Shameful Neglect

My sincerest apologies for not having written bupkis for three months. There are many excuses but the main one is that I'm terribly lazy and frequently run out of steam on things I was previously gung-ho about. Also, I broke yet another camera and I find blog posts to be pretty boring without pictures.


But worry  not, my lovelies, I will be writing more soon.


xo

Snowmageddon 2010

It's finally stopped snowing, though I dare to say it. Two days of non-stop squall, I am starting to feel like I am living in a snow globe. On the plus side, I have two days off of work. On the down side, I have to days off of work. I really like to get paid, and not being able to go to work is quite a downer.


I'm still amazed at the difference between Northern Ontario drivers and Southern Ontario drivers. It's as if the minute even a flake falls from the sky, everyone here panics and starts to drive like they've just learned how. If Snowmageddon happened in Sault Ste. Marie, where I'm from, people would just say "meh", put their Sorels on and carry on about their day. I mean, the only reason I didn't go to work today was because the muffler was falling off our car and I didn't want to lose it on the long drive out to my store. If our store was open tomorrow I would definitely brave the treacherous roadways and get my tush out there. We went to Canadian Tire first thing this morning to get our muffler fixed, we're good to go.


Since I have a whole two days off, I'm going to do some major Christmas baking. I made some shortbread cookies, chocolate and peppermint cookies and chocolate thumbprint cookies the other day but they're pretty much gone. I had an order for 4 dozen cookies last week and I brought a whole whack for the girls at work. I'm going to forage in my cupboards and see what I can make out of the little ingredients I have- after all it's Snowmageddon 2010, not exactly handy for nipping out to the grocery store for some chocolate chips and coconut!


I'll let you know what I come up with.

The Cheescake Adventure

I love cheesecake, or so I thought until I finally made one for myself. It turns out that I like a slice of cheesecake every once in awhile. It's far too rich for daily consumption, although if you asked my sister Tynna she'd be quick to disagree.

Metro had Philadelphia cream cheese buy one get one free so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to made my first real cheesecake- none of that no-bake baloney for me!

I must confess that I found this quite a difficult dessert to make. The mixing and whatnot was easy, as was making the graham cracker crust. I consulted my bible The Joy of Cooking and thoroughly read the section on cheesecakes, paying close attention to the baking methods as I really did not want my cheesecake to crack.


I baked it on a high temperature for 10 minutes as per the instructions, and then for 30 minutes or so on low. I turned the oven off, opened the door and let it cool in the oven, again as per the instructions.


Stupid cake cracked. There was a giant fissure across the top, a veritable San Andreas Fault marring the beauty of my creation. Darn it!I left it in five minutes too long. I lied earlier, it was closer to 45 minutes. I didn't trust my instincts and assumed that I knew more than the experts of Joy of Cooking. I thought that it still looked too wet and jiggly in the middle and let it bake for longer. Turns out that there is a reason they tell you to only bake it until it's firm on the edges and wet and jiggly in the middle- it's cooling in a hot oven, it's going to finish baking then! Duh. Sometimes I am such a dummy.

I disguised the crack with some canned cherry pie filling. I would have preferred chocolate ganache or caramel sauce, but Christopher loooooves cherry pie filling and I couldn't be bothered to make it from scratch. Canned filling it is! Once the topping was on, it completely disguised my mistake and despite the petite snafu, my first cheesecake was quite delicious- light and fluffy, rich and decadent. I brought a few pieces for the girls at work and Chris and I each had two pieces. I gave a third of the cake to Tynna, because she is the real cheesecake lover in this family.

Not bad Shannon, not bad at all.

Making a Boob Cake

My dearest cousin is getting a breast reduction in a few days. She's been waiting years and the day has finally come. She asked me if I could make a boobie cake as she was having a party on Saturday (to which I couldn't attend because I had to work) to say good-bye to her most cumbersome breasts. I am not the best, construction-wise, at making cakes; everything I've done to this point has been pretty basic but I was up to the task of creating my first 3-D cake.


First thing I did was Google "boob cakes" (I Google everything. I can see why it is now considered an actual verb). Some naughty ones popped up, some classy ones, some cute ones. Even one of a naked woman pushing out a baby. I had a good chuckle over that one. Armed with ideas I consulted an old friend, Staci Lawton, on how to bake the "boobs". She had recently done a risque and amazing bachelor cake and is my go-to girl when I don't know how to do something. I bought a Wilton cake pan that is used to make doll cakes, and clown heads and other such things, but makes a perfect set of knockers.


The cake itself baked okay, no major catastrophes. It wasn't as chocolately as I would have liked, I'm still searching for that perfect chocolate cake recipe, but it suited its purpose. I filled the cake with vanilla pudding, whipped up some flesh coloured frosting and stacked those breast-eses on the cake.

You'll notice the left breast is a little lopsided. Just like real ones!


My cousin came to town shortly after I finished the basic construction and frosting of my masterpiece and after a fun evening of babysitting my 3 year old nephew Brady, we returned to my apartment to decorate the cake. I decided on a strapless white bra with pink polka dots because, after all, she would soon be able to wear all those cute little inexpensive bras (and I'll inherit her expensive, structural and functional bras, but that's another story).

As I was decorating, we were also making our way through a litre bottle of wine and my cousin was cleaning her dog-bitten finger. We broke out into song:

The Making a Boob Cake Song

Sung to the tune of "Kill the Wabbit" as sung by Elmer Fudd to the tune of Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries"


Making a boob cake, making a boooob cake, making a boob cake, making a boooob....
Cake.
Making a boob cake, making a boooob cake, cleaning a dog bite, drinking some wiiiine.


You probably had to be there.


The cake was a success, I didn't screw anything up and it made it all the way to the party in Windsor and was enjoyed by all.


I woke up with the worst wine headache of all time. My cousin and I pondered why, at the ages of 28 and 29, we have not learned to alternate water between drinks and pop a Tylenol before going to sleep (who am I kidding? Before passing out cold.)? I guess we'll never learn.

A Little Shamless Self-Promotion

It appears that people are reading my blog (yay!), however, I have no "followers" or "friends" or whatever you'd call it. It makes me feel lonely. I'm pretty technologically stupid, so I don't know how to get "friends" or "followers" or whatever you'd call it, so I am requesting the following things:


1. Advice on how to promote my blog and gather loyal followers (that sounds so creepy!)


2. Followers!


So if you're reading this, please be my friend!

Why You Should Always Ask for a Deposit

* This post was written at the end of August, and I forgot about it, so it never actually got posted until now. Whoopsie.


I have been trying to get this baking business off the ground for quite some time now, however halfheartedly. I printed up some "business cards" from Dollarama but couldn't figure out how to set the margins properly so they are all misaligned. I placed an add on Kijiji in June and never really followed up on it. Set up a Facebook group, but didn't spend too much time promoting it. You know, try to make things happen in the way that I do. So imagine my surprise when the Kijiji add actually worked.


This woman named Shelly called me on Wednesday and asked me if I could bake 3 dozen cupcakes and 5 dozen sugar cookies for Saturday. She apologized for it being last minute, but her original baker canceled on her. Of course I agreed to do it. My first big job!


I spent hours getting this all ready. Sugar cookies take a long time, what with all the rolling out and decorating with royal icing. Not to mention that it's August and neither Tynna nor I have air conditioning. I went over to Tynna's Thursday after work, and she helped me bake the cookies. Brady helped too. After three hours of sweaty baking, the cookies were done. I went home, baked the cupcakes and felt ahead of the game. Friday night, I spent another three hours decorating the cookies. I felt a little panicked, but they all turned out.


I had to work on Saturday, but Chris was ready for Shelly to come pick the baking up. Poor guy had to wait all day for her to arrive, even though she was supposed to be there around 3 or 4. About five o'clock, I called home. She hadn't come to get them yet. I called her, and she said her daughter was on the way. I get home at six. She hadn't come to get them yet. I called her, no answer.


Many messages were left, many minutes spent reserve-directorying her number, trying to get her address. She's unlisted. She had not paid me yet! For a few days I tried to get ahold of her, but she didn't call back or pick up the phone. I was heartbroken. I felt so taken advantage of. Shame on her. I kept thinking. How could someone do something so cruel? I'm a home-based business. I'm not a grocery store, I can't put all this baking on the reduced rack, I was stuck with it. I brought the cupcakes to a party that night, and they were gobbled up. I brought the cookies to work and the girls ate them. At least they didn't go to waste.


The moral of the story is this: While most people are generally good, there are still a lot of arseholes out there who will do things like this to people. As much as I'd like to give her the benefit of the doubt, chances are she's just a jerk who decided to buy her cupcakes from the grocery store at a cheaper price. Fine and dandy, but it would have been nice if she had called me cancel so I didn't waste three days of my time.


I now know that I always have to ask for a deposit before I even crack an egg. I wish I didn't have to, it would be nice to trust people and believe that they'll pay up, but I learned the hard way that wont always happen.


All well, live and learn.

Apparently, I am an Italian Nonna

Bakin' Bread


Yesterday I got to leave work a few hours early and decided to take advantage of a spare afternoon. I've been wanting to try to make bread with my new Kitchenaid mixer (which, by the way, I have named Betty), because why have a heavy-duty piece of kitchen machinery and not try to knead bread with it?


I knew that bread needs to rise, I knew that yeast is what makes it rise. Two things I did not know were: Bread needs about THREE HOURS to rise and yeast smells terrible. Also, when planning to make loaves of bread, it is best to have the adequate number of bread tins that the recipe calls for.  I only have one, so the other loaf had to go in a square pan. I was worried that this would completely ruin the three hours I spent waiting for the bread to rise, but thankfully it didn't. The second loaf just looks kind of rustic.


Now, using a mixer takes a lot of the work out of making bread since the machine does the kneading for you. I've never really used a bread machine before, but I am going to assume that even while making the dough with a mixer, it is still more work than doing it in a bread machine. It is also a very messy job, and took me ages to clean up all the bits of dough that were clinging to practically every surface the bread touched.


A very important lesson that I learned while making bread is this: DO NOT TOUCH THE BREAD AFTER ITS SECOND RISE. Hey, I can't help it. I was curious. It had risen so much, I had to see what it felt like.


The bread promptly deflated. It's okay, it was the wonky one in the square pan and it still turned out. The one in the bread tin worked out well, too. They were delicious and my whole apartment smelled like a bakery.


Makin' Supper


As if making homemade bread wasn't ambitious enough, I also decided that last night was the night I was going to make risotto. There's not much story to this, it's just risotto and anyone can make it if they take the time to do it. I just felt like I should have been wearing a headscarf and apron and had some small children underfoot calling me Nonna.

Tynna's Wedding Cake

I shall just let the pictures speak for themselves. This process was so smooth, so well planned and so well executed that there's little to actually write about.


Except when I told Chris to take great care when he went in the freezer, and he stuck freezer mugs on top of the cakes and squished one. Oh, and when I didn't realize that a chocolate cake needs a gigantic layer of frosting before you put fondant overtop or you can see the brown through the white fondant. Or when I tried to re-use the fondant I took off the chocolate cake, and ripped it and tried to patch it up with squares of fondant and ended up having to do two layers of fondant to cover my messes because I ran out of buttercream. Or when I didn't realize that fondant becomes rock hard in the fridge until it warms up, and as a result had to change my design plan because I couldn't do the quilting effect.


But other than that, piece of cake. Pardon the pun.

P.S. I also made the flowers by hand with gumpaste. I'm quite proud of them.

My (Kitchenaid!) Biggest (Kitchenaid!) Fantasy (Kitchenaid!) Part Two

The day I have been dreaming of has finally arrived. Thanks to the most wonderful Cheryl and Paul Miller, I am now the proud owner of a Kitchenaid stand mixer, with all the fixin's. And it's red! I can honestly say that this has changed my life in the following ways:


1. The red colour makes me feel fancy.


2. The paddle attachment makes mixing so much smoother than beaters.


3. The whisk attachment beats those egg whites into submission.


4. It has a 12 cup capacity bowl and a super high speed motor, so if I feel like whipping up a batch of cupcakes or 20, they're pretty much ready before I even get to the kitchen.


5. The red makes me feel fancy.

The Feta Cheese Quest

I have never tried Feta. I'm afraid of it. Brine makes me uncomfortable. However, I do enjoy that is still firm even though it is swimming in, ugh, brine, and when you take it out, it crumbles. It's a fun cheese. I prefer bocconcini, I think it is the cutest of all the cheeses.


Tynna has been searching for the perfect Feta since I moved to London eight months ago. As I mentioned, I know nothing about Feta, but she asked me which kind she should try and I suggested Silani, since it is such a huge, widely stocked brand. Of course, I was wrong. It sat in her fridge for a really long time, unopened, but since it had an expiry date of March 2011, I assumed it would be safe to eat. So I chopped up some tomato, onion, cucumber and pepper for her Greek salad and opened up the Silani Feta cheese container. Ewwwwww! Mush City. It must have been pre-crumbled and since it was swimming in, ugh, brine, it was more like cottage cheese than Feta.


And thus began the quest.


The Search For the Perfect Feta


I was determined to find the Perfect Feta. I knew it had to exist because we used it at Tazzi's Cafe for our Greek salads. I could not remember what brand we used (though now I remember it was Saputo) so I went the European grocery store down the street thinking they could help me. Micaela and I walked over in the 35 degree heat and since there was only one brand of Feta there, in a gigantic yellow tub for $9.99, I asked the scary female grocery clerk what she suggested. She gave me a quick onceover, determined that I was not a swarthy Greek and said in a thick accent:


"Feta, ah I dun't know." We decided to look around anyways, since imported groceries are my favourite kind. We both almost lost our stomachs, however, when we got to the butcher aisle and saw chicken feet.


We moved on to Metro, figuring that we could definitely find the Perfect Feta there. We were spoiled for choice. There were so many varieties. Cow's milk, sheep's milk, goat's milk. Brick, crumbled, cubed. So many varieties, which to choose? I started to feel overwhelmed and considered taking a grocery store poll a la Anna and Kristina's Grocery Bag, but decided to give the deli a shot instead. I wasn't dressed or made-up enough for a poll.


Thankfully, the deli offered three varieties of Feta: classic Greek, light, and Canadian. I asked the large and intimidating counter lady for one block of each kind. While she was packing it up, I felt a little silly for getting such small quantities of cheese and started to explain why I was making such a weird request. I realized that she wasn't listening to me and my voice trailed off. "She doesn't care..." I said part to myself, part to Micaela, and part to the snotty cow behind the counter. She ignored me, of course, but Micaela got a laugh out of it.


The Outcome: Tynna tried each cheese, and the Canadian version won. Quest complete!