baking in bellevegas with a mangiacupcake.

hi-hat cupcakes and watermelon cookies. 

(originally from april 14th 2011)

greetings, hungry life-forms. i have returned! my absence was the result of studying for exams and spending a week at home. which i have loathed and loved, respectively.

so let’s get back to the kitchen, shall we? *cue the outrage of women’s rights groups*

i know i’ve made a lot of dinners on here. so i wanted to make sure everyone knew that i wasn’t a one-trick pony or any other form of horse and do something out of the ordinary: desserts.

also out of the ordinary: i was cooking at home. which means unlimited counter-space, electric mixers and free food. oh, and a dish-washer. no, not like an appliance. it’s more of a human being. some call them mothers, i call mine consuela. 

now, before i could start cooking for the blog while in bellevegas, i had to go and get my dearest mangiacake friend, tanner.

mangiacake: (n) a derogatory term used by italians to describe individuals of anglo-descent, who are known to eat a great deal of generic, unexciting foods with a white flour and sugar base. such individuals are known to be ignorant of the wonders of italian cooking and deserve your pity. 

anyways, tanner has been bugging me to be featured in the blog - obviously for all the glitz and glam that comes with food-blog fame. so i made the 20 minute drive to stinky old trenton and picked up him up and the culinary quest began.

after looking through my cookbooks, we had found no desserts of interest, so we turned to our lord and saviour, the interweb. sorry, jc.

recipe 1 - hi-hat cupcakes.

found this recipe on a food blog called bakerella - she’s fantastic. basically it’s cupcakes that have been iced and dipped in chocolate. yes, dipped in chocolate. clearly, i looked no further. 

step 1: bake your favourite kind of cupcakes. mine are chocolate, because i can identify with them racially. and because chocolate is the female human’s kryptonite. begin by harvesting fresh cocoa from the dominican republic. or buy a mix from walmart for $1. lazies like me will choose option b :)

next, the icing. if you have a kitchenaid mixer, this is super easy. whip up 3 egg whites at the highest possible speed. add some of your favourite extract - if you do not have a favourite extract, you need to sort out your priorities use vanilla. throw in a splash of water and gradually add 3 cups of sugar to the mixer as it whips. the result is a really thick merangue. i whipped my hair back and forth mine for 12 minutes to make sure it was thick enough. it should form stiff peaks. everest-like ones. 

then you pipe it onto your cupcakes. i’m not into all those fancy piping bags - though i am into bag piping. i just put the icing in a ziploc and cut off the corner. works just the same. 

next, let the iced cupcakes cool in the fridge for about an hour. then you dip them in a mixture of cooled melted chocolate chips and a tablespoon of vegetable oil - for shine.

please note: this only applies to cupcakes, do not use vegetable oil to add shine to your hair. the result will be pure grease-head. but hey, at least you’ll fit in at wal-mart :)

anyways, dip it and let the excess chocolate run off.

and that’s it! throw them in the fridge and enjoy! 

we also made some that were just drizzled in chocolate.

reminded me of a frapuccino at starbucks. or as my mother calls them “flappy-shmappy-lappies”. 

these were great! it was like eating a dip cone at dairy queen. only not as cold, we’re not cold people. but honestly, how can you go wrong dipping something in chocolate? unless it’s fish or something weird like that. if you’re doing such things, you have no business in a kitchen.

MOVING ALONG!
recipe 2 - watermelon cookies. 

these were really complicated to make after the ease of a pre-made cupcake mix. there were measurements, rulers and all things mathematical. truly horrifying for lazy language oriented humans such as me. but we made them anyway. as my friend marie will tell you, tanner always gets his way. 

start by making a basic sugar cookie dough. you’ll need 1 1/2 cup of softened butter, 2 cups of sugar, 4 eggs, vanilla extract and 5 cups of flour. mix the wet ingredients first, then gradually add the dry. otherwise you end up with a mess of lindsay lohan proportions. 

next, put aside 1 cup of dough and 1/2 cup of dough. then you start dyeing. may you rest in peace. dye the largest portion of dough pink/red and the 1/2 cup portion green. leave the 1 cup caucasian. put them in the fridge for an hour. play a game of cards while you wait. the game must be phase 10. this is non-negotiable. 

then, roll the pink/red into a 3 1/2 inch log, then roll out the white part into a 8 inches x 3 1/2 inches rectangle. wrap the white around the pink. then roll the green part into a rectangle that is 10 inches by 3 1/2 inches. roll this around the other two. it should look like this: 

the thumbs up is also non-negotiable. you must do this. 

next, slice the dough into thin circles. top with white sesame seeds and black sprinkles. bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. cut them as soon as they come out. here’s what they look like. 

cute, eh? you could use chocolate chips for the seeds for some extra flavour, flava flav. these were good too - if you’re expecting them to taste like sugar cookies. if you’re looking for them to taste like watermelon, not so much. try real watermelon.

well, that’s what was cooking at home this week! 

hope you enjoyed the preview of what the blog will be like once i’ve put rez behind me and returned home for the summer. i’m looking forward to it. so is tanner, who has volunteered to be my sous chef. he will have to suffer the formality of a full interview process - i don’t play favourites, only phase 10. 

thanks for reading :)