck out here, something besides chocolate or fruit tarts like I normally do. Instead of a Fourth of July themed red, white, and blue dessert, I went a little south of the border and made a dulce de leche cake.
Dulce de leche is basically a very thick caramel that is made by heating sweetened milk until the water evaporates and the sugar caramelizes. It is usually a dark tan color, and can be flavored with vanilla, cinnamon, or other spices. It's a standard sweetening option in South and Central America, as well as Mexico. People put it in their coffee, on muffins, in cakes, etc.
There are a couple of different ways to make dulce de leche. The most common is to heat up a can of sweetened condensed milk. This recipe uses the most time-consuming way: cooking it from scratch on the stove. I'd never tried that method before so I figured I would give it a chance. The results were just about the same as using the "put the can in boiling water" method.
This cake also has homemade buttercream frosting. I wrote about making buttercream frosting at home in the post about checkerboard cakes. The motor in the base of my Cuisinart heated up the frosting as it mixed so I had to put in the refrigerator for an hour or so to solidify properly.
Between the dulce de leche and the frosting, this cake was approximately two-thirds sugar. I'm not kidding - it was so sweet that I didn't like it at all. Ironically, several people told me that it was the best thing I've ever made. I suggest eating a very thin sliver of cake with a nice cup of tea to balance it out.
The cake is a nice, moist vanilla cake and I will probably use the cake recipe for other projects. The dulce de leche was a massive pain to make and took hours but it turned out nice so I may try using it again. The frosting was just too sweet. I dislike buttercream frosting because it's basically just butter and sugar, and there's only so much of that you can eat at one time. If you like buttercream frosting, this recipe is definitely one of the best I've used, easy to make and has a nice consistency.
If you don't want to bother making dulce de leche and you live near a Trader Joe's, the TJ's fleur de sel caramel sauce is a very good dulce de leche substitute.
I decided to try something a little bit different for my last potluck out here, something besides chocolate or fruit tarts like I normally do. Instead of a Fourth of July themed red, white, and blue dessert, I went a little south of the border and made a dulce de leche cake.
Dulce de leche is basically a very thick caramel that is made by heating sweetened milk until the water evaporates and the sugar caramelizes. It is usually a dark tan color, and can be flavored with vanilla, cinnamon, or other spices. It's a standard sweetening option in South and Central America, as well as Mexico. People put it in their coffee, on muffins, in cakes, etc.
There are a couple of different ways to make dulce de leche. The most common is to heat up a can of sweetened condensed milk. This recipe uses the most time-consuming way: cooking it from scratch on the stove. I'd never tried that method before so I figured I would give it a chance. The results were just about the same as using the "put the can in boiling water" method.
This cake also has homemade buttercream frosting. I wrote about making buttercream frosting at home in the post about checkerboard cakes. The motor in the base of my Cuisinart heated up the frosting as it mixed so I had to put in the refrigerator for an hour or so to solidify properly.
Between the dulce de leche and the frosting, this cake was approximately two-thirds sugar. I'm not kidding - it was so sweet that I didn't like it at all. Ironically, several people told me that it was the best thing I've ever made. I suggest eating a very thin sliver of cake with a nice cup of tea to balance it out.
The cake is a nice, moist vanilla cake and I will probably use the cake recipe for other projects. The dulce de leche was a massive pain to make and took hours but it turned out nice so I may try using it again. The frosting was just too sweet. I dislike buttercream frosting because it's basically just butter and sugar, and there's only so much of that you can eat at one time. If you like buttercream frosting, this recipe is definitely one of the best I've used, easy to make and has a nice consistency.
If you don't want to bother making dulce de leche and you live near a Trader Joe's, the TJ's fleur de sel caramel sauce is a very good dulce de leche substitute.
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