Halloween 1: Halloween Oreo cheesecakes, plus funk cupcakes and beignets

Sometimes, I just start itching for travel. Okay, not sometimes, often. I admit it, I'm a travel addict. I love going places to visit friends, sample food, just do whatever. In the last year, because I've transitioned jobs, I haven't traveled as much as I did during college. But I have been to Chicago and New York City in 2011 so far. But this week, I add another city, one I haven't been to since my sophomore year of high school: Salt Lake City. Apparently, there's a chance of snow in the area this week. It was like 87 here yesterday. But one of my best friends, Keane, lives there, so we're going to hang out for a few days. I can't wait! Plus, I know the area is beautiful, I bet especially right now when we're still in autumn.

My first journalism internship was at the Lawrence Journal-World, where I would end up working. I worked up on the features desk, writing stories like this one about all the animals in downtown Lawrence businesses and about the kids who grew up with Harry Potter. Later I would be hired full-time down in the news section, but I've always loved my features desk I started with. One of my editors from back then, Christy, left the JW a couple weeks ago, and Trevan, another editor who works with her, asked me to make her cupcakes. It seemed only natural to make funk cupcakes, which Christy had suggested once before. These are a little more wild and brightly colored than the last ones, but still the same concept: red velvet cupcakes (crushed velvet), rainbow frosting and some interesting wrappers. (Posting these funk cupcakes on Hoosier Homemade's Cupcake Tuesday.)

Something I wanted to try when I made my 2011 baking goals (which I've fallen miserably behind on) was beignets. I've never been to New Orleans, but that's supposedly the place to have the best beignets. They're basically doughnuts, only smothered in powdered sugar. What could be wrong with that? Absolutely nothing. I'm glad I made them with Aunt Betty, because they definitely take two people. You put them in the oil and flip them continuously (and they puff up!) for just a couple minutes before you take them out and douse them in sugar. They were amazing. Now I just need to go taste the real thing in NOLA.

I'm hoping to do a bunch of Halloween treats during the month of October. Here's my first: Halloween Oreo cheesecakes. I've made the cheesecakes before, and these are just made with Halloween Oreos. Definitely worth a try. Also, with each Halloween baked good, I've got a photo to post of a childhood costume that I found while visiting Mom last time. So here goes: 

Pirate girl. I remember a lot of those pieces making appearances later on in dress-up games. So happy Halloween month!

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!

Birthday baking and some Halloween treats

I now have four distinct periods of my life: grade/middle school, high school, college/Kansan and work. I was lucky enough to see people from all four times on Saturday for my birthday. It was an absolute blast, and I saw some people I hadn't in years. There might have been a little drinking involved too, but hey, it was my birthday! Dad and Cathie came to town and then we went out to dinner. Later, it was the customary trip to the Sandbar and Louises. It was great fun. More on that later, though.


I think that once places start displaying their Halloween goods for baking, it's okay for me to start making Halloween treats. Even if that means it's the last week of September. That's what I did last week, at least. They put out lime green candy melts — lime green people! If you know anything about me, you know I had to buy them right then and make the cake pops I'd been wanting to make again. Green with Halloween-ish sprinkles. I tried yellow cake this time. Not too shabby, but red velvet is definitely still my favorite. Now I just have to take that next step and start making shapes out of them...intimidating.


Also, a fun fact about me is that I get suckered in by advertising easily. If I see an ad on TV for some tasty food, I will generally start craving it. And if I walk by a bag of new Halloween Oreos in the grocery store, I'm going to buy them. And make mini Oreo cheesecakes. These are SO good and I forget how much I like them between the times I make them. But I've stocked up on fall-y cupcake liners, so it seemed like a good use for them. I'm going to have to go into cupcake overdrive to use up all those liners though.


Then there was my birthday cake. I debated for a while if I should make my own, but I figured if I could make an ice cream cake for my mom and for my ex-boyfriend, then I could make one for myself. Plus, Kelly helped, so it wasn't totally me! I went for my favorite yellow cake-turned-funfetti layered with cheesecake ice cream from Cold Stone (with more sprinkles and graham crumbs mixed in), fudge and Oreo crumbles. Kelly made the green icing for the cake. Altogether, totally yummy. And I still have some in my freezer up for grabs....

Like I said, it was a great bday weekend. A few snapshots:


My friend Jennifer came all the way from Manhattan just for my birthday celebration (that's her on the left)! On the right is my friend Elizabeth, who's still local but I don't see that often. The tiara was courtesy of the Sandbar.


I also saw some high school friends, including Marshall on the far left. Haven't seen him in a few years either. I don't have that many pictures from the night, but it was a great time!


The day after my birthday, Kelly and I drove down to St. Louis to see Vampire Weekend in concert and also visit my cousin. It was an AMAZING concert. They were so good live, it was like listening to their album.


Last but not least, for graduation, I was supposed to get a dog. Seems unrelated, yes? Well, the dog plan fell through, so on my birthday, my dad gave me my graduation present: a new Canon SLR camera!! Needless to say, I was SUPER excited! Now I can actually take decent pictures for my blog, and of life in general. Oh, and cat pictures, because that's what I'm best at :) I haven't had too much time to play with it yet, but I have gotten some great photos. Case in point: Melvin being obnoxious. I can't wait to mess with it more!

To either end of the spectrum: Fruity Pebbles cupcakes and vegan cupcakes, plus cheesecake and bars

It's been a busy week baking-wise for me, and I did something I've absolutely never done before: baked something vegan! On request, of course. I like cooking with eggs and dairy most of the time.

I've pretty much just been working recently, with a couple days off thrown in there. I'm counteracting all my baking by ramping up my gym attendance. I just joined a new one and have started going after work at like 6:30 a.m. It's the perfect time to go, because hardly anyone is there and if I just went home, I'd still be awake anyway. Might as well tire myself out so I can go home and fall asleep right away, right?


This week only half of my baking has been cupcakes...which is a step down from last week. I started by making triple citrus bars, something that had been on my dessert list to try for a while. Plus, I got a new zester, so I had to put it to good use! The bars had an animal cracker crust, something I'd never made before. Definitely didn't follow directions the first time and it was waaaay too butter. Try two, though, was fine. I had a lot of try two's this week. Anyway, these had orange, lemon and lime zest in them, plus orange, lemon and lime juice. Not my favorite bar dessert ever, but still not bad.


Before I took the bars into work, I stopped by a friend's house. He has cancer, and he's younger than me. I went to kindergarten with him, and school through eighth grade. He was my first crush ever. He was a runner. He's since gotten married and has an adorable boy. He has always been one of the healthiest people I know. He's not someone I keep in touch with regularly, but a mutual friend said people were coming over to see him before he finished his chemo, and I wanted to show I was thinking of him. I guess this is all part of growing up though; dealing with these horrible things.


My friend Sarah from work had a birthday this week, and I told her I would make her cupcakes for the event. She requested vegan, which is a pretty foreign concept to me. But I'm an avid watcher of Cupcake Wars on Food Network (big surprise, right?) and the most recent winner when she asked had been a vegan baker. I remembered I'd seen one of her recipes while going through my baking blogs, so I decided to try it: creme-filled chocolate orange cupcakes. With no dairy. Eek! Ultimately, the recipe wasn't that different from a normal cupcake, baking the cake with oil instead of eggs. It did introduce me to an unfamiliar oil, though. Coconut. It is not my friend. The consistency is strange to me and it took a take two to get it right. But a nice chocolate cake baked up, so whatever. Then I made orange butter-less buttercream to fill it, dairy-less ganache to top it and candied orange peel for a garnish. It might have been the biggest mess I've ever made in the kitchen, but ultimately worth it. They turned out tasty! I think I'll use this girl's recipes if I ever get a vegan request again.


On one of my days off, Drew and I had some good friends from school come over and eat dinner. For that, I made pink lemonade cheesecake, another sweet that had been tempting me from my bookmarks. Drew helped, and he actually candied the lemon peel all by himself. I can officially add that to his list of kitchen skills. I thought it was pretty tasty, too. Good summer dessert.


Then today, I was watching the newer episode of Cupcake Wars and got inspired to bake again. I was planning to make belated birthday cupcakes for my friend Nick at work, and I thought it would be a perfect time to use my Flintstones cupcake toppers from Bake It Pretty. So I decided to make Fruity Pebbles cupcakes...ya know, because it's the Flintstones cereal? So I made my favorite yellow cake recipe, mixed in some Fruity Pebbles, frosted them and dipped them in more Fruity Pebbles. I thought they were so cute! And not as ridiculously sweet as you'd think, either. Not bad for no recipe!

So now I will need to branch out. I'm thinking Cap'n Crunch cupcakes maybe? More vegan? Or cake pops... I will have to work up more courage to try those!

Red velvet and tractor generators

I find that the farther into the semester I get, the less I want to do. I kind of just want to sleep. Things I managed to do this weekend: margaritas at Salty with Mark, Allison and crew, a little bit of homework, bake cookies, go to a KU game, hang out with Mark and crew before they leave, bake a cake with my cousin's daughter, bake cheesecake, get a stomachache, get a fever. Sounds like a lot I suppose, now looking at it.

Drew, Billy and I went to Salty Iguana on Friday to meet Mark and everyone he was with, but we had to wait more than an hour because they got in a little wreck. Margaritas helped make up that extra time though. I went home to do reading for classes and made basic chocolate chip and M&M cookies. Classic.

The next day was lunch at Dempsey's with everyone and the KU game. I think the truffle fries might be one of my favorite foods when I eat out. Then was KU vs. Iowa State. We seem to only play to the level of the people we're playing, so the games always stay uncomfortably close. Fun time though. Then everyone just hung out. AC and Julie were in town from Kansas City to go to the game and see Mark, and Matthias, our friend in the Air Force, is in town for two weeks. We haven't seen him since he graduated two years ago. Good times.

Sunday morning, I went over to my aunt's house, where my cousin and her daughter were visiting. We made Joy of Cooking's red velvet cake (heart-shaped for Valentine's Day) with Martha Stewart's cream cheese frosting. A mixing of mediums, if you will. I guess I'm getting more into cakes. Probably time to get more cake decorating stuff. Anyway, it was REALLY red. And really tasty. My aunt started telling stories of being sneaky and sometimes obnoxious in college, like when the girls in the dorm room below her started bothering her.

We started talking about funny stories, which makes me think of one of my favorite family stories. My grandpa was a farm boy and went to camp one summer. For whatever reason (perhaps it's a sign of the times) he brought along a tractor generator. The kid in the bunk above him was a preacher's son, apparently an annoying kid. So before they went to bed, my grandpa and one of his friends stitched the kid's sheets with copper wire. After the kid went to sleep, they hooked up the wire to the generator and ZING! the kid was shocked. They heard his head hit the ceiling. Then he'd go back to sleep, and a little while later they'd shock him again. They did it all night until morning. The kid woke up, and started talking about this crazy dream he had. He'd thought he'd been struck by lightning. My grandpa was kind of ornery :). That's him in the picture, when he was in the Army Air Corps. Ornery and military.

Anyway, after Aunt Betty's came Valentine's Day stuff. Originally, I was planning to make three kinds of ravioli for a sampler kind of thing, but I just didn't have the energy. So we just did steak and scalloped potatoes, with little personal cheesecakes for dessert. Drew's mom got me these mini heart-shaped springform pans that had a recipe for cheesecake on the back. Then I made a pineapple sauce to go on top, a la Emeril Lagasse. I actually put the sauce through the food processor so it wasn't giant chunks of pineapple.

My next goal is rainbow cake, which Kelly sent me the link to. I can't wait! I wonder if it dyes your tongue a weird color...

Winter break hiatus

It's been a while since I've posted, but mostly because I haven't done a lot of baking. Weird, I know, but I was completely lazy during break. It was nice. Now, school starts tomorrow. Ugh.

I was supposed to go on a super fun trip this break to California. That would have been a very good reason not to bake or post. BUT our airline was completely unable to get us there. As in, sat on the plane an hour past departure time, was told to get off the plane, waited through two promised departure times, back on plane, waited for luggage loading, waited for deicing, taxied all the way to the runway and then taxied back to the gate for the second time, was told another repair would take 15 minutes, listened to them say they "lost" their mechanic, wasn't helped by any airline staffer, got off plane, discovered three other flights had taken off to where we were going, listed to them tell us they wouldn't take our luggage off of our current plane (with all our ski gear in it for the next day) and finally decided to cancel altogether. It was a trainwreck. We canceled our trip to Sacramento/Lake Tahoe/Napa/San Francisco. We got a refund for our trip, but it was still super disappointing. I didn't get to see my friends or go skiing or wine tasting or anything. So instead I went shopping and went to Melting Pot with Drew and his family to make things better.

That whole situation was super disappointing, but I guess that just means Spring Break will have to be better. We're planning on Vegas, which happens to be the cheapest option for the most fun. We're thinking of staying at the Mirage and flying Southwest, which doesn't seem to have the same kind of problems as other airlines do. I really want to go see the Beatles Love Cirque de Soleil again, and also maybe the new Elvis one. And I think I might go to the spa for the first time ever.

I also want to hit up some great restaurants. I know we'll go to Mesa Grill, but if you know of any others that are a must, let me know!

Last night there was a mini dinner party at my house. Dinner was made by Tim, and was a pepper-chicken-pasta-raspberry mustard concoction. It was quite good. I made Olive Garden breadsticks (and burnt the hell out of my arm while doing so), then got back on my cupcake kick. Martha Stewart helped me out. I made stout cupcakes. As in Guinness stout. They're very winter-y tasting, because they've got a whole bottle of Guinness in them, plus brown sugar, lots of molasses, cinnamon and nutmeg. On top, a Guinness glaze (with only two ingredients, beer and powdered sugar). I liked them well enough, but not really my style.

I also made cookies and cream cheesecakes, which are excellent. Oreo in the bottom, Oreo cheesecake mixture in cupcake papers. They're pretty awesome.

Now I just have to figure out what I'm going to do to get rid of all my food so often. I'm definitely wanting to get back to baking regularly. We'll see how much I can do between readings for homework. Ugh.

One fun thought before leaving: When I was back in Salina, I went through my grandma's old recipes and all her old stuff. That includes her wedding cake topper. Here it is, circa 1944:

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).

Brenna's Brownies

I don't have anything due this week. But I have so much to do. Internship applications, building my personal website (which, by the way, went live today: www.brennahawley.com), finding the Jordan River on a map for geography, etc. So naturally, yesterday I baked.

Apparently "Brenna Brownies" are something to get excited for. When I bake, I tend to make at least two things at once, so on the menu were Mexican brownies and cheesecake brownies. There was some Twitter talk about them, so I knew I had to make them good.

The Mexican brownies were suggested by my friend Stephen, who I'm convinced puts some sort of spice in every food he eats. I saw this recipe for brownies that included cayenne pepper and cinnamon and knew he'd like them. I think he ate half the pan.

I'm also a huge fan of cheesecake, so cheesecake brownies seemed like the natural progression. Orange swirls, of course, for Halloween. These taught me a valuable lesson — never, EVER, let my boyfriend Drew near my baking. He saw the orange swirls and assumed that those brownies were cream cheese-cayenne brownies. As in, mixing in cayenne pepper in cream cheese and just swirling it right in. Yeah, I thought it was pretty darn gross too.

So I brought both pans in to the newsroom this morning, and when the copy editing class came down the hall, they made a beeline for them. I'd say they were a success.

I got to talk about my weird baking obsession tonight at dinner as well. I was invited to dinner with a journalist and the dinner table talk got to cooking. One of my political science teachers, the one who invited me, talked about how his father was a classically trained French cook, so now he did all the cooking. I suppose my baking comes through the family too, if that's possible. My grandma, who was born in 1920, grew up in Dust Bowl Kansas. Her father died of cancer around the Great Depression, and so her mom got them through the depression by baking for her small town in western Kansas. I've got some of those recipes but I haven't tried any yet — I have to decipher the handwriting first!

But before I try any of those recipes, I plan on making some awesome Halloween cupcakes. Witches, monsters and black cats of course!