Comfort baking: Butterfinger cupcakes, homemade Oreos, red velvet cheesecake cake, stuffed bread and stuffed pretzels

Does anyone watch the show "American Pickers" on the History Channel? I think I'm hooked. Dad turned it on one day when we were visiting my grandma in the hospital after her vertigo spell during the holidays. My dad loves the History Channel, but I'd always seen him watching shows about the war and that sort of thing. This seems a slightly different take on history. What they "pick" is historical items found all over the country, mostly in those places you see on the side of road that have stuff just piled in the lots. They find some crazy stuff...in the episode I just watched, they bought a motorcycle motor from "Hobo Jack" that ended up being more than 100 years old. In case you haven't noticed, I'm fascinated by this sort of history and Americana, as evidenced by all I write about my family history on here. Also by the stories I like writing best, most recently about a local man who restores pinball machines. So cool!. I know what show is going to fill up my DVR for the next few months!


After all the stress of my holiday season, I needed some serious baking with Aunt Betty. I'm still not completely on my A-game, but I'm getting closer. This stuff helped. Like these Butterfinger cupcakes from my Food Network magazine. Unfortunately, there's no recipe online, and it's from my year-old magazine...I've been wanting to make them for a while. That being said, I'm going to make some serious changes next time I try them. The chocolate cake was good, but too light a crumb for a cupcake. The frosting was actually a ganache, and waaaay too thick for piping like I wanted to. Next time: a light peanut butter frosting. The killer was the brittle on top, which was just sugar, peanut butter and butterscotch chips and tasted exactly like the inside of a Butterfinger. I'm going to make just that sometime soon, dip it in chocolate and make homemade candy. All those went with my Uncle David for his retirement party.


Next on our list was something that reminded me of one of my favorite places to get dessert, the Cheesecake Factory (mainly because there are so many options). Who doesn't love red velvet cake? Who doesn't love cheesecake (besides Kelly)? Put them together, and you get red velvet cheesecake cake. Pretty tasty, although once again, I'd prefer a cake with heavier crumb. It's modeled on the coolest cake spatula thingy my stepmom Cathie got me. It's a high heel with a magnetic heel! Neato. I brought this cake to work and I'd say it was a hit. A few minutes after I brought it in, I told someone upstairs it was there. He said he already knew it was there because he saw a Twitpic. Ah, the joys of journalism and technology.


Our last project for the day was to make a bread I've been wanting to make for a while from Flour Girl. It's a stuffed braided bread, and actually a lot easier than I thought it would be. The dough was basic pizza dough made in the food processor and didn't even need to rise. The recipe called for bacon, but anyone who knows my eating habits knows that I don't eat any pork products, including bacon, and no, I'm not Jewish. I just don't eat it. So we used turkey bacon. Also inside was spinach we cooked down with some olive oil, provolone cheese and sun-dried tomatoes. Dip it in marinara and it made a pretty tasty dinner.


When my newest Food Network Magazine magazine came, on the front it talked about pretzels, which is one of my favorite things to make. What caught my eye especially was pesto-stuffed pretzels. I loooove pesto, especially when it's extra garlicy and cheesy. I think I'm going to need some more practice stuffing pretzels, because you can't taste the flavor of the pesto and the cream cheese that's inside them too much. But the dip I made with the extra pesto and cream cheese is excellent. I will definitely make that again. Also, this was the christening voyage for my new food processor. Verdict: amazing.


Last, I wanted to make some sort of sweet for the night, and Kelly suggested homemade Oreos. I had all the stuff to make them, so I did it. The cookie dough looked like dirt, and was a really strange consistency. The middle is supposed to be white chocolate ganache, which I edited a bit to be more frosting-like. All-in-all, very tasty, especially when dipped in milk. Mmmmm. Next up? Tiramisu cake for a girls' dinner. I get to try out my new cake stand on that one!

Double maple, the last week of Halloween baking and 5 of 8 goals met

Okay. I admit it. I'm not a fan of Halloween. Well, not quite, but I don't go quite as all-out as everyone else does. I mean, I do on the baking end (obviously). But I didn't even go out for Halloween this weekend. I think it has something to do with how my mom made all my costumes, so store-bought ones don't really measure up. Here I am as an Indian (I look so serious!).


I've been quite the variety of Disney leading ladies, including Ariel, Jasmine and Esmerelda (from the Hunchback). Dorothy was another, and a witch...and I'm sure my mom can document the rest of the years with pictures. But I'm not a fan of going to the store and buying one, and I'm not really creative enough to come up with my own cheap option. So this Halloween I celebrated by watching the first half of Rocky Horror Picture Show (really, all I care about is the Time Warp). And by baking. Of course.


I think I mentioned once already how maple is one of my absolute favorite flavors. After this week, I might be mapled out, which I thought I'd never say. But first, I tried maple creme brulee from Joy of Cooking. It was my first creme brulee, but it's basically a custard, which I'd made before for an ice cream base. This is one of the only desserts ever that I didn't share — it was that good, once I figured out how to work my kitchen torch to caramelize the sugar.

I actually spent a lot of time thumbing through my Joy of Cooking last week. I tend to go in cycles, baking from online recipes, then switching to cookbooks. I thought I hadn't given this one enough love lately. I felt in a cookie mood later that week, and ended up making the chocolate oatmeal bars. Very chocolatey.


Then came a baking day at Aunt Betty's, which we all know means hours of baking for some different desserts. First, we made a Boston Creme Pie (also from Joy of Cooking) for my friend Tim's birthday. Never mind that his birthday was a couple weeks ago, I said I'd make him one, so we did. It's surprisingly simple; two layers of yellow cake with a creme in between and a chocolate on top. He so kindly modeled it for me :)

Then, another maple dessert. And another Joy of Cooking recipe. Maple fudge. It ended up being less fudgy and more candy-y, a lot like those maple leaf candies. So I'm counting it as a completed goal, because it really had the same texture. It was really good, but it's pretty much like eating solid sugar. I will need to wait a while to make it again.

Then Aunt Betty and I made my Uncle David's birthday cake, a Black Forest torte.(totally go look at this recipe; it's worth it to all you journalists just for the epic spelling error in the third paragraph of preparation). It's basically a bunch of cinnamon cookie-type things (they reminded me of churros), whipped cream in the middle and cherries, pecans and chocolate on top. The cream softens the cookies and it makes for an excellent 12 (yes 12!) layer cake. I didn't do too much on this, just helped form the cookies.


Then, the official Halloween cupcakes. I got these black cat cupcake toppers and cupcake liners a while ago from Bake It Pretty and was saving them. I made plain ol' yellow cake with sprinkles for funfetti and plain ol' orange frosting. I had to take a picture of them with my black kitty, who proceeded to lick two of the cupcakes, which were then thrown away. Silly kitty. Oh well, at least he's cute! Also, I've posted these over at Mommy's Kitchen with a bunch of other tasty Halloween desserts.