French Yule Log

This month's challenge is brought to us by the adventurous Hilda from Saffron and Blueberry and Marion from Il en Faut Peu Pour Etre Heureux.
They have chosen a French Yule Log by Flore from Florilege Gourmand

All I can say about this months challange is that it took all day, but it DID taste delicious. 

My favorite part was the mousse, the ganache and the praline feuliette. 

My chocolate frosting gelatized before I got a chance to spread it all around the cake, so I ended up whipping my leftover cream and plopping it all around the cake to look like snow, then sprinkled powder sugar to add to the affect. It looks frost bitten in this picture, it was still very frozen when I snapped the shots.

Pizza Party!!

 This months darking bakers challenge was pizza! It was really a blast making this challenge. I invited  two of my bestest friends, Sarah and Heather over and we tossed pizzas until we dropped them on the floor. (but still ate them anyway)

-AHEM- Video! Here's the video of me tossing the pizza. Sarah and Heather are in it first, then me. I'm with the long, plain, black sleeved shirt. MY VOICE SOUNDS NOTHING LIKE THAT. And notice the flour all over my pants. xD

Sarah and Heather think I'm weird when I photograph my food...^_^;

Anyway, the main problem with my dough is that is wasn't wet enough (as in, the dough didn't have enough water), and it formed a crust in the fridge over night so it wasn't soft and didn't rise well.

BUT.

It tasted AWESOME. Everyone loved it, including myself. I'm definitely making it again and again and again.

Daring Bakers--EXTREMELY late!

 I feel terrible! I've seriously been neglecting my blog. I've been working more hours lately, I'm getting over a cold, school's started, and I was so busy sewing my costume for an anime convection until a few weeks ago. But this is gonna change! Not to mention, just until a few days ago my compter has been down so I wasn't able to find the pictures I took.

Last months daring bakers challenge was Lavash Crackers. I didn't have the time or ingredients to make a dip, sojust salted crackers is what I made.

These crackers were delicious! I can't wait to make them again.

I'm sorry I haven't commented on anyone elses blogs!! This will change, I promise!

Peanut Butter Cup Blondies

There was a beautiful breeze blowing through my kitchen window on Sunday morning. Everyone in my family was taking a nape, leaving the house was quiet, with the exception of the birds chirping outside, the trees blowing in the wind, and the sound of the an occasional card driving by on this dead end road. It felt so much like autumn I think I should've been baking apple pie instead of blondies!

These blondies are very moist, dense, soft but still chewy, with the wonderful taste of peanut butter and chocolate. I've used this blondie recipe before, and I stole the chocolate frosting recipe from my awesome friend "hollie". The difference? This time instead of nuts and chocolate chunks, put chopped Reeses peanut butter cups in the batter. No, it's not original at all, but it's extremely tastey!



I used a 12 oz. package of reeses minature peanut butter cups and chopped them however I liked. Usually fours, thirds and in half.



Blondies (recipe found here, on SmittenKitchen)

one 12 oz. package of Reeses miniature peanut butter cups.
16 tablespoons butter (2 sticks) , melted
2 cup brown sugar (I used dark)
2 egg
2 teaspoon vanilla
2 Pinch salt
2 cup all-purpose flour

Unwrap Peanut Butter cups and chop into pieces of either fours, thirds, or halfs.
Butter an 9x13 pan
Mix melted butter with brown sugar - beat until smooth. Beat in egg and then vanilla.
Add salt, stir in flour. Stir in chopped Reeses.
Pour and spread into pan. Bake at 350°F 20-25 minutes, or until set in the middle. (mine cooked a little longer than this)

While baking, prepare frosting.

Chocolate frosting:

2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
6 tbls. boiling water
1 stick butter
3 cups powder sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

add the cocoa powder and water in a medium bowl and stir into a soft mass. Add butter and blend to combine, about 30 seconds. Beat in powder sugar and vanilla on low speed until incorperated. Beat on medium speed until forsting lightens and is fluffy, about 2 minutes.

Let Blondies cool the spread with forsting. WARNING: these won't last long!

Daring Bakers and an award!

Okay, so this months challenge was Filbert Gateau with Praline Buttercream. I was excited to find out this cake was from Carole Walter's "Great Cakes".

To start, I made this cake on monday night. I had no idea I was making the cake, but I got an unexpected tip from work.

so I picked up the ingredients at 4 and got to work at 6, after dinner. That's the last time I'm ever staring a daring baker project at 6 in the evening! By the time I was done I was ready to break down and cry myself to sleep. It was almost midnight, and nothing was going my way!

When I woke up the next morning, I was feeling a little better and decorated the cake. The only pastry tip I have is very small, and it kept getting clogged. The big splatter on top were accidents because the butter cream came right out of the top and plopped right on my design...*sigh*







Taste review:
I didn't like it. I didn't hate it, but I didn't like it.

My sister liked it! Maybe she has a more "adult palette"?

My friend Heather didn't like it, so she brought it home to her mom

My fron "Hollie" didn't like it very much but ate it anyway because she loves me. XD

Needless to say, I won't be making this again! But I'm glad I tried, it was worth the experience!

Luckily, "Hollie" brought over her peanut butter cup cheesecake! AMAZING. I'm seriously going to steel the recipe from her one of these days.



EDIT:
Karen of Do Better awarded me with the smiles award! It made me very happy and definitely put a smile on my face!

Characteristics for the Smile Award:
1. Must display a cheerful attitude. (not necessarily at all times–we are all human)
2. Must love one another3. Must make mistakes
4. Must learn from others
5. Must be a positive contributor to blog world
6. Must love life
7. Must love kids

These are the rules:

1. The recipient must link back to the award’s creator (http://www.thebabblingsofmere.blogspot.com/)
2. You must post these rules if you receive the award.
3. You must chose 5 people to receive the award after receiving it yourself
4. You must fit the characteristics of the recipient of the award, as posted by Mere.
5. You must post the characteristics of a recipient.
6. You must create a post sharing your win with others.
7. You must thank your giver.

Now I'm not sure if I can do this, but I want to award Karen with the same award! So I give the award to

1. Karen of Do Better. She's an amazing baker and extremely nice. She has 2 children who take after her beauty and her family seems so loving.
2. My very own sister, Christina, of Stuff By Stina. She's beautiful, talented and of the nicest people I've met!! She's great with little kids and when she smiles the whole room glows. (sorry, that was cheesy...but true!)
3. is Mother Bliss. She has a wonderful family and I love reading about her life! She's a great baker and cook, and her kids are adorable.
4. is Daily Delicious! Everything she makes looks so incredibly delicious! I'd love to visit her house for tea one day.
5. is Christina of She Runs She Eats. She's an amazing athlete who knows good food! I lkove to read how she's doing and all her tips. Everything she posts looks great, wether she's eating it or making it herself!

Carrot Cake

I wish I were about to show you some really beautiful cake, covered in fondant, with gum paste flowers, edible gold and other fancy decorations.

But no.

Here is a carrot cake. The same way My mom's been making it for years. This cake is heavy, dense, very filling (and satisfting) if you eat too much. The cake is so good you could eat it on it's own, without the frosting! Of course, I'd say the same thing about the frosting...I can't remember how many times I've licked the bowl out! It's creamy, rich, thick and smooth.

But it's sloppy. The whole cake, whenever I make it, it looks sloppy. It's just not a naturally beautiful cake. But it's whats inside that counts, right?









This is one of my favorite cakes. My sister claims she could this off of this, eating nothing more. I tend to agree with her...(If we did, we'd all get really fat! )

Carrot Cake recipe:

2 1/2 cups of flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. salt

2 cups sugar
1 cup oil
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 eggs

2 cups shredded carrots
8 oz. crush pineapple (from a can)
1 cup rasins or walnuts (optional)

Greese and lightly flour a 13 X 9 pan. *

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl beat together sugar, oil, vanilla and eggs. Add the flur mixture and beat together just until combined. Do not over beat. Add the shredded carrots, crushed pineapple, and raisin/walnuts. Gently combine together,on very low speed with hand mixer for a few seconds or with a large wooden spoon.

* My mom and I always double the recipe and use 2 9-inch pans. If you do this, you'll have a little leftover which can be baked in a loaf pan.

Cream Cheese Frosting
8 oz. cream cheese, soft
2 1/2 cups powder sugar
6 tbls. butter, soft
1 tsp. vanilla

Throw all the ingredients in a bowl and beat until smooth and creamy. Warning: powder sugar likes to fly out of the bowl and mess up all you counters and measurments. Be sure to use a large bowl, especially if doubled!

Daring Bakers -- Danish Braid!

The Daring Baker have decided it's time for more yeast. This months challenge was a Danish Braid. I'm going to keep my post short. (I appoligize in advance for the crummy pictures. The lighting in my house was terrible at 9 PM)



I made my braid on Friday. I started around 10 AM and it finished baking at 9 PM. That wouldn't have bothered me so much, but the whole bottom of my braid was burnt. Pitch black. Thankfully that was the one part that burnt. The filling and the top stayed nice and fluffy/flaky. But nearly twelve hours and I burnt it!!





It didn't seem like I had any problem doing the turns, but I'm not sure since this is my first time making anything like this.

The filling was pineapple/cheese, and I got the recipe from Carole Walter's "Great Coffee Cakes, Sticky Buns, Muffins & More". I liked the filling a lot, but I should've added more. I added a crumb topping from the same book to the top.



Anway, as for why it burnt, I'm not sure. I didn't have any parchment paper so I wasn't able to use that one the pan. Instead I greased it with margarine. Is that the reason why?

Please go to this months hosts blog for the recipe, as well as great pictures of the process!
Sass and Veracity and What's Cooking

The Bread Baker's Apprentice, French Bread

On Wednesday I realized I had to make a pre-ferment so I could make French Bread the next day. Of course I realized it at quarter to 10 when So You Think You Can Dance was almst over, but like a good baker I got up an made it, because I really didn't feal like going to bed at midnight just so I could watch it and refridgerate it.

I ended up going to bed a midnight anyway because I became hooked on a new anime called Toshokan Sensou....^^;;

Anyway, I started at around 10 I think, and it was out of the oven around 3.



When I pulled the bread out of the oven and saw it grinning it made me grin myself. This is the best I've done so far at cutting the dough before it bakes!









Of course my bread is still inconsistent, and the slashing looks better at the top of the one then on the rest of 'em, but it made me happy!

I was tagged! =3

I was tagged by Sarah from Sweet Endeavors! This is my second time being tagged, first being on DeviantArt a long time ago .

The rules: Each participant answers questions about himself. At the end of the post the participant tags 5 people. Their names are posted letting them know they’ve been tagged. They then have to read the participant’s blog. The tagged let’s the tagger know when he’s posted his answers.

Ok, now for the questions -

What was I doing ten years ago?
Moving into a new house and my current one.

What are five (non-work) things on my to-do list for today:

1. Go to the orthodontist and hopefully get the X-rays done so I can get rid of these braces!
2. Go to work, and not mess up at all
3. Draw!!
4. Post my vacation photos on this blog
5. Read more manga

Snacks I enjoy:

1. Chocolate chipe cookies
2. apples
3. Cookies and cream ice cream
4. Oreos
5. Cinnamon buns!

Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
1. Go to Japan and Italy
2. Buy lots 'n lots of Super Dollfies
3. Start a bakery with my friend
4. Move to a large house in ocean city and bring my family with me
5. Get and awesome kitchen with tons of equipment and a pizza oven like they use

Places I have lived:
1. I've lived in about 4 or 5 different house before, where I'm not saying.

Jobs I have had: (paid jobs?)
1. I work with little kids in a place similar to Chukee Cheese
2. Irirsh dance assistant Teacher
I think that's it for paying jobs... Oh, I used to help my dad peel vinal off old signs so he could replace them and sometimes I'd get paid!

Okay, now to tag people!! Sorry if this is a bother! Anyway, I tag-
Mother Bliss
Do Better
She Runs She Eats
Daily Delicious
I can't think of anyothers, since I don't really know anyone on here!

Opera Cake!

I'm on vacation right now and I realized today is the posting date!

This months challenge was an Opera cake. Something I've wanted to make for a long time now. I really didn't think I'd get to make this challenge, seeing as how there were so many ingredients, and most of them were expensive.

Looking though my pantry one day, I realized I had enough ingredients to make 1/4 of the recipe! So, I used what I had, and made one, cute little cake!



I used pecans for the cake, and my favorite ceamcheese butter cream.





I didn't have anything for a glaze or mousse so I ended up making some strange orange/cream cheese curd-jello-thing, then whipped it up after setting it in the fridge.

I want to try making this cake again when I can do the flavors I want!

I apologize for the sloppy post! Blogging is not easy to do on vacation! ;-)

Greeting from the OC!

Greetings from Ocean City! I'm on vacation right now and I'm having a blast! Every where you go there's the smell of funnel cake and salt water. They have some great food down here and I plan to try them all! (or at least a lot of them)



I woke up this morning at 5:30 and after getting dressed, me and mom went for a walk with the dog. After mass, we went for donuts at my favorite donut shop, Dot's Pastry Shop. As we pulled up to the window I nearly died--they're hiring bakers for the summer! Oh, how I wish I lived here, and was skilled enough! I would just love to go into the back were they bake!




So we got 2 dozen donuts and a bear claw.





Jelly and creme filled powder donuts. Okay, the creme filled were amazing. SO much better then the ones you buy a Dunkin' Donuts, and I have nothing against DD!



The donuts here a really soft and almost melt in your mouth. The glazes and fillings are so sweet and delicious. It's no wonder they're packed on Sunday mornings!!

Last night me, my brothers and my sister went on to the board walk and got some pizza. There ae so many shops to choose from: The famous Mack & Manco, Luigi's, and various others. We went for The 3 brothers Italy, they claim they make the world largest pizza! And boy, was it big!! One slice is really like 2! hat i love though is that it's not just big, it GOOD. I wasn't able to get a picture yesterday, but I'm sure we'll go back later in the week, so hang around for a picture!!

Oh yeah, turned 16 on Thursday! I have change my profile now.

Sweet Sixteen!

Remember my friend Heather, the one me and Sarah made the Kit Kat cake for? Well, her late sweet sixteen party was tonight, and me and Sarah spent all night yesterday ( 5 1/2 hours! while all Heather did was lick the bowls out...) baking her 2 kit kat cakes and a zillion cupcakes to serve her guests. It was a blast! I wasn't able to get pics of the full cakes, but I have a few leftovers I got to bring home to my family!


The cookies are white cake with Oreo crumbs baked into the batter, whipped cream frosting with Oreo in it. YUM!


This time we made the cake rectangular so we could feed more people, more efficiently. Worked out nice!

Fudgy yummy brownies!

I love Martha Stewart recipes. I often go to her site when looking for a recipe for a specific food. Usually I have a hard time finding one because her searching system stinks, but I found a excellent brownie recipe on there. They're called Super-Fudgy Brownies how could I not make them with a name like that??



They're exactly as she says: moist, fudgy, delicious and chocolatey. Way better than the iced brownies I tried.

The only alteration to recipe were I used milk chocolate, because I didn't have semi-sweet, and I baked them for ony about 30 minutes, rather than 50-60! They probably would have been chocolate bricks if I'd waited any longer.

So, go make them!! Recipe can be found HERE.

Buttermilk Biscuits

Today I made the Old-fashioned Buttermilk Biscuits from Carole Walters book. They're incredibly delicious! I spread mine with grape jelly and it tasted great, but would've been better with strawberry jam.





Sicne you're only supposed to role the dough once, I rolled the scraps in melted butter then in a mixture of cinnamon, sugar, brown sugar and cocoa powder. But 'em in a pan and baked. I've seen stuff like this done before and have always wanted to make it. ^^

Cinnamon Rolls...again!?

Cinnamon rolls, again? Wait--this time it's a new recipe! And they came out wonderful! The dough is sweet and soft, very light and fluffy! Because they don't feel quite so much like a lump in your stomach it's the perfect excuse to eat more than one!




The new recipe I tried was from Allrecipes.com The directions call for a bread machine, but I did it by hand since I don't have one.
Cinnamon Rolls II
(taken from allrecipes.com--recipe HERE)

• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup water
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 6 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 tablespoons active dry yeast (I used 1 Tbl. and 1 tsp. of instant yeast.)
  
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs

In a medium bowl, mix whisk together flour and salt, set aside. Place milk, water and butter in a sauce pan over medium heat. Bring the liquids to a warm (about 110-115 F) temperature, and swish the butter around to help it melt. Poor the mixture into a large bowl. Add the eggs, and whisk together. Add yeast and sugar, stir. If using active dry, the yeast should bubble. Then add the flour/salt. Using the dough hooks on a hand mixer (or other mixer) mix the dough together, and use the dough hooks to knead for about 5 minutes. Knead the dough on a floured counter for 2 minutes. You made need a bit extra flour.
Let the dough rise until doubled. Took me about 2 hours.
Precede as you would any other cinnamon roll.

Cream cheese frosting
innabon-ish Frosting Recipe

1 cup sugar
4 large egg whites
1 1/2 stick butter, room temperature
16 ounces cream cheese
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Bring a pot of water to a simmer on the stove. Add egg whites and sugar to a large heatproof bowl. Place the bowl over the pot of water and whisk constantly until sugar dissolves, and mixture feel hot , about 3 minutes. Remove from heat beat til cool for 4 minutes, or until mixture turns white like thick marshmallow cream and it's slightly bigger. Add butter and beat till smooth, then add cream cheese, 4 ounces at a time, and beat until smooth, adding the vanilla with the last 4 ounces of cream cheese.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie :0

It's a chocolate chip coookie. It's a pie. It's a chocolate chip cookie pie! (and it tastes almost like cake!)

When I found this chocolate chip cookie pie recipe on Bakerella, I knew I had to make it. I love chocolate chip cookies. Believe it or not, I'm not a huge fan of pie, mainly because I'd rather have chocolate or cheese(cake!) than fruit. But chocolate chip cookie pie? That's my kind of dessert.



I still don't have chocolate chips, so I did the same method as my previous post and piped them by hand using fudge frosting.



It doesn't look as good as Bakerella's, but it tastes amazing!!
I used this recipe for the pie crust. It's "yum-o!" >.<

No Pops For Me :(

Due to some issues, I was unable to participate in this months challenge, Cheesecake Pops, but if you came here to see them, check out Karen's! She did an amazing job on them and they're definitely worth checking out!!

Anyway, so this is what I've been up to:

Iced brownies. Too cakey for me and not fudgy enough. I thought I was making the ones Mom usually makes, turns out I was using the wrong recipe! Next time.



Homemade tortilla shells! I didn't taste these, I made them for my brother. I was never of fan of soft tortilla! Next time I'll roll them thinner.



Cookies! With substitute chocolate chips. I made my favorite fudge frosting (in comment) but used milk instead of water, then plopped them on a baking sheet and put them in the freezer while I made My favorite chocolate chip cookies. The leaked a bit, but were incredibly delicious! Perfect for when you don't have chocolate chips!!





Sadly, no pops, but next month I'll be ready and daring!