Augustoberfest (aka Zucchini cupcakes)

Well, what a lack of Summer we have had here in the glorious Pacific Northwest. It really feels as though we went straight from Spring to Fall. Okay, maybe we had Summer for five days two weeks ago when we had high heat, but since then it's been cool and partly cloudy. Despite this strange (for August) weather, my mom has managed to grow quite a few zucchini in her garden. Saturday for lunch we made zucchini fritters, and Sunday I made zucchini cupcakes. We still have zucchini left over, and I believe I know what their fate will be. More zucchini cupcakes.

You see, zucchini cupcakes make for the perfect dessert for that transition from Summer to Fall. The zucchini is and end-of-summer veggie, while the spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves) in the cupcakes are very autumnal. I have to say, they are quite delicious, and just what I needed.

Without further ado, the recipe:

(From Martha Stewart's Cupcakes)

Zucchini-Spice Cupcakes

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs, at room temp
1 tbsp pure vanilla extract
3/4 tsp finely grated lemon zest
2 cups packed light brown sugar
3 cups packed grated zucchini

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line muffin tins with paper liners. Whisk together the dry ingredients in a medium bowl. In a large bowl, whisk together oil, eggs, vanilla, and zest until well blended; whisk in brown sugar until smooth. Stir in zucchini, then add flour mixture and stir until just combined. Batter will be wet.

2. Divide batter evenly among cups, filling about three-quarters full. Bake until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, about 18-20 minutes. Cool cupcakes completely in tins on racks.

Note: I topped these with leftover cream cheese frosting from the red velvet cake I made for my co-worker's birthday. Use your favorite cream cheese frosting, or leave plain.

Oatmeal Fudge Bars

Last Saturday, toward the end of my several-week kick of productivity, I was sorting through my mom's Cook's Illustrated and Cook's Country magazines searching for the recipe for Wellesley Fudge Cake I had seen a few months ago, and it was then I found a recipe for oatmeal fudge bars. Upon reading the list of ingredients, I realized we had everything the recipe called for, so I decided to go ahead and bake some (looking at lots of dessert recipes sure can build up your appetite).

This was a very easy treat to put together. The hardest part was waiting it to cool so that I could taste it. I did not have a 9-inch square pan like the recipe called for, so I used an 8-inch pan. This made for a thicker bar, but I didn't mind...The end result was a super-tasty combination of brown sugar, butter, and chocolate. In the future, I think the addition of cinnamon might give this dessert that little something extra.

As for the recipe:

Crust and Topping
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup quick-cooking oats
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt
1 stick unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly



Filling
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1 tbsp instant espresso powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
3 large eggs

1. For the crust: Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat over to 325 degrees F. Prepare square baking pan (8 or 9 inch) by lining with aluminum foil and spraying with cooking spray. Whisk together dry ingredients, stir in butter until combined. Set aside 1 1/4 cups of mixture. Press remaining mixture into bottom of pan. Bake until light golden brown, 8 minutes. Cool completely.

2.For the filling: Whisk dry ingredients in a bowl. Melt chocolate chips and butter in a large bowl; whisk in eggs, then stir in flour mixture. Pour filling over cooled crust and sprinkle with reserved oatmeal mixture.

3. Bake until toothpick inserted into center comes out with a few crumbs attached, 35 to 40 minutes (longer if using 8 inch pan). Cool to room temperature and the cut into squares.

Note: When I melted the chocolate (in a glass bowl over simmering water), I noticed that the chocolate seemed a bit dry, even with the butter. I have never experienced this before and chalked it up to the chocolate chips- they were Nestle and may have been on the older side... In the future, I might try fresh Ghirardelli chips (I use Ghirardelli for almost everything).

Inaugural Post

Well, here it is, the inaugural post. I'm sure there are a few questions to start out, the first being: what's up with the corn pone. Corn pone is a little bit of an inside joke that began one Easter while watching my favorite Easter movie, The Easter Bunny Is Comin' to Town, with the family. Mind you, we were not sitting around watching it together, rather it was on while mom was cooking and Frakah (my sister, as she is called by nephew) and I were playing with the nephew. One of my favorite arts of this movie is when the Easter Bunny and the kids from Kidville do nice things for the scary Gadzooks, including buying him a nice Easter suit. This is, of course, presented in song/montage form, and one of the lines in the song mentions putting honey on your corn pone. Well, the family was all tuned in for that part and we all kinda turned to each other and asked "what is corn pone?!" And a family inside joke was born and for awhile we made many jokes about what corn pone could be. One thing is hobo food, because there's also a hobo in the Easter movie. My family seems to have a little thing for hobos.... (see Chocolate Flies, a story I made up about a hobo striking it rich with chocolate flies- ah, perhaps another time I will share that story here)

Okay, so why a blog? As a means to share what I bake with people who may not be around to actually taste it. It may just provide added torture for those who already know I bake awesome things but are not here to taste it, but oh well. I just want to share what I'm baking with a slightly wider audience. You see, people who know me very well, or who are friends with me on Faceook and read my statues updates, know that I love to bake and I bake fairly often. I am always looking at magazines, cookbooks, and other cooking blogs to find recipes I would like to try. This blog can serve as a document of my baking. i can share what I've done, what I liked, and what I didn't. Most of the time I like, but I forget and much later try to remember without much luck and no recipe. No more, I tell you!

So what shall I share as my first baking entry? I believe I will start with some nice ice cream sandwiches I made last weekend. I was hankering for some chocolate ice cream sandwiches and did much searching for the perfect combination of recipes. I saw a recipe for Chocolate Guinness Ice Cream on a blog I found through foodgawker, and that was my starting point. Next I needed to find a cookie to sandwich the ice cream between. I really wanted a chocolate cookie with Bailey's Irish Cream in it, but did not find anything acceptable. What I did find was a recipe for bourbon brownies (recipe below) wherein the notes gave a list of any alcohol that could be used instead of bourbon. Enter: Bailey's Irish Cream. I had my sandwiching mechanisms.

The ice cream was incredibly easy to make. What was difficult was resisting eating it straight from the machine. I managed a little taste before assuring myself that the end product would be worth the wait (and wait I did). Once the ice cream was churned, I poured it into a 13x9 baking dish lined with plastic wrap and put it in the freezer.

The brownies were also easy to make, but hard to resist. The recipe was a little different from what I'm used to- I usually melt the chocolate and butter together, then stir in the sugar, eggs, etc. Not so here, as you will see in the recipe below. Instead, you cream brown sugar and butter together as you would for cookies or a cake. I cannot say entirely how these turned out differently from my usual brownies because I baked them in a cookie sheet to make for a thin base for the ice cream.

When I was finally ready to prepare the ice cream sandwiches, I took a biscuit cutter and cut out two brownie circles (2.5 inches, I think) and then cut out a circle of ice cream from the pan and piled it atop one of the brownies, then placed the other on top. I then wrapped each sandwich individually with wax paper and stuck it straight in the freezer. I could only manage to make five sandwiches at a time since the ice cream melted quickly.

The end result was delicious and very, very chocolaty. I used my standby, Ghirardelli Bittersweet Chocolate. I use it for anything that calls for melted chocolate, as it has produced the best tasting brownies and super-duper chocolate cookies for me in the past. The ice cream was creamy and chocolaty and yummmmm. The brownie had that definite Bailey's flavor, but paired rather nicely with the ice cream. I took some to work, and one of the girls called them "decadent." When it comes to chocolate, I will take decadent any day.

Bailey's Brownies (as adapted from The Ultimate Brownie Book, by Bruce Weinstein)

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
12 oz. bittersweet chocolate, chopped
2 sticks unsalted butter at room temp.
1 cup packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs, at room temp. (of course I forgot that part, made no difference for me)
1/2 cup Bailey's

1. Position the rack in the lower third of the oven. Preheat the oven to 350F. Butter and flour a cookie sheet.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

3. Place the chocolate in a double boiler set over simmering water. Stir constantly until half the chocolate is melted, then remove from heat and continue to stir until the chocolate is completely melted. Allow to cool for five minutes.

4. In a stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar at medium speed. Beat until smooth, about 5 minutes. Beat the eggs in one at a time, allowing the first to be thoroughly incorporated before adding the second. Beat for one minute, then add the Bailey's and melted chocolate, beating until the batter is smooth and pale (and irresistible-looking).

5. With a rubber spatula, stir in the flour mixture just until incorporated. Do not beat. Batter will be thick. Spoon the batter into the prepared pan, spreading it gently to the corners.

6. Bake for 25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Ste the pan on a wire rack to cool completely.