Fluffy Vanilla Goodness (Aka Vanilla Marshmallows)

First off, this isn't me recipe. I got it here. The only thing I change is I scrape and add real vanilla bean to the gelatin mixture.

But here are some photo's of what I did.

Making the gelatine mixture

(where i added a bit of vanilla extract and the scraped vanilla bean)

Adding the sugar, 1/2 C cold water, salt & corn syrup

Boiling to temperature

Pouring into gelatin & mixing

(it will take about ten minutes)

Keep mixing...looking better

This looks about right

Pour to set overnight

Yum!

You can (sort of) see the black dots that are delicious vanilla bean

Have fun! Enjoy! And more importantly Don't Burn Yourself!

Overly Sweet Christmas

So I have been baking and making all the day long. Mainly to get stuff out of the way for tomorrow, but some things are gifts for people as well. so I will give a run down of things I made today.

Apple Spice Pie:

Walnut Fudge:

The mix:

Finished:

Homemade Mounds

(We didn't have almonds so I added almond extract)

Cookies Galore:

Look, it's Annie as a cookie

I also made chocolate covered fiddle faddle, oh and I'm not even done. Still have cookies to make for my friends mom. It's been a long day.

Pumpkin Cake Truffles (An Experiment)

Occasionally I get really random ideas when it comes to food, then I of course have to make them.
Random idea this time: Pumpkin Cake Truffles.
It's essentially the same idea as cake balls. I made pumpkin cake, mixed it with cream cheese frosting and put it in the fridge to cool. While it cooled I filled cups with white chocolate.

This is how they turned out:

Not too bad =)

Baking the day away

I spent 9 hours yesterday helping my mom make edible presents for her co-workers.

We made for them:
- Caramel & Chocolate w/ Toffee Pretzel Sticks
- Caramel & Chocolate w/ White Chocolate Drizzle Pretzel Sticks
- Red Velvet Cake Balls
-Chocolate Drizzled Fiddle Faddle
-Chocolate Dipped Spiced Walnut Biscotti

Though all very simple to prepare it is all time consuming. Melting chocolate, decorating, remelting chocolate, preparing mixes, making frosting...I was exhausted

The pretzels:

Making cake balls:

The Frosting

After forming them:

Decorating them:

Biscotti:

Finally how we packaged the Fiddle Faddle:

I was going to write a lot more but I just wanted this up for now. It was a long day and my kitchen is still a horror scene.

Peppermint Swirl Bark

So this is me trying to get more into the holiday spirit, though I'm not a fan the food of the season sucks me in. Plus I'm making thins for an upcoming secret santa party.

I decided to make Peppermint Swirl Bark. Why swirl? Well normally when you see it there's a layer of dark chocolate and a layer of white, but I've never liked that. So I pour the dark chocolate, pour the white chocolate/peppermint mix over it then swirl the two together. I like the overall look much better.

It's just as delicious as the layered style.

Here's a bit of an insight to my Christmas decorating.

My black w/ orange light skull tree:

The Zombies&Toys ornament towards the top:

The Nightmare Before Christmas spider snowflakes I'll be hanging up:

The template for those can be found HERE

(Thanks to the Spooky Vegan for the post or I never would have seen these)

Cake or Death?

Why not both? Death by chocolate anyway. It was my friend Brandon's birthday the other day and I decided to make him a cake.  I never asked him a flavor or anything, he just mentioned the word "grave" and I already had an idea. So it's a chocolate cake with dark chocolate peanut butter & strawberry filling, with buttercream frosting and a dark chocolate ganache. Mwahahahahahaha

The cake itself is the chocolate cake found HERE

I wasn't sure what to do for a filling, I took some strawberry jam and reduced it down with some balsamic but it still wasn't what I wanted. Out of the randomness of my brain (and the randomness of my cabinets) I added some Dark Chocolate Peanut butter Spread and folded in some of the butter cream frosting.

The buttercream frosting is just a transitional one:
2 cups confectioners' sugar (Some people use 3)
1 cup (2 sticks) butter (At room temperature)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons whipping cream

Whisk together butter and sugar until well blended. Add in the vanilla and heavy cream and mix for a few more minutes, add more heavy cream depending on desired consistency.

Then I added a dark chocolate ganache. I headed 1/2 heavy cream and 2 tablespoons butter together in a saucepan. I poured it over 6oz dark chocolate chips and mixed until combined then poured it over the cake. You can mess around with your amounts, I just wanted a thicker ganache.


The end result? (with chocolate decorations I used molds to make)

That's all, just a quick post.

It also reminds me of this:

Lemon bars - An Evil Dessert

Ingredients:

For the crust:

1/2 pound unsalted butter, at room temperature

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 cups flour

1/8 teaspoon kosher salt

For the filling:

6 extra-large eggs at room temperature

3 cups granulated sugar

2 tablespoons grated lemon zest (4 to 6 lemons)

1 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 cup flour

Confectioners' sugar, for dusting

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

For the crust:
Cream the butter and sugar until light in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Combine the flour and salt and, with the mixer on low, add to the butter until just mixed. Dump the dough onto a well-floured board and gather into a ball. Flatten the dough with floured hands and press it into a 9 by 13 by 2-inch baking sheet, building up a 1/2-inch edge on all sides. Chill.
Bake the crust for 15 to 20 minutes, until very lightly browned. Let cool on a wire rack. Leave the oven on.

For the Filling:

Prep your lemons.

First you'll want to skin (or "zest") them.

Then juice them  (You'll need a cup of fresh lemon juice)

Add juice and sugar to the bowl with zest.

To that add your eggs.

Add your flour (the innards of lemons and eggs can be a little runny, this will thicken it).

then whisk it all together (I like to use my favorite ironic whisk)

Pour over the crust and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until the filling is set. Let cool to room temperature.
Cut into squares and dust with confectioners' sugar.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie

So I was randomly looking about the internet the other day when I stumbled upon this awesome post from HowSweetItIs for Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie. I had to make it.

The recipe can be found here.

Unfortunately I had the same problem as several of the commenters, the chocolate chips fell to the bottom. It's not a bad thing, just not what I wanted.

Homemade marshmallow (W/O Corn Syrup)

I have been wanting to make marshmallows for a while now, even more so since Halloween is coming up. I was also given some Lyle's Golden Syrup from a cooking friend and wanted to try it out as a replacement for corn syrup.

This is the result:

Ingredients:

½ cup + 2 tbsp water

1½ tbsp vanilla extract

3 tbsp unflavored gelatin

¾ cup water

1¼ cups Lyle's Golden Syrup

pinch salt

1½ cups granulated cane sugar

Coating mixture**

Zombies vs. Robots: Art War Show

The Rusted Nail hosts a new DIY custom Designer Vinyl show on the 2nd Friday of every month. October's theme: Zombies vs Robots. We've all thought about zombies fighting other things, pirates, ninjas, and even ourselves. Well now you can put your creative spin on this interesting match up.

When: Friday, October 14 (6:00pm - 11:00pm)
Where: 
The Rusted Nail
158 W. Main St.
Mesa, Arizona

From the event page:

Zombies vs. Robots, an art show featuring custom designer vinyl toys, resin figures, altered art, paintings, and more.

The center island display with depict a diorama setting pitting Zombie customs against Robot customs by artists from all over. While paintings with the theme in mind will surround the setting.

We are currently looking for artists both local and international wanting to be a part. Whether you're a customizer, make your own resin figures, or a traditional canvas painter. Chose your side, Zombies or Robots and be a part of this epic battle.

How to contact them:

Website

Facebook

Email

Chocolate Espresso Spice Brownies

Ok I don't normally boast, but these things are awesome!

I was asked to make fudgey chocolatey brownies, so I did.
 

Ingredients:
4 large eggs
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 sticks melted butter
1 cup cocoa powder
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup 60% cacao bittersweet chocolate chips
2 teaspoons instant espresso
Cinnamon, nutmeg, all spice to taste (I add a lot, some people like a little)

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F. Butter and flour an 8-inch square pan.

1. Beat the eggs at medium speed until fluffy and light yellow. Add both sugars and vanilla, beat for an additional few minutes.
2. Add flour, cocoa powder, salt, and spices to egg mixture, stir to combine.
3. In a sauce pan melt 2 sticks of butter. When the butter is almost all the way melted add in espresso and chocolate and stir. Let the mixture cool slightly then slowly add to the egg and flour mixture, stirring to combine (slowly, you don't want to cook the eggs).
4. Pour the batter into a greased and floured 8-inch square pan and bake for 45 minutes.

Note: In the pick you'll notice I added something. In a double boiler I melted some unsweetened carob (you can use chocolate instead, it was purely a flavor decision) and poured it over top then let stand to cool.

These are great warm but are AMAZING after a night in the fridge. Especially if you added extra chocolate on top.

Halloween is creepin upon us

As you can see from my newly added Halloween count down, Halloween is creeping ever closing. Are you ready? I know I'm not but I have some things in the works.

First off, my costume. I am trying to work with a local girl to see if I can make a Samhain outfit from Trick 'r' Treat. I think it would be fantastic! So I will periodically keep people updated on that. I still need to make sure I can afford it.

The kitchen side of things. This year I want to make homemade Halloween candy. I've never made candy before so it's on big scary experiment. Luckily thanks to an awesome friend of mine I now have a candy thermometer. Speaking of this awesome friend, you can check out his site here: Undead In The Head.
What candy am I wanting to make? I have a small list so far:
-Pumpkin Seed Brittle
-Dark Chocolate Pumpkin Spice PB Cups (Might use almond butter)
-Homemade Almond Joy
-Pumpkin Spice Marshmellows
-Homemade Cow Tails


There's more, I just can't remember it all.
Stay tuned & happy haunting.

Cherry Cobbler

So for a little while now my brother has been asking about cherry cobbler when we go to the store, well the frozen stuff anyway. I figured since I have most of the ingredients it would be much cheaper for me to just get cherries from the local produce stand and make it myself. So that's what I did.

I used THIS recipe but for the filling I reduced the sugar by half, added a half teaspoon almond extract and a bit of honey. My only issues with this recipe is the topping is more like biscuit topping and less like cobbler, I will try something else next time.

The results: Delicious cherry cobbler.

I made butter

Yesterday I got some milk for working at a local farm.
Milk has a cream that you can skim off of the top, which we did. Then we put that cream into a jar, shook like crazy, pressed, and added Himalayan salt. The results? Delicious butter.

This stuff is really good. And should be good for 5 - 6 days, it will be fine after that taste wise, but the smell will start to become like a Parmesan cheese (Bet that would be great on homemade bread) ♥

Finally! The best Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe!

It was my friend's birthday yesterday and I wanted to make him some chocolate chip cookies as a present. Thanks to my amazing friend Kyle I now have a recipe that's simple yet amazing (No, really). These turned out great. Actually I feel a little silly, it's the same recipe I've used before but instead of butter it's vegetable shortening. Something I've considered before but never put into practice.

I wanted to make a special big birthday cookie

So I melted some chocolate and had fun

Ingredients:

1 cup shortening

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 package chocolate chips 

(It originally called for butterscotch chips, which he's made me, they are great!)

Directions:

1. Cream together shortening, brown sugar and white sugar.

2. Beat in eggs and vanilla.

3. Combine flour, baking soda, and salt in a separate bowl. Add to creamed mixture.

4. Stir in one pack of chip. Spoon out onto baking sheet.

5. Bake at 375°F for 8-12 minutes.

Enjoy :)

This is bat country

So Saturday I will be leaving for Vegas for 3 weeks. Which is why I won't really be online much at all.
While I'm not a fan of Vegas it will be good to hangout with friends and see a new city. Also to get out of my redneck town.

I guess that's all I have to say for now.

I shall return...at some point.....

Fun times in Portland

Last weekend I went up to Portland (Well, the Portland area) with a friend to take her little sister home. The drive was nice, though we had to go through The Dalles because the passes sucked. Damn you weather!

When we finally got there we quickly changed, put makeup on, ect and headed to Beaverton to get my friends sister's ears pierced. We took her to Addiction's Tattoo & Body Piercing. She did really well. After we went across the street to visit a girl at Blackhole Body Piercing (beaverton location). We didn't know the two shops were SO close together. It was kinda funny. Then home to dye girl's hair purple, that was fun.

The next day we had to leave but not before heading to Voodoo Doughnut (Ok, we went to Voodoo Too because it was easier) with her sister and sister's friends in tow. Doughnuts I got her the Diablos Rex and the Portland Creme, My friend got a Portland Creme and the Captain My Captain, other doughnuts bought for people and brought back to the house: Tex-Ass, Buttermilk Bar, Old Dirty Bastard, & Triple Chocolate Penetration. ♥

 

After a nice long day we FINALLY left (Around 5) and decided to go over Mt.Hood, wasn't as bad as we thought it would be. 

Random picture taken on the drive: 

(Oregon calls itself boring lol)

All in all it was a good trip, it also helped me make up my mind that I am going to get another piercing, a labret piercing with door knocker jewelry. But more on that another time :)

Sadly this was just a short trip so there wasn't time to visit people, next time I want to go up for a week and actually hangout.