Gimme S’More!

Last month Matthew had to work in Austin and I decided to go out and visit him for a few days. While Matt worked, I toured the Capitol Building, checked out museums, and found a great independent bookstore. We had some awesome BBQ, and some fairly edible Tex-Mex. But the best thing we found was Sugar Mama’s Bakeshop. It is a tiny, cute little bakery with some quite delectable treats. They have a great assortment of cupcakes, dessert bars, pies, and made to order specialty cakes.

To satisfy our sugar craving, we grabbed a few cupcakes and my husband decided he needed to try a S’mores bar too. And OH MY GOODNESS, it was divine. In fact, I had to replicate the masterpiece this week. We were invited to a BBQ over the weekend, and I thought they would be the perfect treat!

I started with a graham cracker crust: finely crushed grahams, butter, dark brown sugar, and baked it for about 10 minutes. Then I made a thicker ganache, with a bag of semisweet chocolate chips, and a cup of heavy cream. I think next time i will use even less cream, to thicken the chocolate even more. It was really melty though, giving even more of an allusion of the real deal s’more.

I topped the whole thing with homemade marshmallow. It was surprisingly easy to make, and ridiculously addicting. I used a recipe from Alton Brown. He is a genius, and his recipes always seem to work for me. His lemon curd is excellent!

After letting the marshmallows dry out for a few hours, I browned the tops with my brand new culinary torch (thanks love)!

The trick to cutting these was dusting the knife with powdered sugar before each cut so that the marshmallow didn’t stick and result in the bar falling apart.

The bars were a big success.  At least, Matt and I liked them! And we got rid of most of them at the BBQ. I love being able to try new recipes and replicate good things that I have tasted before. Now I just have to figure out what to make this week, since we don’t have any birthdays or BBQs to go to!

Chocolate, Chocolate, Chocolate

My baby sister turned 18 last Saturday! I can hardly believe it. She’s legally an adult! What happened to that cute little cherub of a baby?

(Whine, whine, whine…I should move on.)

So, for her birthday I asked what kind of cake she wanted. Her reply was, “Chocolate cake, chocolate mousse filling and chocolate ganache. Oh, and some raspberries in the mousse.” I was so proud (She takes after me, the chocoholic!). But she gave no specifics on decor. I asked, and asked what she wanted it to look like, but I got nothin’. Oddly enough, she did request a certain cake plate. So I decided to let that inspire the decor for the cake. 

For the cake, I used a basic chocolate cake recipe, but ended up cutting out some sugar when I added it to the egg whites, because the batter was SOOOO sweet already. The cake was really tasty, so don’t be afraid to tweak things a bit. The chocolate mousse filling is the best part. Its not really mousse, but whipped cream with melted chocolate added to it. I found the recipe once from Tyler Florence (I think), and it was so simple in comparison to all the others, I went with it instead. In my adapted version, I used:

1 pint whipped cream

1/2 bag semisweet chocolate chips

1 tsp vanilla

Melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over boiling water, not letting the water touch the bowl.  Add vanilla, and let cool. Meanwhile, whip cream until it is rather stiff, but not butter!  Add 1/4 of cream to chocolate, and mix to lighten up. Then fold it into the rest of cream. When I filled each of the layers, I topped the mousse with some fresh raspberries. That’s it! So delicious! 

I decided to whip the ganache, so that i could coat the cake well when frosting it. It worked great, and I loved the finish.

For decor, I used small edible beads in pink, yellow and blue to match the cake plate. I also made a fondant bow, which took a ridiculously long time for some odd reason. I added the bow, as it is the best feature on the cake plate. I mean, really, look how cute it is! 

The cake was a success, and I am still with the whole baby sister all grown up thing. Clearly, I have issues with birthdays, and numbers, and all that change stuff!

 

Happy Birthday Sister! Love you so very much! 

 

Happy Birthday Matthew

September is birthday month. My husband also had a birthday, and my sister’s is tomorrow. Sorry, the first few posts with be surrounded by the “B” word.

For Matthew’s birthday, he wanted pie instead of cake. Pie, really? He says not much of a cake man, although whenever I make cake, or cupcakes, they quickly vanish.  But, being his “B” day, he gets whatever he wants. Unfortunately, he was pretty vague about what type of pie he wanted. I did, however, get him to narrow down his pie choices to three: chocolate cream, apple, and blackberry. So being the good wife that I am, I made all three. Now, I didn’t make three huge pies. That would be ridiculous. Instead I made mini pies.  I found some small cute tins that were the perfect serving size! 

I started with the crust my mom taught me how to make. She makes the best crust. Ask around. People will most likely use butter or shortening, or a mixture of the two. She uses butter flavored Crisco. The recipe for one crust is:

1/3 cup plus 1 tbs. butter flavored Crisco

1 cup flour

1/2 tsp. salt

2-3 tbs. cold water

Like any other recipe, you combine the dry ingredients, cut in the shortening and then add water, one tablespoon at a time, ensuring that the crust doesn’t become too wet.

For the fillings, I winged it.  Apples, cinnamon, sugar. Blackberries, sugar, a bit of vanilla (cause I like it), and a touch of cinnamon. I always use cornstarch as a thickener. For me, it works better than flour. 

For the chocolate cream, I googled. I have only ever had a chocolate cream pie where the cook used a packaged pudding mix. GROSS! I don’t believe in packaged products, ever!  I found a couple of recipes that I thought might work well, and then mixed them together. Basically, it was your standard pudding recipe, but decadent and delicious.

I prebaked the crusts for the chocolate cream, while filling and covered the apple and blackberry.  I, of course, topped the chocolate with fresh whipped cream and a sprinkle of cocoa powder. Yum!

We decided that the chocolate cream was our favorite! Who can resist whipped cream? I sure cant!

Birthdays

I am now officially a quarter of a century. And for some reason, this sounds really old. I know its not, but it sounds like it. The word CENTURY… its just daunting. And quarter, that’s the BIG coin.  Its just a bad combination.  The importance of this random feeling old, money, long times tangent is that it resulted in this very blog.

I was hours into turning the ripe old age of 25 when I started contemplating the things that I had, or had not done. I thought about what made me happy, and what I could do to make this year better than the last. So I made a list. On the list was baking. I LOVE to bake. Its therapeutic for me. Bad days become baking days. Baking days are the best days. So, once a week, I will bake, ensuring at least 52 fabulous days a year (plus more for the days following in which the goodies are devoured). But I also decided that I should share my baking excursion. Thus, the Goody Goddess blog was created.

Now, the title was chosen that I might one day be a true Goody Goddess. I am a decent baker, and I love all sweet treats. But I don’t feel that I have quite reached the status of goddess. Hopefully, for the first birthday of the Goody Goddess there will be plenty of divine treats to share!