2011 baking goals

Last week I wrote about the baking goals I set for myself in August. I didn't do too shabby; I completed seven of eight. Now it's time for my new baking goals for this year. I'm thinking I give myself until the end of May or so to do these. It's a very loose timeline.

1. Beignets — I won't lie, seeing these little New Orleans pastries in last year's Disney movie "The Princess and the Frog" really made me want to make them. Good thing I haven't gotten it into my head yet that I should make the whole dessert spread from the "Be Our Guest" scene from "Beauty and the Beast" (that's what I'm watching right now...seemed like a good comparison). Another inspiration for these? My friend Jonathan made them with one of his friends. I'd like to try my hand at them.

2. Souffle — Another thing I saw in a favorite movie, although this one goes much farther back than a 2009 release date. One of my favorite movies of all time is "Sabrina" with Audrey Hepburn. In that movie, there is a scene where her souffle goes terribly, but it's because she forgot to turn on the oven. Often, the biggest problem I hear with this dessert is that it doesn't rise appropriately. I'm hoping that's not a problem for me. Completed in February...click here.

3. Crepes — I had this tasty French dessert on a couple trips in the last year or so, most recent in Las Vegas and before that New York City. Both of those times I had sweet crepes, and now I'd like to try making them myself. I think the toughest part will be making the paper-thin crepe and getting it off the pan without breaking it!

4. Homemade pudding — I've made a number of custards and pudding-like things, but never plain ol' pudding. I appreciate the simplicity of instant pudding, but I want to try it the old way.

5. Cannolis — I really dislike frying things. Oil spitting freaks me out and I hate getting burnt by it, despite the fact that I got burned multiple times while working in food service. So cannoli shells are going to be an interesting feat for me. I'd like to try some traditional ones with a pastry cream and chocolate chips, but also some more interesting fillings. Suggestions are welcome! Completed in March...click here.

6. Truffles — I've made a few versions of truffles before, of the cookie dough and Oreo variety. But here I'm talking the more difficult stuff, tempering chocolate and the like. It involves a lot of temperature changes and very specific directions. But they just look too good not to try. Completed in August...click here.

7. Petit fours — These are yet another French dessert, little mini sweets for the end of a meal. I first saw them in a Martha Stewart cookbook my mom got me for graduation. There are a number of varieties, but they're often decorated and iced. It seems tedious work, but I will just have to hold my own interest I guess.

8. Jayhawk cake pops redux — This is the goal I did not achieve last time. So here's hoping I do it this time. I'm thinking March Madness... Completed in March...click here.

Vegas Vacation

Well this week was spring break, so not much baking for me. But I did go to Vegas! I made it a goal to get as many creative desserts as possible, and I took pictures. Most of them were amazing! Too bad I got sick during the trip, and am now home, in bed, on antibiotics. Ugh. Oh, and if you've ever wondered, flying with any sort of infection in your head (mine was ear) is a bad, BAD idea. My ear has yet to pop since we landed Thursday at 4. Painful. So anyway, I'll do food first, then other various pictures.

Our first night we went to Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill in Caesar's Palace. We did this last year and had the most amazing chicken tacos with a peanut butter spicy barbecue sauce. Mmmmm. I even got my favorite prickly pear margarita! For dessert, chocolate corn bread pudding. I was too full to eat too much of it, but it was reallly tasty.


Liz and her friend Alex went to Vegas the same time we did, so we did a lot of walking around. Which meant some pretty monster blisters. We went inside the new Aria casino, part of the new City Center development. I think the theme is as-over-the-top-as-you-can-possibly-get. None of it really goes together, but it's still cool. These awesome cakes are from Jean Phillippe Patisserie and were so pretty!


Then we got crepes there. Liz inspired me to get a Nutella crepe, and it was wonderful! I know the crepe place in the Paris casino used to be the only one, but now everywhere makes crepes! That's definitely on my list of things to learn how to make.


This is a chocolate fountain from the Jean Phillippe store in the Bellagio. Doesn't that look tasty? I'm not even a chocolate person and it looks yummy.


This is an edible toucan also from the store in the Bellagio. I guess all toucans are technically edible by carnivores, but this is a chocolate/pastry one.


We stayed in the Mirage, which is easily my favorite casino. The rooms were amazing (and the beds quite comfy!) and everything we wanted to do was right near us. Drew and I saw the Beatles LOVE Cirque du Soleil for the second time, and I loved it even more this time. It is my favorite show, hands down. Everyone should go see it! This is some yummy cheesecake frozen yogurt. Maybe that will be on my list of things to learn how to make too.


This is a black and white shake from a place called the Burger Bar in Mandalay Bay. It's done by a chef named Hubert Keller. If you watched Top Chef Masters, he's the French guy. The shake was cookie dough and vanilla ice cream and tasty. The burgers were excellent too, although too much food for me!


For dessert here (after having a shake already!) we got the dessert burger. The bun was a doughnut with a filling of cheesecake, strawberries and pineapple. I know it sounds really heavy, but it was actually pretty light. I'm sure it wasn't in the calories though. This was the day we went to Ka, another Cirque show in MGM Grand. It's based on a lot of martial arts, which is something I'm not as interested in, but the stage was a-maz-ing. As in, the whole thing was on hydraulics and went vertical and spun and everything. It was the most fantastic stage ever (check this out at about the 2:10 point).


The last day I was stuck in our hotel room sick for most of the day. Drew got me this key lime pastry from the Jean Phillippe store. The green disc thing on top is edible and really cool. I'm thinking it was white chocolate. I did go to Lion King this night, which we got free tickets too. A good show, although my least favorite of the bunch.


Now for the non-food photos. This was the Grand Canyon out our plane window. I guess I forget how gigantic it is!


This is the ceiling of the Bellagio. I know it's fairly famous, but still stunning! These are all glass.


This is in the Wynn. So cool and colorful.


We all know by now that I'm an animal person too, which means we definitely had to visit the dolphin and cat exhibit at the Mirage. It's for Siegfried and Roy, so it has some of their tigers and all that kind of thing. Last year we went too, and there were baby dolphins, but this year they were all grown up. These dolphins were 7 years old and the other was in his 30s, which the trainer said is on the upper end of their expected lifespan.


One of my favorite kitties was the big lion down in the right-hand lower corner. He was sleeping with his tongue out :). Top-left was a panther, a.k.a. Melvin's big cousin. Next to that is a white tiger who hated some lady outside his cage. I think it might have been the colors she was wearing (yellow and green). He was pacing his cage and stared at her, then sprayed her multiple times. Yuck. Next to him was a tiger that was a teenage tiger last year, laying in the sun. In the bottom left was one of the two babies they had there. They were eight months old and this guy was chewing on a box. The other one was licking a block of ice that they froze blood into. They were super cute.


On the right is the leopard we saw this time. To the left is him last year as a baby. So cute!

So now I'm home with a giant to-do list unable to do it because either my sickness or medicine is making me sleepy. My final project is due a week from today — eek! But, I did have a really cool story run on the front page of the Journal-World last week. It was super fun to write! I'm going to update my Web site to include it for sure. Anyway, I have Princess and the Frog on repeat now, so hopefully I get better soon and can get some stuff done! Also, it's snowing. Seriously Kansas??

Food tasting in NYC

This weekend was fall break, so Drew and I took off on our first trip ever to NYC. Despite awful flight delays (we almost missed our Broadway show!), the weekend was awesome. Lots of shopping, sightseeing, and LOTS of walking. The best part, besides seeing Mary Poppins on Broadway and seeing her pull a full coat stand out of her bag that was clearly only two feet deep, was the food.

I'm kind of obsessive about watching the Food Network. Iron Chef America, Diners Drive-Ins and Dives, Throwdown with Bobby Flay, Ace of Cakes, everything. So when I go to NYC, I want to eat at the restaurants of these people I see.

We've eaten at Mesa Grill by Bobby Flay in Las Vegas, but in New York we ate at Bar Americain, his other restaurant. Drew got a burger and I got chicken pot pie with a sweet potato puff pastry. For dessert, I got an apple tart with maple ice cream. Maple is one of my favorite flavors, so it was pretty amazing. I'm going to try to make the tart sometime, but it's going to take quite a bit of practice to make it look that nice and cut those apples so thin!

Then we went to Mario Batali's Lupa, where I had squash pasta with a butter sauce. I'm pretty sure the people sitting next to us were part of the mob; the guy had a deep New Jersey accent and while he had a wedding ring, she definitely didn't. And he was calling her honey.

We also had breakfast at the Creperie, a place featured on Throwdown. It's fascinating watching them make them; if I tried to make a pastry that thin it would break every time. Mine was raspberry white chocolate, Drew got s'mores and Mary got spinach artichoke.

But my favorite of the trip was Magnolia Bakery, full of awesome cupcakes. Red velvet, devil's food cake, pumpkin maple, so many choices! They also had cheesecakes, including red velvet and key lime, cookies and cakes. I think I might be able to spend every day there. The cupcakes each had like two inches of frosting and were unbelievably tasty. I' d like to figure out how to make cupcakes that well someday.

Overall, it was an awesome trip with some really tasty food. I want to go back some time to do some more sightseeing and definitely some more scouting for desserts. It just makes me want to bake, but that comes tomorrow.