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Why?

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I just bought the pink. Merry Christmas to ME.

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butterscotch cream pie

Imagine sitting in the studio audience of the Martha Stewart Show, watching Martha and her special guest chef making a buttercream pie on the overhead monitors (as you can’t actually SEE them due to the umpteen cameras in the way), and you kind of forget where you are.  You forget that you are there, live, and they really are in the room with you.  So when they are stirring the batch of caramel, and you can smell it?  Very confusing.  You are all –what’s that aroma? It’s delicious! This is better than surround sound!  It’s, it’s…Smellivision!  And you vow that very minute, when I get home, I am so making that Butterscotch Cream Pie.  Even though you hate to temper eggs.  Or make pie crust.  Or stand up.  You know, things like that.

So anyway, amidst my orders for all of the Thanksgiving goodies I have been making for clients, I snuck in a couple of hours on Tuesday to finally make that pie.  Sure, I could have made my own gingersnaps. I could have…but time was short and I already had a bag of very yummy gingersnaps just begging to be crushed.  So I cheated.  Sue me.  It’s not like I went out and purchased a readymade crust.  I still had to mix it and press it and bake it.  Judge me if you must.

The crust wasn’t what it was about for me anyway…it was all about that filling.  I wanted that smell in my house.  And I got it!  It came together quite easily, although I did make a stumble along the way.  Here’s the part where you should really pay attention to me – when it says “add the cream slowly” – ummm, do that.  If you dump it all in at once, the caramel freaks out and seizes, becoming one with the whisk, clinging to it for dear life.  You’ll think – Oh God, I ruined it! – but hang in there.  The caramel will melt back into the cream.  Just go with it.  See my pictures? It turned out just fine, and you won’t have to cry or curse or have a tantrum or call The Martha a douche now that you know.  Not that I did any of those things, I’m just being hypothetical.

You are seeing photos of my naked pie, as I have yet to dress it up with a nice, thick meringue.  The original recipe calls for unsweetened whipped cream, but since the pie filling calls for 5 eggs yolks, I just so happened have 5 eggs whites on hand.  I will add the meringue just before heading to our Thanksgiving dinner, as I don’t like the weeping that can happen to meringue pies. I expect deliciousness!  See the vanilla seeds in the spoonful of filling that I had to keep out of the pie as a taste test? So gorgeous…so silky smooth.  Full of flavor too.  I was lucky enough to have farm raised chicken eggs to use, and to me, you just can’t beat how rich and creamy those egg yolks are.  But, no matter where you get your eggs, this pie is destined to be a real winner, whether you make it today to cart off to a family filled Thanksgiving, or this weekend when all of the desserts you had are gone and you really need something to go with that turkey sandwich.  Try it.  You’ll like it!  And until then, have yourself a great holiday.  Be safe.  Be loved. Be thankful.  And most importantly, be out of my sister’s way at Kohl’s on Friday morning at 4am.  Consider yourself warned.

Butterscotch Cream Pie   

from Karen Demasco’s The Craft of Baking on Martha Stewart.com

Ingredients

Makes 1 9-inch pie

• 3/4 cup sugar
• 5 large egg yolks
• 1/4 cup cornstarch
• 1/2 vanilla bean, split lengthwise, seeds scraped out, bean and seeds reserved
• 2 1/2 cups heavy cream, split
• 2 cups whole milk
• 1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
• Gingersnap Crust
• 1/2 cup chopped Honeycomb Brittle

Directions

1. In a medium bowl, whisk together 1/4 cup sugar, egg yolks, and cornstarch until pale in color; set aside. *NOTE-add sugar to eggs first! Then you can add the cornstarch.  Otherwise – clump city)
2. Combine remaining 1/2 cup sugar, 1/4 cup water, and the vanilla bean and seeds in a medium saucepan. Stir until sugar is completely damp. Heat mixture over high heat until sugar becomes a yellow-golden caramel, about 8 minutes. Remove from heat. Slowly whisk in 1 cup cream, being careful to avoid splatters, then stir in milk.
3. Return caramel mixture to stove and bring to a boil; remove from heat. Pour one third of the caramel mixture into the egg mixture in a slow, steady stream, whisking to combine. Whisk egg mixture into caramel mixture until well combined. Bring to a boil over medium-low heat and cook, whisking constantly, until custard thickens, about 8 minutes. Remove pan from heat; whisk in salt and butter.
4. Strain custard through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl; pour into prepared pie crust. Transfer pie plate to a wire rack and let filling cool completely. Transfer pie to refrigerator and chill until cold, about 1 hour.
5. Top with whipped cream & brittle, as in the original recipe, or, top with meringue. (use the reserved 1 1/2 cups heavy cream to make the whipped cream if that’s the route you choose to take.)

50th Anniversary Cake

Here is a look at the 3 tiered stacked cake I made for a 50th anniversary party.  The flowers were the choice of the client.  Sorry for the bad picture quality, it was so dark in there!

Bottom layer was Lemon cake with blueberry cream filling, Middle Layer was Devils Food cake with chocolate mousse, caramel & Snickers filling, top layer was Almond with Almond buttercream.

Need a good read?
You may want to check out my update on 52 Books in 52 Weeks...


Have a great week!

because I can

I rarely, if ever, get negative comments on my blog.  I mean, really? Who feels the need to be nasty to a Foodie/Mommy Blogger? Aren’t we about the most socially backward people on the planet? (Okay, maybe it’s just me, but I somehow doubt it.)

Anyway, this commenter. I thought about just letting it go. And I will. But I want to address something first.

I am not trying to save the world one pizza at a time.

I write letters. If a company has let me down, be it a faulty razor that cut my husband’s head in the shower, a pitiful KFC buffet that had no chicken on it, a rock in my child’s Pepperidge Farm Goldfish…I write the company.  And each of the times I have written, giving these companies a chance to make things right before I just open up and rant about it on my blog.  It wouldn’t be fair to complain without giving them a chance…Mistakes Happen.  I should know, as I make them all the time.  The reason you heard about Pizza Hut?  I gave them a chance. I wrote them. I waited. And you saw the customer service that ensued, which I found unacceptable. It was at that point I took it to another level.  I could care less about a burned up pizza. It was the principal of the matter.  So sure, I could focus on finding better things to do with my “free time.”  We all could.  So, Annie, if you are reading this (which you say you aren’t), perhaps your free time will be better spent over at the Greenpeace Website, and you can adopt a whale or Just Say No to Tuna or whatever the latest rage is. I don’t have free time.  And if I do, I’m probably watching DVR’ed episodes of Glee or making phone calls to my congressman about greasy food in my neighborhood. (No, really, it’s Glee.)

So, I’ve said my peace. As much as I don’t want to run people away from my site, I also know I can’t please all the people all the time. And with my recent string of snarky posts, I am finding that there are LOTS of you who really appreciate the tell it like it is approach.  Honestly, that’s the way I really am…it’s just taken me a while to open up here on the blog. You may be seeing more and more of it. I like sarcasm. I like dry humor. I hope you do too…’cause I think it’s here to stay.

Now that that’s out of the way, I just want to apologize for the upcoming lack of foodie posts. I have a big function on Thursday, followed by another big function on Saturday, which will take up practically all of my “free time” between now and Sunday. (the local eateries all all breathing a sigh of relief, I’m sure.) I have that Butterscotch Cream Pie on the horizon, the pie from the Martha Show, but hell if I can squeeze it in anytime soon.  But I promise – you’ll have it here, modified recipe and all, in plenty of time for Thanksgiving.  Until then, here’s a look at the past few cakes I’ve done. A couple of plain ones, a couple of unusual ones.  Hope you enjoy!

This is the cake I did for my friend Adam’s birthday. It is chocolate cake (4 layers) filled with a rich chocolate mousse and homemade Grand Marnier caramel. I iced it with chocolate cheesecake whipped buttercream, and used chocolate transfer sheets to make the chocolate decorations on it.

  

These two cakes are both tri-layer cakes. One was vanilla buttercream, the other was lemon buttercream. Pretty straightforward stuff.

This one was so much fun, and really big! The shark is made out of Rice Krispy Treats covered in fondant, which I handpainted (even the inside of his mouth) with food coloring and moonstone luster dust.  The icing is cheesecake buttercream, tinted aqua and had gradations of teal throughout. The waves I made by pulling sugar, which looked much cooler in person. You can kind of see the tail coming out the back of the cake – it was so neat! The birthday boy was pleased, and so was his family (the grandmother even emailed me to thank me) which is the best part!

Time for an Update

Maybe you are wondering about Pizza Hut.  Are you?  Did you wonder if they tried to reach out to me?  I’m just a measly little blogger after all…why would a huge corporation like Pizza Hut care what Susan Whetzel has to say?

I’ll tell you why.  Social Networking.

In the old days (you know, circa 1992, pre-in home internet, pre-Twitter, pre-Facebook) if you had an unpleasant experience somewhere, you told your friends.  All 5 of them. And maybe they told someone else somewhere down the road. You may have been able to reach 17 people with your displeasure.  But oh no, not today, folks.

If you are like me, and have a big mouth blog, the blog alone can reach thousands.  That Pizza Hut Post I wrote? It got over 4000 views alone.  I posted it on Facebook, which conjured up some interest…but the kicker was Twitter.  Based on my best math skills, thanks to my original Tweet and then the subsequent Re-Tweets, my Pizza Hut experience went out to just over 100 THOUSAND Twitters.  That is HUGE.  So thank you all, those of you who read, who commented, and especially, those who Re-Tweeted my message – something big happened here.

First thing that happened?  Pizza hut kindly asked me to remain calm and please refrain from my outrage on the Twitter Front.  “We are working very hard to remedy the situation.”  They requested my name. My address. My phone number.  I got a call from the Pizza Hut Headquarters, who in turn had my local higher-ups call me.

So I am napping, when I get this call from the owner of the area 36 Pizza Huts. Same owner as when I used to work there. He is very cordial, even comments that he remembers my name. True? I don’t know. Maybe. I was a super employee. (Yeah, right. I did show up for every shift, though, so maybe that counts for something.) He made some small talk, asked me about Seven’s Name, yada yada yada. He has the DM on conference call with us, who says very little. That’s okay…I hurt his feelings. So I take back the lazy part of my rant…I was mad. I had a right to be mad, and the letter I received led me to believe that he was an idiot.

I turns out that the illegible, horribly written note was not actually from HIM.  He says he wanted the store manager to step up and do some work, realize that there are consequences to their actions.  He says he should have proofread the letter.  That the manager of that store seems like a smart gal, but this has opened his eyes.  All well and good – what’s done is done.

So I think everything is over.  I got my call, I got an apology. I anxiously await my NEW letter in the mail.  But while I am in New York, putting on makeup in my hotel room, I get another call. From the DM. More apologies, but needs my address again. Okay. Fine.

Then again, on the way to the Martha Show while I am in the Taxi.

Then again, this time a message (because I don’t answer), telling me that he was wrong about the Two Fer Tuesday Special. It’s different than he thought. What. Ever. At this point, I DON’T CARE. I’m over it. I’m going to stop Tweeting…leave me be, please.  I just want to enjoy walking around Times Square and eat my freaking Junior’s Cheesecake.

So I get my typed letter in the mail, complete with letterhead and coupons for 2 free pizzas. Only one misspelling, but I’ll give him a break – it was a difficult word. Hooray! – it’s over! But it isn’t. It’s way bigger than just me.

As of Saturday, my Pizza Hut is now offering ANY Pizza, ANY Size, ANY Toppings for $10. 10 Bucks!  Complete with a letter from the Manager guaranteeing satisfaction.  To “Make our community aware that we are here and do things Right.”  UNTIL THE END OF THE YEAR. Whoaaa.

Power to the people, ya’ll.  We did something good.

Now I can get a pizza at the right price and my satisfaction is guaranteed.  And I’ll do it! I’ll order! But you can bet your sweet ass I’m not ordering it in my own name. Not for a good, lonnnng time.

Enjoy your cheap pizza, locals!

You can thank me later.

new York state of mind(s)

Sorry for the lack of posting lately, but you see, I have been away.

To The MARTHA Show.  

As in THE Martha. You know who she is. We all love to hate her, we all hate to love her.  It’s the truth, and you know it. It’s just that no one really wants to admit it. We are all, men and women alike, jealous as hell of that woman. She’s like Andy Dufrain in The Shawshank Redemption – she was rich, had an unfortunate vacation in a place we do not discuss, then crawled through the crap to come out clean and richer on the other side.  Except Andy crawled through half a mile of sewer, and Martha just had to wear a prison poncho knitted with a couple of shivs. Well, I am here today to say it out loud. No fear. Okay, maybe a little bit of fear.
Being invited to come to the show was a real treat. There are what? Half a billion people in America? And they ask ME to bring a pie? That’s pretty amazing. Probably a mistake, but amazing nonetheless. So the real prize is that I was asked to come. Now that that has been said, I’m going to release the inner Angel and Demon and let them both speak. The Hate to Love’r and the Love to Hate’r, both on display. I’ll let each one speak as they want, often in the same sentence. You’ll know who’s who.

This could get ugly.

So. We show up to the studio in Chelsea, not knowing at all what to expect. It is of course, clean and very…pastel. Crisp. It is a big B because once you are inside, there is apparently some iron magnetic substance from the future lining the brick as your iPhone is rendered absolutely useless, and you are one of the many snappy dressers sitting in a holding pattern until being shuttled off to the set. You may purchase many of Martha’s medium quality products at full or above MSRP prices, so feel free to do that and forgo your child’s tuition or braces.  God knows everyone needs a $60 hoodie with a pastel patch on the sleeve to wear while sprinkling $20 worth of Martha glitter on Christmas cards you’ll never really make.  It’s almost like buying a timeshare. You want to check the prices on Amazon, or maybe have your sister back home go in Halvsies on that Glitter Kit and tote bag, but damn if the Twitter won’t work and you can’t write on her FaceBook wall either. Total Suckage. So you pretty much just sit there and shake.

About the time you are considering leaving because it is awfully hard to breathe without use of Tweetdeck, the little headset folks come to give you your 32nd reminder to USE THE BATHROOM NOW OR ELSE and then you get the Happy Man Billy to instruct you on how to clap, how to say yum, how to giggle speech.  Good thing, too, because the pressure? It’s disconcerting.

It was in this stuffy holding pattern recession free shopping room that I first noticed HER. Little old lady, feeble, hunched over, sweet as a newborn kitten, mewing to her younger counterpart two rows up from us. How sweet. She has a cookbook. With her picture on it. Ah Shiz…the crew all know her by name. She is smiling at them, I never hear her utter a sound higher than her kitten mew. I think perhaps she may need some kind of IV drip to make into into the show. Precious, really. Poor little thing. She is the Martha Charity Case. This Martha is a smart lady. This is going to be Shiv Poncho Martha’s finest moment.


Now it s time to go upstairs, finally, after waiting around for over an hour. First impression? Holy nuts.  We walk into the set and right away we are bombarded with the gravity of a Martha Stewart Pie Competition…there are 170 pies, all laid out on two gigantic farm tables set beneath some pretty fall trees and a not handmade handmade Country Pie Bake Off Sign, straight out of The Long Hot Summer except without Paul Newman.  Our seats are fantastic…second row off the floor. Should have been great.  Not  a bad seat in the house. However, with 8 cameras, a boom, 42 assistants and enough McCoy Pottery to  feed a third world country, there was also no good seat in the house. (Let me add one stipulation to that…the Stage Manager. It was fine if he was in the way. Sexy McDenim pants and his army hat had the backside of a NFL quarterback.)

So we are waiting. In our seats. Do not move from your seats. Ever. That’s a no-no. And turn off your cameras and phones and pacemakers, as these will upset the Martha. she is coming. (no, she isn’t. Yes she is. No, she isn’t.) Then YAY! CLAP! Here she cooooomes! STOP CLAPPING NOW. (Okay? Is it just me? This woman is drunk…AND she has “I just needed a little nap” hair in the back. But that’s okay. The back doesn’t get Air Time.)

Our 4 esteemed judges are introduced, then one of them, Karen DeMasco, pastry chef at Robert DeNiro’s restaurant gets in the kitchen with The Martha and they set about to making a Butterscotch Pie. Don’t test the caramel with your finger, Martha tells us (well, bloody hell, M, it’s 300 degrees, that’s a given.) or you’ll end up with scars all over your hands just. like. her. (Why did it take her so many times to figure that out? I think she has no Pavlovian responses.)  It is also at this point, Big M tells us, for no reason whatsoever, that she was in her office floor doing yoga positions before the show.  However, I may have mis-heard that, and she MAY have said Jaeger positions.  Does Jaeger even come in a keg? Hmmm. That could explain the hair thing. I won’t tell you what my sister called it. It’s not a nice word to say out loud.

Anyway, the rest of the show proceeds at an almost wormhole in time pace, and the judges continue eating a bite or two of each and every one of the 170 pies. (Hey! That’s cheating! They are picking up the pies and looking underneath to see who made them! Something is smelling fishy in Chelsea and it ain’t the yoga positions if you get my drift. Something’s brewing…) By the way, the Martha is eating her fool ass off over there. Double dipping. It’s NOT a good thing. But anyway.

Then there is a segment where 5 pies are brought to the table to be discussed.

Fork, fork, forkity fork.  Martha makes a small racial comment to a little Asian girl in the front row, suggesting that her Apple Pie was probably very difficult to transport all the way from…Asia. Dear Lord. That girl lived in Queens and took the Subway to the studio. Her apples came from Whole Foods. God knows, there are NO ASIAN LOOKING AMERICANS in AMERICA. They all come here from ASIA. On a plane. With Fuji apple pies.  That little clip may be edited. You’d see me in that one, as I was in view behind Miss Fuji Queens. Orange sweater, scarf, blondish and fat. You’ll see.

Then she asks for Marjorie. Who is Marjorie?? asks the Martha.


I swear, there is the sound of someone pulling the string on her Chatty Cathy Doll and all of a sudden, IV Drip Granny from the waiting room is 4 feet 8 inches of No Doze and Red Bull, squealing about how much she loves candy and toffee and Pecan Pie and Crisco. It was perhaps the scariest thing I have witnessed in New York to date. The rest of us, well, we were holding back giggles, as Happy Man Billy hadn’t told us we were allowed to laugh, and besides, he was too busy not peeing in his pants himself to tell us what to do. The whole staff was in complete Sweet Jesus Mode. “Where did that woman COME from??” they wondered? She was on her death bed 5 minutes ago! And then, her Chatty Cathy string runs out and back down she sits, meow, meow, meoooow.

Was it any surprise that in segment 7, our final segment, that Grandma Methuselah was declared the winner? Um, no. Come to find out, she’s been on The Tonight Show several times. Rosie. Conan. Numerous radio shows.  And that’s just the Talkies, people.  God knows what all she did back in the days before motion pictures.You see, according to her website where she promotes her cookbook, she has won over 2500 Ribbons for her pies. Twenty. Five. Hundred.  Let me explain to you the gravity of that.

That is one pie PER WEEK,  EVERY WEEK, for 50 years.  But you see, there aren’t county and state fairs every week of the year. So, perhaps she enters 10 contests a summer, during fair season. That would be A LOT.  That would put this dear old lady at just about 250 years old.  There may even be pictures of her in Lascaux.  (Google it, folks, it’s a funny reference that only makes sense if your parents spent a small fortune on your Art History degree.)

She looks pretty good for her age.  See for yourself on Monday, when you are first introduced.  Then see her again on Tuesday, when she and The Martha make her Pecan Toffee Pie.  I’m not saying it was rigged. I’m not saying the woman was pre-determined. I bet she can make a mean pie. She might even be the person who invented pie for all I know.  I haven’t made 1% of the amount of pies that she has.  I am also not immortal, nor do I have a long elastic string hanging out of my Spanx that needs pulling every so often to wind me back up, but I hope to one day. Yes, one day, that could be me.

Seriously though, we had no real Martha time. Kind of a let down, as the show ran so late that she had to run off to her Radio Show (or to the liquor cabinet or both).  Normally, they say, you get to ask her a few questions. Not that I had anything to ask. She’s kind of frightening with that perfect posture and 6 foot tall stance. She’s a giant, I tell you. Really quite a presence.  With presents! We each were given DeMasco’s cookbook, a nice Pyrex Pie server carrying case, and a cool pie crust cutty outty thingy. Oooh, and Chocolate. And 3 kinds of hand lotion, because hello? That makes sense.

By the way, both my sister and I are itching to make the Butterscotch Pie that was featured on the show. It smelled like heaven! Unfortunately for her, it is an Ice Box Pie, and she has no Ice Box. She does however have an X-Box, but getting an entire pie in that thing is going to take some effort… And who knows if it will even set once she DOES get it in there.

I feel sure there are lots of things I am leaving out.  Oooh, like the time when we had to do a retake because Sexy McDenim Manager told Big M that she should just “read what it says on the Teleprompter, it sounds better,” and Big M nearly went postal. Yeah, that was cool. And the…Pomegranate Pie Lady. Dear Lord, please, for the sake of that poor woman, let them edit that out. But because I am NOT National Television, just in case they DO edit it out, here’s the run down.

We were told the WINNER. We were even told the 4 runners up. Everyone else? The other 165 Pies? We had no clue where we stood on a scale of 1 to 10.  All except Pom Pie.

“Who made the Pomegranate Pie?” asks the Martha.
A little hand goes up.
“It would have been delicious, but it was RUNNY. Not Good.”
Damnation. A little head hangs. “I’m sorry.”
“Yes, not good.”

Oh. My. Lord.  This woman was called out by the Martha. And made a fool of. Poor thing.  She should chat with Grandma Yoda. I bet she’d know what went wrong.  I mean, she did bring Pomegranates to America when she came over from Gondwana. She. Would. Know.
And that, my friends, is the true story of the day I went to The Martha Show. I bet I’m never asked back.
Stay tuned for more about my Big Apple trip and the meeting of fellow blogger Martha of CherrySpoon and my new buddy Gail, The Tough Cookie. It was one heck of a good time.  Also, stay tuned for a Pizza Hut Update.  It just keeps getting better. Until then, have a great weekend!!

truffle surprise mini cakes

This weekend, although swamped (yay!) with cake orders, I needed to pull together a yummy dessert to take to a friends house. We’re talking just a couple of hours of leeway, so there was no time for digging through recipes…but I wanted something decadent and memorable.  We don’t always have time for complicated around here, and I imagine we aren’t the only ones who face the dreaded time crunch every so often.

So, I resorted to Betty Crocker. She’s my little box buddy.  I pulled out a box of Devils Food cake and went to work on it.  Don’t worry, I made my own adjustments and additions, and because I am feeling nice, I’ll give you the recipe at the end of the post.

I poured the prepared batter into my paper brioche cups (you could certainly use cupcake liners) and then baked them off until barely done. Once I could handle them, I cut out a piece from the top about halfway into the cake, and pushed half of a Lindt Lindor Truffle inside.  Some were White Chocolate, some Dark, some Milk, but each cake got half of a truffle. You never knew which flavor you were going to get until you bit into it…so, Surprise! What a great reason to keep eating them!  (Sorry – I am getting ahead of myself, but I do that a lot, don’t I?)  After I put the truffle inside, I replaced the cake top that I had cut out and stuck the prepared cakes back into the still warm oven for a couple of minutes just to let it melt in a bit.

For icing, I winged it.  But oh, what a wing! I melted down 2 of each type of truffle in the microwave and allowed it to cool a little. In the meantime, I beat 2 sticks of butter until well creamed and soft, added about 1/3 cup of heavy cream and beat for another 5 minutes, then poured in the melted truffles and beat it again for about 5 minutes.  After that was all mixed, I added 2 Tablespoons of Godiva Liqueur, a teaspoon of vanilla, and about a cup of powdered sugar and allowed that to beat for another 5 minutes.  i tasted as I went, and you should too, just to get the rich flavor that you want. I was going for kind of whippy and light, with a hint of rich, expensive undertones, if that makes any sense.  It worked!

I piped this icing on top of the cakes, in horrible fashion, as I was in a hurry and my good piping tip was recently ruined in our garbage disposal by an unnamed two year old that lives in my house.  Then I drizzled warm chocolate ganache over them for a nice little effect.

Verdict? These were awesome.  The cake was just the right amount of cakiness, the truffles were perfectly gooey. The icing I could eat with a spoon, and have, if you must know the truth.  I would make these again in a heartbeat.  So, give it a shot if you are wanting to impress but haven’t got time for both baking and a nice hot shower.  Sometimes, something’s gotta give. (That means, make these and go to your friend’s house clean, okay?)

Truffle Surprise Mini Cakes

For the cakes:

• 1 Box Betty Crocker Devils Food Cake
• 1 Stick melted Butter
• 1/2 cup milk
• 3/4 cup water
• 3 eggs
• 1 Box cheesecake pudding

Preheat oven to 350F.  Combine all ingredients and beat for 2 minutes.  Pour into paper brioche cups or cupcake liners. bake for 18-22 minutes.  Remove from oven.

*At this point, you will add 1/2 Lindor Truffle to the inside of each cake, then return to still warm (but off) oven for 2 minutes.  Top with the above Truffle Icing once cooled, and drizzle with warm chocolate ganache or, if in a pinch, chocolate syrup.

 

On a side note, I had a special order for a Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer charm from my Etsy Shop. I love it so much I made one for myself, too – cute, huh?  I love having it on my keychain! Let me know if you need one too! (Hey – it’s under $5!)

  

Have a great week, everyone…I’m in the kitchen today making my Martha Stewart Competition Pie, and leaving for New York on Wednesday …so wish me luck!

oh, pizza hut, you shouldn’t have. really. i mean that.

In case you are a blogger, like myself, you probably realize that weekends do not really have great traffic. It’s a fact of life…people have more time to play on the internet when someone is paying them to be doing something else. Something important, like designing a building. Or keeping dangerous criminals behind bars. Or curing the H-one, N-one, which I affectionately have termed the “Honey Noney” (get it? Hunny Nunny? H1N1? Whatever. I think it’s funny and that’s all that matters here, anyway.)

So, back to traffic. Most bloggers save their really great posts for Monday or Tuesday.  I do that if I have something good. I see it all the time, so I don’t really feel too bad about it. Blogging is an actual job to many people, myself included, and we gotta get our money somewhere.  But today, dear readers, you are in for a real treat. No, it isn’t exactly food related, but it does, in fact, involve food.

Bad food.

I used to work at Pizza Hut. I did! It was my first “real job” and I was glad to have it. (On a side note, that’s how I met Jon. He started working there in Delivery the same week I started. Kismet, or some crap like that, I guess. Lucky for him I only had 3 current boyfriends and he had a really great butt.)  Anyway, I was a waitress, and to be a gal in high school, the money was pretty good.  Back then, in our town, Pizza Hut was IT. As in, the place to be. Friday nights, after home football games? You couldn’t even get in the door. We rocked that Pizza Hut and man, were times ever good. I mean, except for the part that we worked at Pizza Hut.

So, over the years, other restaurants moved into our little town. Pizza Plus did some damage. Queens did some more. Don’t even get me started on the Chinese or TWO Mexican places.  Imagine, if you will, a Ghosttown Pizza Hut. A newly remodeled, cute little Hut that managed to get it’s Beer taken away because of poor management (and a slew of drugs running through the back but that’s another story) and no one to eat there.

Jon and I had our fill of The Hut during the years we were employees.  It’s fine if YOU are the one making the food…not so fine if you are relying on someone earning minimum wage to make it for you. Just saying. Think before you complain, people, your food is in the hands of underpaid teenagers who still hate authority and they just want to play the jukebox with your Children’s Network quarter donations when you finally leave. How I forget this I do not know…and one Tuesday Night, in a lapse of good judgment, I phoned in an order.

Tuesdays are called 2 Fer Tuesdays.  Back in the day, it used to mean Buy One, Get One FREE. Not anymore. It’s Buy a Large at an insane price, get a medium with one crappy topping for free. But hell, I was already on the phone with the girl, so I went with it. My order?

• One Large PAN Meat Lovers
• Free Medium Pan Extra Cheese

Total? I don’t know.  A lot.

So I picked up the food when they told me to and carried it back to my folks place.

In the boxes? A Thin Meat Lovers with very little meat, and a burned up THIN Sort of Cheese Pizza that Seven carried around with his greasy little fingers smacking on furniture because he couldn’t bite through it. Nor could I, mind you, but I spared the sofa.

So I call the next day, after I had cooled off a bit.

“Um, I can’t refund you any money…your bad pizza was your Free One”

Hmmm. Oookkkaay, then.

That manager didn’t know I had a big mouth blog. That manager also didn’t know I knew how to contact the Pizza Hut Headquarters. Oh,I did. I went there.  Over a pizza.

So, 6 weeks later I get a letter in the mail. This letter. From the District Manager, who, by the way, was the same District Manager in 1992. I bet he’s still fat and lazy.

As you can see, no Pizza Hut letterhead, just a piece of white paper.  And Handwritten even. Thanks so much for taking the time out of your busy day to WRITE me a letter, Mr. Manager. Wow.

In case you have a hard time reading the picture, let me type it up for you, grammar and all, misspellings and all, as well as my play-by-play…

Mrs. Tough, (really, that’s what is says. Mrs. Tough. Guess he was thinking about my pizza.)

I apoligize for the problen with the pizza hut in Pearisburg. I have spoke with the crew in Peaisbug & they understand where they went wrong. I agion apoligez and I hope not to loose you (loose me? really?) as the valuble coustoner you am.

Thank you, H W.

And that’s it. He kindly supplied me with a coupon for a free Medium One Topping pizza, which I have yet to redeem. Lucky for me (yay!) it’s only good in THIS Pizza Hut District. I may opt to just eat the coupon with a little bit of grease on it.  I know I can bite though THAT. And it won’t be laced with the Hunny Nunny, either. I think.

Thanks, Pizza Hut. Really.

You just gave me something to post on a weekend.

buttercream millennium falcon cake

The fact that I, Susan Whetzel, am giving a tutorial on a cake blows my mind.

The fact that it is a Millennium Falcon cake is even more mind blowing.  I’ve never even watched Star Wars.

If you are here looking for a true replica, to scale, with working parts and lights and robots, you’ve come to the wrong place.  You should try Ace of Cakes for that, but expect to pay several thousand dollars.  Did you know that to even order a cake, no matter what the size, their fees start at one THOUSAND dollars? Wowza.

This cake, to keep it inexpensive for my client, was made entirely of buttercream.  The only piece of fondant on it is the little gun on top.  It is not to scale. It is not exact. It is based on the Millennium Falcon. And according to my Twitter Friends (thanks, y’all!) it is a success.

To start making this cake, you’ll need to bake a 12 inch round.  This one was chocolate.  Once baked and cooled, remove it from the pan.  Here it gets a little scary – you need to cut it. Just take a serrated knife and trim, following the picture guides.

Now, before securing the extra pieces with icing to hold them on, you will need to divide the MAIN CAKE  in half horizontally.  On your cake board, place a little bit of your buttercream to hold the cake securely. Place one layer of you cake on the cake board. Now fill in with your extra cake pieces to shape the Falcon.  Use the buttercream to get them to stick. Don’t worry about making it perfect, it will be fine once iced. You just want it to have the right shape.  Now, dam the edges of your Main Cake. If not using a filling, you can skip the dam and just do an entire layer of buttercream at this point. I filled mine with a thick layer of chocolate mousse and candy bars, so I needed the protection of the buttercream dam.   

Now, carefully put the top layer of your main cake on.  Phase one complete!

Now you need to ice it.  If you aren’t careful, you’re going to get lots of crumbs in it. So be careful! It is best to pipe on a thick layer of buttercream to the entire cake – more icing than you will need is better. You can always scrape the extra off as you go, but if you start with too little, you’re taking a rick of pulling the cake into it. You don’t want that! So, pipe on the icing, then with a small offset spatula, go to work smoothing the surface down.  Try to make a hump in the center front and also on the side arm, but it isn’t imperative, I don’t think. Make sure to reserve some extra icing for your piping! You’ll need enough to keep white and then some to tint gray & black.  Once it’s iced, chill it for a little bit, it will make it easier on you. While it is chilling, prepare a little bit of black icing, and a little bit of gray. Place each one in a piping bag fitted with a 2 or 3 tip. You’ll also need a bag of the white icing fitted with a 2 or 3 as well. Take the cake out, and get to piping! I won’t step by step you through the piping process, but I will offer you a few notes…

The most prominent features are what makes this looks like a Millennium Falcon.  The 6 circles on the back. The big circle in the center. The radiating lines that come off of the center. I used lots of tiny little lines and dots to fill in the rest, as you can see.  For mine, I used amber colored sprinkles to dirty it up a bit (It’s been flying through space, after all, and I don’t know if the Stormtroopers are all that much into cleanliness.) I also used RedHots and red jimmies for the few red areas on the center portion and where they appear around the back.  I scattered some silver dragees just to add a little more dimension.  The sides of this cake? Just a little bit of line and dot piping. I was not at all accurate, nor did I attempt to be. I think it is the shape and the prominent details that make this recognizable. Be prepared to spend at least a couple of hours just piping details, especially if you haven’t done much decorating. Don’t go overboard, though!  This particular cake isn’t about perfection!

If anyone has any questions at all, please don’t hesitate to email me.  I had so many people holding my hand over the past few months, that it’s time for me to pay it forward!

Have a great weekend everyone!

this post is about books. weird books, mostly.

Sorry kids, but you wont be finding a recipe here today.

I have issues.

But I need to do a book review so that you know I have been keeping up with my goal of 52 Books in 52 Weeks.  Before I delve into the book I just finished, I want to let you in on a little secret, just in case you didn’t know it.

Some books suck.

Just because you can put a pen to paper does NOT mean you have a voice that needs to be heard.  What blows my mind even more is that some books of suckage actually get through several editors and publishers and really become a novel. In Print. For Sale.  And then some dumbass, hugely unaware (or a freak of nature themselves) purchases said book. I rant, I rant.  But here’s the exact book situation I mention…

In 2002, Jon and I went on another looong excursion. First to Venice, then through Tuscany, then to Paris, where we caught a plane to Kenya and stayed a couple of weeks.  Both of us were sick in Italy. Jon had it first, then I did.  It was bitter cold in the middle of January, so not very condusive to getting well. Anyway, we ended up staying at this B&B located in the outerwalls of Lucignano.  The room was fantastic. Our bed was gigantic and piled full of the heaviest blankets ever to be crafted in the 13th century.  We had a dining area, a little kitchen, the works, you see, but our televison got one partially English station – MTV. The only song ever played on it was Nicole Kidman and Robbie Williams singing that old Sinatra song. At least I think Sinatra sang it. “and if we go someplace to dance I know that there’s a chance you won’t be leaving with me.…something stupid, like I love you…”  Sinatra??

Moving on…There were books in the room. Left behind by other travelers, I imagine.  I left all of the novels I had read thus far in the trip, and I picked up one to work on. It looked like it had been perused several times, so I started reading.

Hmm. Weird.

Not like, I bet that man will end up being the bad guys brother weird, or ooh, her hair is realllly pink weird, but HORSE weird. And by horse weird I mean there were horses in this book that were masquerading as humans. Clothing. Driving. Talking. I kid you not. Once I figured out that the main character had backaches from driving and walking because she was a freaking HORSE, I put the stupid thing down. Like, 60 pages into the crapass book! I never put books down. Ever. But this one really made me mad. Can you tell??

I’m thinking the book was British. I can’t even determine how to Google it because the whole premise is just so…so…asinine. Horsenine?  But if you ever run across it? Keep on running.

I did pick up a great book one time in Thailand. It was used, and i bought it from a vendor on the side on a little passageway in Koh Phi Phi.  The name of it was Go. Again, British. I would LOVE to have a copy of it again, but I managed to destroy my copy in the, um, ocean. It happens.  It’s about a guy who makes off with a crapload of his boss’s money and travels around. He meets up with a guy and screws him over, and also  girl in Japan or Hong Kong who is working as a call girl/escort…and there’s a catch at the end about a photo and a cow…I know, bizarre sounding but it was a great read.  I am just hoping one of my UK readers will be Oh Hey! I know that book! And find it for me. I can’t seem to locate it anywhere at all. I just know it was called Go. Help?

Okay. Enough memory lane.  I just finished reading Lakeshore Christmas by Susan Wiggs, thanks to the folks at MotherTalk.  It’s just been released, and I was into it in a big way.  I found the characters to be well developed and likable, albeit somewhat predictable.

The premise involves a “she doesn’t know she’s cute” librarian who is about to lose her library and a has been child star there to assist her with the town Christmas Pageant. Not your likely pairing, but it works.  Throughout the story we are introduced to several local townspeople, all with stories of their own.  It was such an easy read, and this is the perfect time of year to get a copy. Foodies – you’ll like this feature…They had a cookie exchange in the book, and in the back, you’ll find several great recipes for cookies inspired by the characters.  I have yet to try any of them, but so many sound yummy!  You can pick up a copy of the book here…I hope you’ll enjoy it!



By the way, I wrote a book once. I never quite finished it, but still, it was like, 200 or so pages. Anyone interested in reading a digital copy? (that is, if I can locate it again?) it about a girl who mistakenly ends up with a LOT of cash and has to hide out in Italy. There’s new love, old love, guns, art…it’s full of, well, words. Let me know. I’ll email it to you!

Baking with tots…trick or treat brownies

I am a mother.

Not a great one, mind you, but I am still a mom.  I also tend to get annoyed when my little boy, only two years old, is underfoot when I am in the kitchen trying to bake.  It seems no matter which corner of the kitchen I am in, he’s right there. Right. There.  Normally, I fuss, and shoo him back to the living room, where toys abound and Yo Gabba Gabba is blaring, but he inevitably ends up back underfoot. I know I can’t be the only one that this happens to.  You, too?

Even though I had cake orders to work on on Monday, I changed up my attitude.  Why not let him help?  My cake was baked and was cooling, the icing was made and ready whenever I was.  So I had a little downtime.  Here’s our conversation. (Yes, I talk to him as if he is an adult, learning a new language, never baby talk. I will repeat whatever I need to say as many times as he needs to hear it, and I will also ask him to repeat anything I don’t understand instead of prompting him. I think it has reaaalllly expanded his vocabulary. Just saying. No, I am not an expert…this has just worked for US.)

“Seven?  Do you want to make Daddy something to eat?

“Uh huh.Yeeees.”

“What do you want to make your Daddy?”

“Brownies. Biiiig brownies.”

“Brownies?  Okay.  Cakey or gooey?”

“Gooey! And Candy!”

The child is a genius, I tell you.  He probably didn’t mean for us to cut up lots of his Halloween candy bars, but that’s what we did.  What a fantastic way to get rid of that bucket full of sin! Seriously?…Genius.

For our recipe, I simply used a  brownie recipe that I knew was pretty fudgy on it’s own, but added in lots of chocolate syrup and reduced the amount of water.  You could always use a box mix if you wanted and get the same effect – it’s all about being together with your child.

The very first thing I did was put him in a little blue cowboy apron Mom made.  Too cute!  He wanted me to wear an apron, too, which I of course did, as I am rarely in the kitchen without one. Then I let him pick out the spoon he wanted to use.  He really seemed to get a kick out of being allowed to use “Mommy Spoons”…and I was happy to oblige.

I measured out our needed ingredients, as well as cracked the eggs (which he thought was hilarious for some reason and cackled), but I let him mix all of it himself. He poured each of the ingredients into the mixing bowl, and he stirred the entire batch up on his own. I did incorporate what little bits he missed, but he really did a great job on his own.  Oh, and the syrup?  He loved squeezing in the syrup. You’d have thought I hung the moon.

Once mixed, I opened up several of the trick or treat candy bars – a couple of Twix, some 3 Musketeers, some Hershey Bars – whatever looked good – then chopped it up.  The Little Man scooped most of it into the bowl (some didn’t make it past his mouth) and then we stirred again.

I let him spray the loaf pan, and then I poured the batter in.  I let him push the buttons to set the timer – 1 hour and 10 minutes, he licked the spoon a lot,  and then we went off to nap.

As soon as he woke up, his first question was “Where Daddy’s Brownies? I lick ‘em.” And he told everyone that we encountered that afternoon that he made brownies. And that he licked the spoon.

To be honest, I didn’t realize that he was that adept.  I imagined a huge mess, and a fight on my hands each step of the way.  So I was thrilled to see how well he did and how much he got into it. It was a great way for us to spend time together, and I am so glad I took the time to try.

Believe it or not, I have a few memories of my very early childhood…some as early as 18 months old.  And I wonder, will Seven have similar memory retention?  If so, do I really want his memory to be of me being aggravated and short with him for being a toddler? Or, will he remember our time together making Daddy Brownies?

I really hope it’s the brownies.  I’m going to keep working on that.

I hope if nothing else, this post has encouraged you to take a time out and try baking with your little one. Yes, I know it’s a bit of a hassle, but it really does mean so much.  They want to be LIKE YOU.  How long will that last? How many other people do you know that look up to you that much?  Please give it a shot…I think you’ll be glad you did.

Do you have special things you do with your toddler in the kitchen? If so, I would love to know.  Please share!  Oh yeah…If you want a toddler apron, tell me! We have lots of cute fabrics and the kids look so precious in them! If anyone is interested, I will list a couple in my Etsy Shop. Say the word! 

Trick Or Treat Brownies

Ingredients

• 4 ounces unsweetened chocolate
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup all purpose flour
• pinch salt
• 1/4 cup Chocolate Syrup
• 6-8 Snack Sized Candy Bars

Preheat oven to 325F.

Melt Chocolate and butter in small saucepan over low heat until smooth. Remove from heat and allow to cool for 5 minutes.

In a bowl, mix together sugar, eggs, and vanilla, and mix until well combined

Add flour, salt, chocolate syrup and chocolate mixture and blend well.

Chop up candy bars and add to mixture.

Pour into prepared (greased) loaf pan.

Bake for 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes. These are very gooey brownies, but the edges will be thick and set and the center, though gooey, will hold it’s shape when cut.  Brownies are done when the batter no longer wiggles when shaken.  It is better to pull a little early versus leaving them in too long. Enjoy!

Winners Announcement, hooray!

So...you've been wondering who the winner of my last couple of giveaways are, have you?
Well, wait no more.

The winner of the Tablespoon.com giveaway was...Nutmeg Nanny!  Congratulations!

And the winner of the fabulous Healthy Bread in 5 Minutes a Day was...Pink Stripes!  A big congrats to you, too!

Ladies, please click the link on my sidebar to email me your full name and address so that we can get you those prizes!

Thanks to everyone for entering, and stay tunes - I have more giveaways coming shortly!

A Weekend of Cakes

Did everyone have a great Halloween weekend?  I hope so!  I imagine most of you are trolling the net today, trying to find recipes that you can use to rid yourselves of about 14 pounds of random candy.  I just told Jon that I will have to make some brownies and dump in all these candy bars – it’s crazy!

Our weekend has been pretty jam packed.  On Friday it was Jon’s Birthday, so we had a little Italian dinner party for about 12 people, and turned it into a beer tasting as well. So much fun! I, personally, am not a drinker. Not that I am anti-drinking, mind you, it’s just that alcohol is not something I enjoy the taste of.  But while we were in Vermont earlier in October, I picked up a few Woodchuck Hard Ciders.  These are awesome!  Think Asti Spumante mixed with apples or pears. So tasty, and not like beer at all.  Try it sometime – I really think you may like it!

Moving on…Cakes.  Since I made a chocolate genoise last weekend for my man, I went with his other cake favorite this time…Pumpkin and Cream Cheese.  So, to follow up a dinner of Chicken Tortellini and Gnocchi Sorrentina, we had big helpings of pumpkin cake.  The next day, Halloween, we were expected at my folks house for a little birthday celebration for my nephew, Nate, who shares Jon’s birthday.  I stayed up late on Friday nite finishing Nate’s cake – a 4 layer Red Velvet cake, topped with a big square of the Pumpkin Cake to make the clown’s body.  While it wasn’t perfect, it was cute…and something I may try to make again in the future.  Right now, everything is a bit of a learning experience when it comes to the 3D aspects, but I am really enjoying it!

On Sunday, I had another cake order due.  The details were pretty much left up to me, as the client requested only that the cake be chocolate, the icing be cream cheese buttercream, and that it have a soccer theme.  So, I went with a 3 layer Devils Food and cream cheese buttercream tinted light blue, and dressed it up with fondant grass and fondant soccer balls. I hope the birthday boy liked it!

On Monday I will be baking another cake order, this time for a little girl who “likes purple, pink, hearts and stars.” It, too, is a small cake, a square, and to be quite honest, I haven’t figured out quite what I want to do yet.  Any thoughts you’d like to share before I get started?  I’d love opinions! (yes, really!)

Until next time, have a great Monday!