Numbers are Hard

oatmeal, caramel, oatmeal -- what could be better?

I am obsessed with a new blog called I am Baker. This woman has an awesome assortment of delicious baked goods which are all decorated beautifully; she’s my amateur baking idol. One treat in particular caught my eye: an oatmeal brownie bar stuffed with caramel, inspired by Martha Stewart. I got hungry looking at it and decided that I was willing to run on the treadmill for an extra 45 minutes to have one of these bad boys. Without wasting any time, I head to the store at 9:30 PM to collect the ingredients and returned with a pint of heavy cream and 6 Milky Way bars.

Let me interject here with the theme of this post – things that are difficult. There are a few things I’m not the greatest at (typing, air traffic control, balancing my checkbook) but I was pretty sure I mastered numbers in kindergarten after I got my “counting to 100 certificate”. Apparently, this is a skill I need to work on because the recipe only called for 2 Milky Way bars and somehow I brought home 6. Did I accidentally multiply by 3? divide by 2 and add 5? Take the square root to the second power and multiply by the second composite number in the sequence? Hard to say, but let’s hope Milky Ways bars have a long shelf life, because I have way too many. 

Fail

Also among things that are hard – reading directions. Another fun fact that I discovered upon returning home with 4 too many Milky Way bars was that I also needed 47 squares of caramel. Really? By now it’s 10:00 and I’m not going to venture back out to the Food Emporium to correct my inability to count or follow directions. I’ll just make it work with some homemade caramel.

Making homemade caramel is actually pretty easy, all that it requires is some heavy cream, butter, brown sugar and corn syrup. The only tip is you want to make sure to use large pot, because the mixture triples when it starts boiling. Combine all of the ingredients over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until it reaches a boil. From there, you just let everything hang out until it reaches 230 degrees F. 

Needless to say, I don’t have a candy thermometer (I don’t even have a people thermometer to tell if I have a fever, so I’ll probably invest in one of those first). A few tips to tell if your caramel has reached it caramel-ness is the color (notice how it changes from a blonde, to a dirty blonde, to a nice golden brown color). 

 

Also, once you think the caramel is ready to go, take a fork and drizzle a little into a cup of cold water. If it can form a soft ball, you’re in business.

So with that mixture ready, it’s time to add the 2 chosen Milky Way bars. This is where you also want to add some cream so the ingredients combine together. Once that’s done, let the mixture cool down for 5 or 10 minutes. 

 

Meanwhile, make the top and bottom layers. The I am Baker recipe suggests mixing in some brownie mix, but I was in a classic mood, so I stayed true to the Midwestern oat-bar and left it unadulterated. After pressing ½ of the mixture into a greased dish, I poured the caramel/Milky Way concoction on top and save the remaining crumble to cover everything. 

Then you pop it in the over for 30 long minutes and end up with something that looks like this:

Not exactly Maratha Stewart quality, but it tastes damn good. I think next time I will just make the caramel from scratch and scatter a cup of chocolate chips on top because the Milky Way bars didn’t really add a chocolaty taste to it. Any way you want to make it (as a brownie, or with any combination of chocolate and caramel) this is a very easy, delicious recipe. And if you’re lucky enough to have basic math problems like me, you might end up with a couple extra Milky Way bars. 

Strawbrizzle Jam

So I’m still no further in thinking about what I want to do with the blog, but that’s not going to stop me from documenting my baking escapades, especially when one of my most favorite ingredients is in season – strawberries. Upon seeing $5 flats of strawberries on a recent trip to TJ’s, I just couldn’t deny my hoarding tendencies—so I bought a bunch. I mean, the apocalypse was just days away… what if I couldn’t get strawberries after 5/21? 

It seemed like a good idea at the time, but once I got them home, I had to figure out how to consume about 6 pints of strawberries in a matter of a week. I put them in my breakfast, ate them for dessert, and after about day 3, couldn’t force-feed myself any more. Then, I remember the delicious homemade jam my grandma use to make in the spring time. When I was 8 I could easily go through and entire jar of strawberry jam in about 2 days. The ingredients are what make is so good: strawberries and sugar -- It’s pretty much dessert in a jar.

I was sure this strawberry jam recipe was some locked down Hannah family secret because of how delicious it was. I called home and had my parents look through every recipe card in my grandmother’s old cookbook to find it. When it finally turned up, I was a little depressed when I learned that grandma got this one from the back of a gelatin box. Whatever, grandma obviously knows not to mess with the classics. 

  

So, recipe in hand, I was ready to start on my homemade jam/canning adventure in the wee kitchen. But, I would also have to have something to put the jam on, so I figured I would make a nice, buttery, brioche bread to serve as the vessel for the jam… can’t be that hard right? Right?

I started by making the bread. The list of ingredients is pretty short – some flour, 3 sticks of butter, yeast, a little water – it’s combining them all together that is the work. Just about every recipe I read suggested using a bread maker, or at least a standing mixer. Oh yeah – like I have room for that in my 8 x 8ft kitchen. Knowing the Big Lots hand mixer would probably kick the dust if I forced it to blend bread together, I decided to do it all by hand. You have to mix each little chunk of butter in by itself by punching and turning the dough. It took a good amount of time, but I worked my aggression out. 

Phew – all done, now just gotta cover this up with some saran wrap and let it rise.

Jump forward 60 minutes…. This looks exactly the same. What the hell?

After checking a few baking sites, it seems like the yeast wasn’t “activated”, so I tried it one more time and made sure the yeast had little bubbles in it before I remixed everything.  Ok, so take 2, going to try this again. 

After the bread (finally ) rose, I cut it into 3 pieces, rolled each of them into a log, and then braided it together to form a braid. It got brushed with some egg whites and sugar and then into the oven. GODSPEED!

 

Now onto the main event – strawberry jam. Compared to the bread, this is quite easy. Strawberries + sugar + heat + 20 minutes of boiling = Jam. If you want some more specifics the “secret family recipe” is below. It advises using Sure-Jell which is pectin and just about impossible to find in NYC (with so many people awaiting the apocalypse, you’d think…). I read a couple of canning blogs (nerd!) and to find that lemon juice is a good substitute since the acidity works with the sugar to make the jam more jelly-like and made that substitution below. 

All that’s left is pouring the strawberry lava into jars. Make sure the jars are sterilized or you end up with botulism in your food without any exceptions** (this may not be 100% true). I just heated up a pot of boiling water and dropped the lids and cans in there for 5 min or so to make sure. Then pour the jam in, leaving about ½ inch at the top and seal. Drop the cans back into a few inches of water for another 5 or 10 min to make sure the can is going to seal. As the jars cool, they’ll pull the little security popper thing down because of a vacuum or friction or gravity… I don’t know… something with science. 

Bread is ready, Jam is ready; time to eat!

Strawberry Jam: 

Ingredients

• 2 pounds fresh strawberries, hulled
• 5 cups white sugar
• 3 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 pinch salt

Directions

1. In a stockpot, combine the strawberries, sugar, vinegar and salt. Bring to a rolling boil, and cook stirring frequently for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the temperature of the mixture has reached 220 degrees F (105 degrees C).
2. Transfer the mixture to hot sterile jars, leaving 1/2 inch headspace, and seal. Process jars for 10 minutes in a water bath. Refrigerate jam once the seal is broken. 

Some big changes

As some of you may be aware, these last few months have involved some big changes which have kept me away from the blog. The biggest one was a recent move into a new apartment in Hell’s Kitchen. I’ll spare those of you that haven’t heard this sob story from the details, but out of all this chaos with finding a new apartment came 1 really great thing – an actual oven: 

I know it may seem petty --- to get so excited about finally having an oven, but after living in NYC your expectations for any kind of common amenities are pretty low. Finally -- an oven to bake more than 6 cookies at a time in, an oven  that will fit a full cupcake pan without burning the tops and leaving the middles unbaked, and oven that will fulfill all my baking hopes and dreams…

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been putting a lot of thought into what will become of the blog. Obviously the name will have to change since I no longer live in Alphabet City. That seems like a pretty easy one though… just think of a cute little title and slap it on the homepage. But what will the content be? Without the convection oven, I’m just baking like a regular poor person. Oh sorry – person on a “budget” (of $0).

So here we are folks. The trusty Big-Lots blender is still kicking, but after only 3 posts we’re back to square one. Should I just scrap it and start over with a new theme like “healthy baking”? Should I keep on with the overly-used approach of budget baking with a catchy title to set it apart? Suggestions are welcome and baked temptations will be on the way in the next few weeks!

I love cooking with alcohol. Sometimes I even put it in my food.

I’m actually Irish, not just St. Patrick’s Day Irish. That said, it was instinctual how to celebrate this unifying holiday: with Ireland’s sweet nectar -- Guinness and Bailey’s.

Deciding how to combine these two ingredients (besides in my mouth) was easy. I settled on a modified crowd favorite: Chocolate Guinness mini-cupcakes with Bailey’s frosting. Oh yeah – I went there. I had previously made an even boozier concoction with a layer of Jameson chocolate ganache for Abbas’ birthday, so I knew this was an intoxicating combination. You can find the recipe for the Guinness cake here and Bailey's frosting here. I made a few modifications below though.

So after a quick trip to my nearest liquor store for a lone bottle of Guinness and a nip of Bailey’s I was off!

The recipe is very easy to put together (even after a few sips of the sauce) so making the batter didn’t take much time. As with the last month’s cookies, the real devotion takes place in the baking process. Thankfully, the mini cupcake pan cooks many a mini cupcake at a time. On the other hand, it takes very little batter to fill a mini cupcake, so all in all, I think it would have been faster to make regular cupcakes… but the mini ones are just so cute! (insert that's what she said joke here)

I also discovered a magical setting unique to my convection oven: abstract. I must have switched that on after pre-heating to 350 degrees because the first few batches came out like small modern art sculptures. Seriously, you couldn’t get your ovens to do this if you tried! After a few experiments, I found that rotating the pan produced more normal, sober-looking cupcakes.

The Bailey’s Icing was pretty easy to make, but I ended up doubling the amount Bailey’s to make it a little more flavorful and for a better consistency for piping out of a gallon ziplock bag (only the finest at chez Hannah). I also, obviously, left out the green sprinkles. Buy hey, dance what you feel. 

And there you have it! One organic-clover-garnish-that-I-found-in-Tompkins-Park-and-triple-washed-with-soap-and-water-because-it-was-from-Tompkins-Square-Park later you have what I can only assume is an authentic Irish dessert, made with the country’s finest exports (minus Conan O'Brien who last time I checked you couldn't make into a cupcake).

Valentine's Day -- Bottoms up

This may come as a shock to most, but I’m not a huge fan of Valentine’s Day. I’m not one to arrange dead roses for exes, wear all black, and send cards out to people that say “love is for losers” or “Destiny: You were meant for me (perhaps as a punishment)”. I’m also not the kind of person to wear little cupid pins or make some romantic scavenger hunt to declare my love.

I do think it’s a great holiday to bake one of my favorite things – sugar cookies. The recipe is here, and I have to say, it’s a great one. Very easy to make, the dough rolls out easily, and tastes like my grandma’s. But then I got to thinking; these cookies are a little boring.

What if…

 Now we’re cooking with gas!

 

The first few attempts didn’t turn out the best.

But after a little practice I was on a roll.

 

 ----> My favorite is Granny Panties

Baking the cookies turned out to be a feat. Because the oven is so small, I could only fit in 5 cookies at a time. That’s about 10 batches of cookies. Those of you who have regular ovens should have no problem getting this done in a reasonable amount of time.  

The oven also cooks at whatever temperature it feels like that day, which makes it a guessing game of how long to leave the cookies in without getting burnt. The first few batches came out “Latino”. Robbie ate most of those before they got frosted.

Icing was the hardest part. All of the colors needed to be made in individual batches, so they were all a slightly different consistency. I got a little lazy after about hour 3 of this process, so I might not have measured as accurately. This lead to some being runnier than others – i.e. difficult decorating! Also, because of my budget, I used gallon-sized plastic bags as icing bags. After loading the icing into the corner of the bag, I cut a fine tip. Even so, there was an issue controlling the amount of icing that came out – thus, ‘granny panties.’

With the challenges of the icing, and without a Victoria’s Secret catalog, inspiration was exhausted pretty quickly. I moved into my “hippie period” which consisted of just swirling the colors together to make psychedelic patterns. But I’m sure these panties exist somewhere in the post-Woodstock world

After about hour 5 I just drew hearts on cookies and called it a day.

Robbie thinks I should end this post with some kind of raunchy joke, but I’m just going to conclude it with a Happy V-day, hope it’s as delicious as mine :)

Adventures in Alphabet City Baking : Preheat

In a lot of ways I owe this first blog posting to Abbas Manjee.He's been the one gunning for me to set this bad boy up since I made him a birthday cake last year. “Dude,” he suggested in a euphoric sugar high, “You should sell this shit. You could have a blog where you take pictures of all the stuff you bake, and how much it costs, and then sell it to hungry people in New York.” He may also have been a little drunk.

As well as providing technical and moral support, Abbas was first person who made me realize that baking truly was going to be an adventure in New York City.

Almost a year ago, I moved into my own 1-bedroom apartment. This is a pretty pivotal moment in any twenty-something’s life. Your first place -- you can take your pants off as soon as you walk in the door, put your stuff wherever you want it – it’s the best. And my very first place was the most quintessential New York apartment I could imagine. Anxious to show it off, I immediately invited over Naqiya and Abbas to congratulate my transition into adulthood.

As we walked down the hallway to apt #4, I bragged about all the amazing qualities of my new place: cute little block in Alphabet City, no more 6 floor walk up, a garden right outside my window, exposed brick, washer and dryer in the apartment, pocket doors, all remolded. I opened the door and let both of them step inside. Naqiya immediately said how great my new place was (yes! She’s making me feel 100X better about my $4000 security deposit). After absorbing her praise, I turned to Abbas looking for further validation. He looked around a little more and said, “This is really nice, man… but did you know you don’t have an oven?”

WHAT?!  I had a momentary freak out where I imagined all the delicious things I used the oven for, gone forever --pies, cakes, Midwestern casserole dishes, reheated Thanksgiving rotisserie chicken dinner for 1, the occasional banana bread (sent to Robbie through the always-efficient USPS across several states and a mountain range), cookies, that time I needed to heat up the apartment when it was a little cold….

I’ll spare you the details, but eventually I had to come to terms that if I wanted to continue my baking hobby, I was going to need a convection oven. I took a gander on Criagslist and found a one for sale in Williamsburg. Anthony (the previous owner of the oven) assured me that he only cooked French fries and pizza bites in there. After an exchange of $70, I just had to get it home. All that entailed was walking with a 30lb oven 5 blocks, down some subway stairs, onto the train, off the train, onto another train, up the subway stairs, a few blocks to a bus, on the bus, off the bus, a few more blocks, and then…. then… into my soon-to-be-bakery-scented home. 

 

The purpose of this blog? To chronicle my adventures baking in Alphabet City with a glorified toaster oven and a handmixer I bought from Big Lots in college. It’s kind of like Survivorman for baking (with fewer rattlesnakes). If I can do it – then you can too.

At the end of every post I’ll give a break down of materials and costs, so if you want to do this too you’ll know how much dough you’ll knead (sorry for the pun, Robbie made me do it). Or, if you want me to do it, you can just place an order—you know, for all those times you want to trick people into thinking you invested time into making something from scratch just for the occasion. I promise I’ll make it look extra homemade…

Just kidding – It will be delicious and beautiful!

So enjoy! First post about Valentine’s Day Baking coming soon!

In all of its glory