Candy galore: Maple cashew fudge, buckeyes and candy Thanksgiving pilgrim hats

I think we've talked about how I'm a Food Network junkie before. I'm sure I have. And I've been lucky enough to meet a few of my favorites in the last couple months. I told you I saw Bobby Flay a while ago, but a few weeks ago, I got to see Alton Brown speak as well. And he is way funnier and more personable than I thought he would be. Plus, besides being super informative, he dropped a few sci-fi restaurants, working Yoda into the presentation, and the Matrix as well. So naturally, when I got up to him to have him sign my book, I asked what his favorite sci-fi movie was. "2001: A Space Odyssey." Whodathunk?

My third Food Network star? Aarón Sánchez. He just opened a restaurant in, of all places, Leawood. First place outside of NYC and he picks KC. And I got an exclusive interview with him! He was super friendly and down-to-earth. My stories (I wrote two: one for web and one for print) about him are online at the Kansas City Business Journal.

I seem to have a thing for making these little bites once a year, but they're SO good. They're buckeyes, and it's Smitten Kitchen's recipe. Imagine the wonderfulness of the inside of a peanut butter cup, rolled in a ball, then with just a thin layer of chocolate. I tell you, they're to die for.

So these don't technically count as baking as much as creating, I suppose. But they're Thanksgiving hats! I found them just browsing around Thanksgiving recipes, and they're so easy: fudge cookies, miniature peanut butter cups, some frosting and a sprinkle. Cute little desserts for not much work. Not a bad change of pace!

And what is the fall/moving into winter without some maple? Remember my love affair with the flavor? Well, this maple fudge from Joy of Cooking just reinforces it. Aunt Betty actually made most of this while I put together the hat treats, but this is better than the batch we made last year. This batch has cashews mixed in...and I may hoard it for myself!

Cookies, creme brulee and cockpits, oh my!

I know I've been writing about my family a lot lately. But my dad found something when I was home last that was just too cool not to write about. It was my grandpa's first flight log book. As in, records from when he learned to fly. In 1942. Pretty darn cool. That goofy guy in the helmet and goggles? That was him (I can see a lot of my dad's face in him too). The Army PT17 was a Stearman (check out this picture of one of those). It was a two-seater biplane used for training.


This is a picture of him in high school, and then some of the stuff he was doing while training in Florida. Spins, stalls, figure eights, all in a plane that doesn't have an enclosed cockpit! It's not surprising that I grew up in airplanes then. Grandpa went on to be a trainer in the Army Air Force, and my uncle and dad grew up around planes. Dad went on to be in the airplane business, and flying in small planes is one of my favorite things (I'm a total weirdo — I actually really like turbulence!). It also means someday I will have to get a pilot's license...make money first, then I will do that. Someday.


My last few desserts have been a sort of hodge-podge in between cupcakes for the cupcake challenge. I made this creme brulee from Joy of Cooking for a girls' dinner we had at my house. My friends Kelly, Brianne and Lauren came over and we had a big dinner together. It was so nice to just have time with girlfriends...it's so needed. Brianne and Kelly had never had creme brulee, so I definitely had to introduce them. I thought I ruined it at first, because you have to cook them in a water bath, and let me tell you, getting water into the pan in the oven and later getting it out without getting it in the custard is tough. But it turned out perfectly.


I got to go home before Thanksgiving, but had to work on the actual day. I wanted to bring a treat in for everyone who was working, but didn't really feel like making the trip to the store for Thanksgiving-y ingredients. So I made chocolate cookies with peanut butter chips. Pretty simple, but still tasty.


I've started seeing a lot of Christmas recipes pop up, and my bookmark list is getting longer and longer. I've been wanting to make meringue cookies the last few days, but after a marathon of days at work, I wasn't getting up early enough to make them and let them dry out. So instead I went for these molasses cookies, which was definitely the right decision. They were SO good. They have some cinnamon and ginger in them, but they're not quite a gingersnap. A little red and green sanding sugar, and I've started my holiday baking! I handed them out to the whole newsroom, which I hadn't gotten to do in a while. They were all gone at the end of the day. I will definitely make them again. Now, I'm preparing for a baking day with Aunt Betty. It's December, so holiday music and holiday baking is fair game!

A successful surprise 90th party, complete with cake and cupcakes

Operation Surprise 90th Birthday Party: complete success!


This Saturday, after working 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. (on four hours of sleep!) I hopped in a car full of cupcakes, a cake, my clothes and my cat and headed to the Brookville Hotel in Abilene for a surprise party for my grandma. She turned 90 last week, and a whole bunch of family gathered at the restaurant, where she and my grandpa celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary when I was 6. This time it was my family, my uncle's family and a multitude of my dad's cousins there to celebrate.


This is easily one of my favorite places in the world to eat, even better when filled with family. Dad had told Grandma that it was just them and my stepmom Cathie going to dinner. She walked into the room and saw a table full of about 2o family members and was shocked, then immediately asked how Dad got us all together. He' just sneaky, I guess :)


After dinner, everyone drove back to Salina to my dad's house. There we ate the treats I'd made in the days before. I made two kinds of cupcakes: red velvet (at Dad's request) and screwdriver cupcakes, which is Grandma's favorite alcoholic drink.


The red velvet was simple, my favorite Martha Stewart recipe. They always end up light and fluffy and wonderful. The cream cheese frosting is excellent as well.


The screwdriver cupcakes weren't too shabby either. I got the recipe from Booze Cakes, which I got a few months ago. It called for coconut in the cupcake, but I'm anti-coconut, so I left it out. The cupcake ended up tasting like Trix to me. The frosting recipe, on the other hand, was a disaster. Just goes to show that I should just follow the recipe I know works and flavor it accordingly. It basically gave me orange-vodka flavored soup. Yech. I also candied orange peels to go on top.


Together, they looked pretty snazzy, I think. :)


Then was the birthday cake. I made a couple layers of square cake from my favorite yellow cake recipe. I froze it overnight and then decorated it super late the night before the party. I frosted it with buttercream and then did my first experiment with fondant, the bow. The night before, I rolled it out and dyed it (and my fingers too!) and then cut it into strips, which I formed into loops and let set. After frosting the cake, I attached the loops to make a bow, then frosted down by the cake board, and voila! My first attempt at a decorated cake! I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. And I'm going to count it as completing one of my baking goals. It's not a cake totally covered in fondant, but it's on there, so I think it works.


Grandma was too. It was incredible to have everyone in town. That picture is four of my dad's cousins with my grandma. They live all over Kansas and Oklahoma and came down for this one day! It's also pretty incredible that Grandma is 90 and still doing well.


So I've spent the weekend being lazy with Grandma, eating my favorite Salina food and watching old movies. Pretty sure none of them we've watched were made after 1954 (The Philadelphia Story, Harvey, White Christmas and Singin' in the Rain). It's been a super relaxing break, and having my kitty cat here with me has been entertaining as well. He's currently complaining that I've shut him in the TV room with us.

Ultimately, the best thing I got from this weekend: I am very lucky to still have my wonderful Grandma around. I was also very lucky to see so many family members this weekend (that's my uncle on the left; he lives in Illinois and I don't see him often). So for my Thanksgiving break, I am thankful for all that.

Cupcake challenge week 2: Pecan pie cupcakes

Today was a gloomy day. Sort of a gloomy day to cap off a gloomy week. It was rainy, and chilly, and I stepped in a puddle so my shoes AND socks got soaked. Boo.

On the flip side, I had the day off. I got to bake all day. I went shopping for new clothes. I have a friend coming into town this weekend I haven't seen in months. And I bought stuff for future baking. Sounds like I like baking, eh? And, to capitalize on the gloominess of the day, I am currently curled up in sweats and goofy socks drinking wine and watching Finding Nemo. Yup, that's my life. So exciting.

In a little more than a week, I will be at my grandma's house curled up in sweats and goofy socks and watching some other silly movie. That's what I love about holidays. I get to see my family and hang out and not work for a few days. There's the food, yes, but it's really about the time I get to spend with them. Oh, and that interminable drive home where my cat yowls the whole way because he's ticked I put him in the car. I can't WAIT for that.

This week's cupcake challenge for Hoosier Homemade was to make a Thanksgiving cupcake. I'll admit, I'm not much for decorating cupcakes all cutesy; I don't think I have the patience. I prefer to make neat flavors and experiment. So I made pecan pie cupcakes. Okay, another confession. I'm not a pumpkin pie fan. Or pumpkin anything, really. I can handle like one slice of pumpkin pie per holiday season. I much prefer pecan. Or not pie at all. I know, it's blasphemous.


Anyway, this recipe on TasteBook was the best I could find that wasn't muffin-y. Basically it was a brown sugar cake with a pecan pie filling sort of swirled in, and topped with whipped cream. I was skeptical it would work, but they rose beautifully and tasted better than actual pecan pie, I thought. So maybe I will make them for family Thanksgiving instead of pie. I friggin hate making pastry, anyway.

So I'm adding these to the cupcake challenge at Hoosier Homemade.


And since it's just before midnight, here's my late night Veteran's Day tribute. Both my grandpas as I knew them were older men who were loving and wonderful, Grandpa Hawley buying me treats of Necco wafers and tickling my feet. Grandpa Hofmeister would sit in his chair, hardly ever talking but always taking a photo of me before I left his house.


Long before I came along, though, they were soldiers. Grandpa Hofmeister, my mom's dad, was about 30 when he was drafted and served under General Patton in France and Germany. He always had a love for cameras, and actually took pictures of soldiers and burnt buildings and all sorts of things while serving. This is one of those pictures, probably in Germany, right near the end of the war.


And Grandpa Hawley was a trainer in the Army Air Corps, since it wasn't the Air Force yet. He was lucky enough to never get shipped overseas, but he was darn close many times. He flew some pretty amazing planes, too, like the Memphis Belle and a bomber called Strawberry Bitch.


But beyond them, I also have a veteran in my family who is much closer in age to me, my cousin Jon. He served in Iraq soon after the U.S. went in, and I remember writing letters back and forth with him, anxiously waiting for any news (always hoping for good). I still have those letters. Luckily, he did come back, and I get to see him regularly. Sometimes, these things work out well.

Two weeks of baking

I know, it's been a while since I've posted. I'm going on a month of being sick...except it's not the same sickness. It's morphed like 3 times now, resurging last night when I remembered how I used to sleep with a humidifier. I definitely needed one last night.

I've been doing a fair amount of baking lately and have found some really great recipes, and some that are really flawed too.

I felt like venturing into making cheesecake last weekend, but didn't want a plain recipe. It was Martha to the rescue, though, with a margarita cheesecake recipe. I don't think I've made a cheesecake in the last 10 years, but I used to bake them with my mom. I was a little rusty, so I followed the recipe to a T. The pretzel crust was especially intriguing, and the water bath was confusing to me. It didn't make sense to me that a springform pan, which isn't all one piece, wouldn't leak when put in a pan of water. Well, I was right, and Martha was wrong. So after making a whole cheesecake, I made another. I edited the crust recipe (if you ever make this, use WAY more butter; I put in a whole stick, twice what she said). I also didn't use a water bath, which made it brown uneven and crack. So I improvised and made a lime sour cream topping, and voila! My first cheesecake in a while. Drew, Stephen and Bryan approved, and we ate it along with Canada geese (it actually tasted like steak) while watching/ignoring the KU-Texas football game.

Then came the loaf of bread. The last time I made/attempted bread, it was super dense. Kneading is confusing to me, because the dough always seemed to be sticky. So I went to Aunt Betty's house to make bread. We made everything and just hung out while letting the dough rise. I've been so busy with classes lately I haven't seen her in a while, but the end product was excellent. She lent me her pasta maker too, so that's my next project.

Thanksgiving meant some excellent desserts as well. Holidays tend to be hard for me, considering I don't exactly have a cohesive family any more. I went to Drew's house on Thanksgiving for the second year in a row, which means entering into a family with three boys (one was away), both parents, grandparents, four cousins and an aunt and uncle. It's a huge departure from any of my family, one side of which is seven people total including myself, the other of which never gets together in a large group. It's a great family, and I love being around them, but it's still a little weird. Sometimes I wish I could fast forward to a time when I have my own family and my own traditions that can't be dictated by others and I don't feel guilty about. There were some pretty great desserts though. Cream pie, apple pie, pumpkin pie, and even during dinner carrot souffle. Sounds gross, but it was great.

Last night was my most recent baking episode with chocolate chip M&M cookies. Pretty simple, but Taylor requested them.

Not sure what I plan on baking next. I saw a recipe for egg nog cookies, and boy do I love my egg nog. I have no idea when I'll be able to make them though. Two weeks left of school, and they're both completely booked!

And finally, with some Christmas cheer, Melvin the happy Santa cat (and by happy, I mean super pissed off at me).

The month of November: Pomegranates and an 89th birthday

I've had a break from baking for a while. It's been crazy busy, mainly because I'm STILL sort of sick. Ugh. The cold weather brought a relapse. But have no fear, my baking came back this week.

This was supposed to be my slow week. Only one assignment due, and basic math at that. So I planned baking for Sunday. During the day I drove back to Salina to surprise my Grandma, who turned 89 (!) on Monday. She's a pretty great lady. There aren't many people left in the world who can say they grew up during the Great Depression with a widowed mother who baked to support her kids. Grandma graduated from college in 1942 and was married in 1944, so she's totally from a different time period. Married for more than 50 years until my grandfather died. Endured the death of one of her children. Born in far western Kansas. It's a little baffling to me when I think of how many years she's seen. I'm her youngest grandchild, and she was there for me when my parents split. If there's one thing grandparents are good for, it's backing up everything you say and think.

Anyway, I spent a bunch of time with Grandma in high school, but since coming to college I see her very little. I hadn't seen her since July when a friend from high school died. I'm not going back for Thanksgiving, and after a hard couple of weeks, I really needed some Grandma time. So I drove the 2ish hours Sunday morning to surprise her with balloons, Brookville chicken and some quality birthday time.

I was going to bake when I got home, but was really tired. So Monday night, I embarked on an experiment of pomegranate velvet cupcakes with pomegranate cream cheese frosting (in honor of national pomegranate month). It was the weirdest batter ever...all fluffy and stuff. Until I realized that I hadn't added the final ingredient of heavy cream...after filling about 16 cupcake papers. The cream cheese frosting might be my favorite frosting ever. Cream cheese, butter, pomegranate juice (reduced to syrup) and LOTS of powdered sugar. Tart but sweet. So so good.

I brought the cupcakes into the newsroom at about noon. Not even kidding, they were all gone in about 15 minutes. All 24 or so.

Then yesterday I was going to go bake bread with my aunt. I experimented with bread for the first time a couple months ago and only partially succeeded. Tasted like bread but wasn't light and airy. Too dense because I don't think I kneaded it right, and she was going to teach me how. Then there was breaking news, and all that went down the drain.

So tonight I took it easy and made dinner (chili and a celery and water chestnut skillet) and oatmeal scotchies, a classic. I used to make them with Mom all the time, but these turned out really well.

I'm thinking about baking a pie for Thanksgiving at Drew's. His grandma makes a mean apple pie, but I'm thinking I might go ahead and bring some of my desserts too :)