Gluten free cupcakes

One of my classes this term is Nutrition. Within this class, we all signed up for a group project to discuss diseases, and how a person's diet can cause/help/prevent those diseases. The group I was in covered Celiac disease, which is where people with a specific autoimmune disorder cannot have foods with gluten in it. I'm not going to bore you with the information I learned in this project, but I am going to tell you about the extra credit my group did, which was make gluten free cupcakes.


We got the recipe here and we, as a group, got together and made them, doubling the recipe. It was incredibly simple, as they have more and more options in the grocery stores for gluten free products, including gluten free cake mix. I did notice the cupcakes didn't rise nearly as much as a normal cake would, which is to be expected. I'm not sure how/if it would have been different if we got the ingredients to make the cake from scratch, rather than via a mix, but for our purposes, this worked.


The one step in making the cupcakes that was new to me was the frosting. It was a browned butter frosting, made by heating up butter until it boiled. While the butter was boiling, the milk fat (white foamy stuff at the surface) was skimmed off, making it *somewhat* healthier (don't quote me on that) and allowed to heat until it just turned brown. The butter was then cooled until it solidified and we then added in vanilla and powdered sugar, mixing until light and fluffy. It's a number of extra steps vs. mixing softened butter with the powdered sugar, but it has a unique flavor that I really enjoyed.


Have a great weekend everyone!

Ice cream batter cupcakes with chocolate ganache

As promised in my last post, today I made cupcakes, and the batter was made with ice cream. 

I wish I could say this was all my idea, but it wasn't. I got this from one of the blogs I follow, called Cookies and Cupcakes and specifically from this post. In her post, she uses vanilla cake mix and dulce de leche ice cream. As you might have noticed, I like chocolate, so I used

and a pint of

You simply follow the directions on the box, but omit the water and add in the pint of softened ice cream and mix it all together. Please note, you will want to leave the ice cream out a bit to really soften; if it's still somewhat solid in the center, when you go to mix the ingredients, some of it might just decide to fly up, out of the bowl, and onto everything around it, including yourself. Not that that happened to me or anything...

The instructions on my cake box included bake times for cupcakes, so instead of one cake, I made little ones instead. Then to top it all off, while the baked cupcakes were cooling, I made a chocolate ganache, by mixing 2 cups of semi-sweet chocolate chips with 2/3 cup heavy whipping cream over low heat, stirring frequently, until it was all melted and combined. I then dipped the tops of the cupcakes in the ganache, swirled them around a bit, and set them to the side.

Viola! 

Too Darn Hot

Dear faithful blog readers, 

Of the 24 days thus far in this month, there has been only one day that has not reached 100+ degrees here in Austin, and that day it was still 97 (to those of you who mocked me for moving to Austin in August, and you know who you are, I will be laughing this winter when you are dealing with multiple inches of snow, and I am not). 

This is the main reason for why I have not baked all that much since I've been here. Thus, why there have been a limited amount of blog posts. In fact, I've only used my oven 5 times since moving into this apartment: mac & cheese, banana bread (when I discovered my oven is off by 50*), dinner rolls, chocolate chip cookies, and scalloped potatoes (out of the box, I'm sorry to say). 

Tomorrow a good friend of mine is going to visit and we will make dinner together, and, while I'm not sure if what we will have for dinner (whatever that may be) will require the use of the oven, I know I'm going to bake cupcakes (the batter will be made with ice cream!), so please look forward to a post on how those are made.

Until next time,

Me.

Tools of the trade

Today was new student orientation at school. Sitting through the presentations, geared towards just out of high school students, and their parents, was... less than exciting. However, I met several students who will be in the same classes as me this term, and who are also in the same baking/pastry program, so that was very exciting.

{My uniform, minus the apron and neckerchief.}

I realized today, after introducing myself to several of the students, that I was nervous about meeting new people. I shouldn't be, but I was. Anyway, despite the awesomeness of meeting new people, who seem very cool (based on the 10 minutes I spent with them, lol), what was totally amazing and made me positively giddy, was getting my tool kit.

{All the tools come in this handy dandy travel case.}

Ignoring the fact that I paid for all of this stuff, it was like Christmas in August. So incredibly fun.

I have gadgets out the wazoo. Knives and knife sharpener, cake decorating tools, including icing bags and various tips and angled spatulas, measuring cups and spoons, zester/grater, whisk, thermometer, what looks to me like a pizza cutter, but I'm sure will be used for something else, kitchen shears, scrapers, metal and plastic, what looks like a paint brush, a rolled silicon mat, and a rolled up metal 'cutter' (see the round thing on the left center).

Oh, and lab uniforms. Make that *culinary* lab uniforms.

I received/purchased 3 of everything. Double breasted chefs coat, black and white micro checkered pants, bib apron, toque hats, and neckerchief (which I hope they will tell me how to tie around my neck, cause I have no clue). They have already been laundered and are hanging neatly in my closet. I do not have any labs this term, so I will need to wait, not so patiently, until I actually get to use them. Hopefully next term, which starts at the beginning of October. We will see. But until then, my classes start on Friday. Yay!

I'm back!

Ladies and Gents, I'm back. This week I've used my oven twice. The first time I made dinner for a friend who came over and helped me hang up pictures on my wall. I made, for the first time ever, homemade mac and cheese. It was yummy. However, since it wasn't a baked good, either bread or dessert of some kind, I didn't really notice that the oven temperature was off, by a bunch. I did notice the top didn't get as crusty as I would have liked, but I figured since I had never made it before, I didn't *know*. 


However, last night I made banana bread. I never buy bananas with the intent of letting them sit on my counter to get mushy, and to then bake them into bread. Nope, I buy them with the crazy intention of eating them as whole bananas. And then, they sit there, and I forget about them, or I look at them as I eat a doughnut, or something equally bad for me. And then I feel bad. Because I bought the bananas, so I can't waste them, so I must bake them into bread. 


Ok, back to my story. I made banana bread last night. I got a wild hair in my head and decided to actually put my oven thermometer in the oven, just to see how close the temperature setting is. I had already made the dough when I put the thermometer in, so I didn't expect it to tell me an accurate temp right away. However, the oven had already been on while I was making the dough, so I didn't think it would take long for the thermometer to reach the temp. The oven was set at 350* and about 10 minutes later I checked and the thermometer only read 300. I thought it must be taking a while so I gave it another 5 minutes. Nope, still only read 300. And then I thought crap. How high do I need to set the oven to reach the real temp? I moved the dial up to 375 and waited. 10 minutes later it read 325. So I moved it up to 400 and waited some more. Then the thermometer read 345ish. I figured that was good and left it at that. By now, 30 of the 60 minute bake time had gone by and I figured I'd cross my fingers and hope it at least tasted good.


The bread was ok. It didn't rise at all and it was spongy, not bread like. The flavor was ok, but I know it would have been better if the oven was at the right temperature. I just got off the phone with my apartment management and the guy answering didn't seem to think it was that big of a deal, but was going to send someone over anyway.


I know I can adjust the setting up by 50 degrees, but it'd be awesome if the oven setting was what it I set it at. Little things, you know?