No Frosting Necessary

I don't understand why people would want to frost the hell out of a perfectly good cake. I mean, if the cake itself is good, they why do it? And if you do, why make it so thick? I had a cake once that had saccharine frosting that was layered on so thick that my head felt like it was going to implode from all my blood vessels constricting.

That's my rant for the day I guess. Anyway, on to the main point. I finally bought a cake pan; a 9" Wilton round cake pan. It took me forever to decide to actually buy one and then after that it took another eon for me to select a particular brand. Therefore, I decided to buy the Wilton nonstick 9" round, since they come with lovely handles for easy manipulation. I only bought 1 though since at that point I still wasn't sure if it would be a good choice or not, and about $5-$6, it was worth a risk. When I finally used it to bake a cake, it worked perfectly. It browns the bottom and edges a dark brown, which has great flavor and a firmer, almost crisp, crust. The handles made turning during baking and handling overall a lot easier too. Good surface. With a light run around the sides with a spreader, the cake almost seemed to fall out of the pan.


On to the recipe itself. I used and adjusted a basic One-Bowl Chocolate Cake from Better Homes and Garden's New Cook Book; however, I didn't do it all in one bowl. I just kinda did mine in steps since I don't have an electric mixer. If I did I might have done it all in one bowl...but ya~

For this recipe I had to buy some cocoa powder, so I settled for Dutch processed. The original recipe I followed only called for milk, so I used 2% milk and I added some sour cream, which is supposed to add tenderness (that line sounds kinda weird, doesn't it?). Another thing was that the cake came with a Rocky Road Frosting, which I decided not to try since I don't really like frosting on my cake. Turned out I was right in doing this because it needed no frosting what so ever. It was moist, just sweet enough, and perfect just by itself.


I believe a good cake can hold it's own~ Though it is true frosting makes it more presentation quality. In those cases, I would make a special, mildly sweet, and frost on only a thin layer.

Makes one 9" round layer

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (Dutch processed makes for a darker, less red, cake)
  
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 baking soda (originally: 1/4 tsp)
  
• 1/4 tsp of salt
• 1/2 + 1/8 cup of (2%) milk, room temp
  
• Enough (light) sour cream to make milk total: 3/4 cup (a little over 1 tbsp)
  
• 1/4 cup butter, room temp, and cut into 8 cubes/pieces (originally: margarine)
  
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 egg, room temp
  

1. Preheat oven to 350F
2. Spray a 9" round cake pan with cooking spray, line the bottom with parchment, spray bottom again, and lightly flour pan. Set aside. (I just spray it all once, put the parchment on the bottom, touch it till it gets oil all over the one side, and then flip it around and press in against the pan).
   
3. Use scoop and level method (scoop out an overfilled amount of flour and level) and to measure out one cup of flour. Mix by first stirring flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar together in a bowl, then sift 1-2x, using another bowl between transfers. Set aside
   
4. In another bowl (if you used another bowl when you were sifting the dry ingredients back and forth, use the empty one you have after step 3) mix the eggs, vanilla, milk, and sour cream together until well blended/mixed. Set aside
5. Using a whisk, add 2 cubes of butter into the dry ingredients at a time and mix by pressing the butter into the dry ingredients until all the butter is distributed in the dry ingredients and are about the size of small rocks. Add half of the wet mixture into the dry ingredients, whisk rather vigorously until the dry ingredients are all incorporated (~20-30 seconds). Then, mix in the rest of the wet mixture until a smooth batter forms. Scrap the bowl down and mix w/ just a few more turns.
6. Pour batter into prepared pan. Even out the batter and put bake at 350F for 30-35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. (Remember to turn the cake around 1/2 way through baking, so as to ensure even cooking).
   

In the end, I think you can use any method you want to mix this cake up, providing you are using some type of cake making method. I hope this works out well for everyone who decides to try it. if you really wanted to, you could even frost it...if you want to. I personally feel its perfect the way it is ^_^. Time to study for my Calc and Chem midterm!...crap~

Blueberries Galor!~

*Whoot* another blueberry muffin, except this time I actually followed a recipe, lol. I recently bought the America's Test Kitchen Best American Classics recipe book, and am still feeling ecstatic about it. And I wouldn't really call this a Blueberry muffin...more like a Blueberry Sour Cream Muffin, since the recipe only used sour cream as the milk/liquid. So~ It was Monday night and I had an 8am class the next morning and I still decided to bake these muffins at 10 or 11 pm at night, how fun! Though not very conducive to sleep and rest...>.>;

The interesting this was that when they were baking, and fresh from the oven, their aroma smelled kind of like mild cheese, which I like cheese so it wasn't that bothersome to me ^_^. And they tasted so delicious~ I love them~

So the following pictures are from the night I actually made them. You can also tell this because the lighting is crap, lol.
















These are the morning after, when the sun is out and the light is beautiful~ ^_^. These also give you a better idea of what the actual color of the muffins were... They keep pretty well. I just put them in a air tight container (zip lock bag, lol) and threw them in the fridge. They taste good cold and when they come up to room temp, the only difference being that at room temp the crumb is softer.

So~ Just saying now that I don't plan to put the entire recipe up since that would probably infringe on some copyright issues or something...so...I'll just list the ingredients ^^; I did do something different when I made them though: I used light sour cream instead of regular. Still turned out great so I don't think it affected them in any major way.

• 2 cups (10 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 large egg
• 1 cup (7 ounces) sugar
• 4 tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
• 1 1/4 cup (10 ounces) sour cream (light)
• 1 1/2 frozen wild blueberries

--The Best American Classics, 278

So I hope knowing the ingredient would give you some inspiration. As for me, I'm gonna keep skimming though cookbooks looking for something easy and simple to eat ^^.

Time Constraint

Crap, I have to finish my online chemistry homework by midnight tonight and I have a dance and music performance to go to at 8pm! Which I have to leave for now or else I'll never make it. I'll blog about how the show was tonight ^_^...after I finish my chem when I get back, lol.

Okay! I have finished my chem work (for tonight at least) and with a few minutes to spare ^_^. The show was wonderful! "Olympic Spectacular: One World, One Dream".
I know that there has been, and still is, a lot of political tension and rights issues going on in and around China, but this was just such a once in a life-time opportunity!

Three, I think, performing arts academies came over from China to do this show, and it was simply amazing. The performers, apparently, have been training in their field, and only their field, since the age of 6! (They decide their career path by age 12 and thats where the intense academy schooling starts).

I have a few of the dance costumes stuck in my head so I hope I can draw them close to correct. The entire show combined a recorded video background for most all of the scenes and numbers, so much so that it was difficult at times to figure out what to focus on: the dance, dancer's, or background video @_@. I'm pretty sure I missed a few dance parts here and there...but its all good ^_^. I'll try to get those costume pictures up ASAP~

Marbled Matcha Tea "Cup" Cake

I wouldn't consider this a cupcake persay, because the final product doesn't really fit the criteria for a cupcake. It isn't sweet, and has a denser texture; however, I did baked them in a muffin tin with paper liners so they do kind of look like cupcakes...and kind of like muffins.

They turned out good: pleasantly mild bitter taste and sweetness. The difficult part about this recipe though was that the chocolate batter had a consistency similar to cookie dough, but still workable.

I was inspired to do something with chocolate and matcha a while back, but after watching the movie "Chocolat" this morning I just had to do something with chocolate ^^. Some unsweetened baking chocolate from Trader Joe's, a good amount of green tea powder, what could be better ^_^.

Generally, I just break the chocolate up with my hands into the pre-divided sections and don't bother to chop it with a knife, but made the exception today since I wanted to melt the chocolate faster. A serrated knife cuts through bar chocolate like nothing else! And your less likely to damage the knife's edge compared to using a chef's knife. Loved it @_@.




I think this cake concoction would go well with a sweet beverage of some sort. I just tasted them with milk though, but I think a hot chocolate would have been good too, since the cakes aren't very sweet. One thing to keep in mind, however, is that the two different batters rose differently. Since the chocolate batter was more cookie dough-like, it didn't rise as well as the matcha batter. Also, while the matcha batter would fill out evenly into the paper liner when baked, the chocolate one didn't fill out as nicely (as you can see from the photo's). I don't mind though. It's all still good.











I'll put up the recipe I made up later on. For now, I really need to study ^^;

New Template, and Guacamole

So I was browsing the template choices and decided that this particular style was easier on the eyes in style, color, and layout. Hopefully those of you who read my blog, thank you, find it better as well.

I actually made some guacamole tonight because I had way too many hass avocados that were already ripe (about 10-ish in all) and I needed to clear out my fridge before I ran out of space for leftovers, or something along those lines. Sorry I don't have any picture, but I do have enough to make it again so I can probably just put those up with this post ^^.

I made a mental note to myself to get a lemon while at the super market today, but, as my brain is always full of other useless information pushing the more important things out, I forgot. Solution? White vinegar! It actually added a nice pleasant zing to the guacamole without adding some kind of overbearing flavor or taste, since it was white vinegar, which has a cleaner taste than others, I feel. I could almost go as far as say that it tasted better than when I had made guacamole with lime or lemon juice as the acid. Other ingredients included some garlic, a little yellow onion, a pinch of salt, and a jalapeño pepper (since my sister can't take a lot of heat =_=, which is a complete opposite from my mom and me. Though I can't take a lot either, I still like the feeling and taste spice adds to foods ^_^). No cilantro this time either, since my sister is going to be eating this too >_<. I like my guacamole creamy with some chunks in it. I mean, how fun could it be to eat a completely smooth guacamole, right? But if you insist on smooth, just smash it into a pasty oblivion @_@! And, depending on how you look at it, you can either release stress, or you could end up getting really frustrated with trying to cream it.
Recipe: Chunky Guacamole

• 3 ripe medium hass avocados, cut in half and pitted


• a little less than 1/2 tsp of salt (I don't feel it's necessary to put a lot of salt since whatever you eat this with would probably have more than enough sodium to compensate)
  
• 1 medium jalapeño, seeded and finely minced
  
• 3 medium cloves of garlic, finely minced
• 2 1/2 tbsp white vinegar
• 1/4 medium-large yellow onion (or any other kind of bulb onion you prefer), minced (makes it easier to mix and keeps people from suddenly stumbling upon a large cache of onion flavor x_X)
• cilantro, roughly chopped/minced (optional)
  
  

1. Spoon flesh of 1 avocado into a bowl (or whatever your using to mix). Add the salt, 1 tbsp of vinegar, garlic, and jalapeño. Cream/smash into a smooth consistency with the spoon and a fork. Set aside.
2. With a knife, score the rest of the avocado halves into ~1/2" vertical and horizontal lines, making a grid pattern. Then, using your trusty spoon, scoop the scored avocados into the bowl with the creamed avocado "paste". Add the 1 tbsp of vinegar (if using), cilantro (if using), and the onion. With your fork, or spoon, mix until combined, being careful not to destroy the cubed avocado pieces; however, you can mix it until it reaches the chunkiness...or smoothness, you prefer). If the taste isn't "tangy" enough, add the rest of the vinegar (or more to taste).

Done! Simple, yes? At least I would hope it was relatively simple @_@;

This makes a good amount. Enjoy it with your favorite party chip, spread on toast, on your bagel, on your burger, in a sandwich, in your wrap, by itself ^_^, etc...

I Actually Used the Stove!

Man, I actually had a "real" dinner today. Rice with side plates of stuff! Had a few problems with it though.

1. Spinach, according to my sister, had a slight dirt taste to it. I could have sworn I washed them thoroughly too! Well, I guess it can't be help sometimes. Maybe I'll go for baby spinach more. Personally though, I couldn't really taste anything seriously different about it. Is it because the last few times I sauteed spinach I used baby spinach instead of flat-leafed? or is it because I failed to add enough salt...which happens a lot to me too 'cause I still have problems figuring out the right amount of salt =_=, but I'm getting better about that!.
2. I took a while to finish everything though so things were a bit cold (understatement) when we ate. The only thing that was hot was the rice, lol.

All-in-all though, she liked everything but the spinach, and the temperature, of the food. Oh well, I guess I'll have to pick up the pace next time. Guess I should really consider cooking more again ^^;


Well, I wanted to have a few things with my rice; actually, my sister was the one who kept asking, "what else?" x_X.

A few days ago I went to the super market with my mom and they had these spicy tofu veggie thing ( I think it counts as 素雞/vegetarian "meat", but it still tasted like tofu with a texture of firm, chewy tofu) on sale so we decided to get some. I guess this counts as my experiment for the day. The tofu was pretty much ready to eat, but that would be so boring! I mean, cold vacuum packed tofu, how appealing is that, right? Therefore, I decided to saute it with some sliced green onions. I also cooked some shrimp and eggs (蝦仁炒蛋). The nice thing is I didn't have to add more oil since the thing was packed in chili oil and it was already marinated so I figured I didn't need to add more salt, which was true, I didn't! Yey!~ Couldn't have gone wrong with this one! ^_^v

This meal had a few short cuts, like frozen unshelled and de-veined (thank goodness) for the egg dish and my ready to eat tofu stuff, I admit, but its definitely easier and more time efficient than having to buy fresh stuff everyday. I mean, can you imagine how much time and money (both for food and gas)? Craziness~~~

Do keep in mind, however, what you should and shouldn't have as a freezer substitute. Make smart choices! Like a don't is having a million pre-made frozen foods in the freezer!

I don't even want to include picture of that spinach catastrophe. It's just too terrible to think about =_=.