ICE CREAM!

I browbeat my dad into buying me an ice cream maker last summer at... Costco. OF COURSE I need an ice cream maker. Of course. I've tried a few recipes, and this is by far the best one yet.

Vanilla Bean Gelato
5 large egg yolks
3/4 cup sugar
3 1/4 cups whole milk
1 vanilla bean
* the original recipe calls for 1 cup heavy cream, which I didn't use, and substituted milk instead. I threw in a few tbls of cornstarch to thicken the mixture after the eggs/milk were combined

Whisk together egg yolks and sugar until pale yellow and thick (or throw in the stand mixer).

Combine the milk and vanilla bean (sliced in half lengthwise) in a saucepan. Heat the mixture just until it starts to bubble along the edges. The recipe says do not allow to boil. I never pay attention enough to milk and it always boils. Nothing bad happens (so far). Remove from the heat.

Remove the vanilla bean and scrape out the seeds with the tip of a knife. Add the seeds back into the milk mixture. Let the vanilla bean shell dry out and throw it in with some sugar to make vanilla sugar, for coffee, tea, or whatever other use you might have for vanilla-flavored sugar. A scone topping perhaps?

While whisking the egg mixture (or having it in the mixer) add in about a cup of the warm milk mixture and combine together. Then add in the rest of the egg mixture to the milk. This process prevents scrambled eggs in hot vanilla flavored milk. Heat the mixture slowly to 175 to 180 degrees F. I have no idea whether I got it to this temperature. I don't have a thermometer. The original recipe said "Do not allow the custard to simmer." I let it boil. Oops! This is a good time to throw in some cornstarch if you used milk instead of cream. Maybe 2 tbls. Sprinkle it in and whisk. The custard should be thickened and coat the back of a wooden spoon.

Strain the custard through a fine mesh sieve, which gets out the weird egg proteiny bits, as well as any cornstarch that globbed together, cover, and refrigerate until well chilled. When chilled (or at least not hot), throw it in the ice cream maker and process according to directions. I didn't add anything, but you could probably throw in whatever your heart desires.

Spring

I can't wait to take my photography class! I have no idea what I'm doing. Or I have some vague idea because I have eyes and I see things that are pretty. But I think I'm underutilizing the bells and whistles on the old camera. Don't even get me started on Photoshop. Thankfully I downloaded some "actions" for Photoshop and I can make this...

look like this...

Rittenhouse today...

and in yesteryear...

Cupcakes

I never like the buttercream frosting I make for cakes at home. It is always missing something I can't put my finger on. This frosting, however, is missing nothing. Totally delicious. As are the cupcakes.

Vanilla Bean Cupcakes (from Joy the Baker who I think got them from someone else but this is not a research paper so I'm not going to go out of my way with the citations). I believe the frosting is hers.

makes 24 cupcakes

2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened
1 3/4 cup granulated sugar
4 large eggs
1 cup whole milk
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 vanilla bean, seeds scraped out
2 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line two cupcake pans with liners and set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt. In a small bowl, whisk together milk, vanilla extract and vanilla bean seeds. In a stand mixer (if you have one), fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Otherwise use beaters for 100 years and ask for a stand mixer for your birthday. Scrape down the sides of the bowl to make sure everything is mixed in.

Add the eggs, one at a time, beating for one minute after each addition. The mixture might look a bit curdled but keep going. With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and the vanilla milk mixture in three batches, starting and ending with the flour. When the batter is almost combined, stop the mixer and finish mixing the batter with a spatula, making sure that everything from the bottom of the bowl is well incorporated.

Use an ice cream scoop to divvy up batter into pan. Or a spoon. But an ice cream scoop is easier. Bake for 25 minutes or until golden and a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow to cool in the pan for 10 minutes before removing to cool completely before frosting.

The Best Chocolate Buttercream Frosting (I agree)
makes enough to frost 24 cupcakes or one 8-inch layer cake (I don't agree, I ran out toward the end).

1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/4 cup powdered sugar, sifted
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 tablespoons milk
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/3 cup Ovaltine

Cream together butter, cocoa powder and salt. Butter mixture will be very thick. Turn off the mixer, scrape down the sides of the bowl and add powdered sugar. Turn mixer on low and mix in powdered sugar while adding milk and vanilla extract. As the sugar incorporates, raise the speed of the mixer to beat the frosting. Beat until smooth. In a 1-cup measuring glass, stir together heavy cream and Ovaltine. Turn mixer speed to medium and pour cream mixture into frosting in a slow, steady stream, until you’ve reached your desired consistency. You may not need the full amount of Ovaltine and cream. I only used about half. And it was not really pourable. No clue, but it still tastes and looks great.

I fell off the wagon

I made it a whole two months without coffee, more or less. There were two small slip ups (one brunch, one iced caramel macchiato in the blazing hot sun of San Antonio). In early February, I got a TERRIBLE cold. Worst cold ever ever. When I'm sick I don't like coffee, I like tea. So I decided I would see what would happen if I became a tea drinker. I made it all the way to today. It's warm outside. It's time for iced coffee. I can't live without iced coffee. A boy I dated when I lived in Boston once told me that Dunkin Donuts medium iced coffee had the perfect proportion of milk and sugar to coffee. So true. Smalls and larges don't taste the same. He also told me he let me win at Trivial Pursuit, which was not true. But the coffee thing was important enough that I can forgive the untruthiness of the Trivial Pursuit comment.

My foray into tea drinking (it never felt quite right if I'm honest with myself) was timid at best. I stuck to Twinings brand, and drank only English Breakfast. I tasted both Lady Grey and Earl Grey, but the Greys' teas had too much taste. It wasn't that I minded drinking tea, I just missed the taste of coffee. Tea doesn't look as pretty to me in the cup. It doesn't have that same cafe au lait look to it. I missed being a coffee drinker. This all got me thinking that there's a culture to coffee drinking, and a culture to tea drinking. Coffee drinkers are frenetic, slightly agitated, perhaps ulcer ridden from the acid in the coffee. Tea drinkers are calm, serene, and British-ish. I clearly do not fit well into the latter category. Plus, iced coffee. I can't do without it.

My love of yoga

I am not athletic. I have tried many times to be athletic to no avail. I throw like a girl, I sprain things easily, I have bad aim, and I am just not motivated by being sporty, despite my best efforts. Each athletic endeavor I have attempted has ended in some tragic yet predictable way.

Ballet (had an emergency bathroom break in the middle of the recital), Gymnastics (the uneven bars still strike fear in my heart), Softball (was in far right field behind three other people who were in actual right field), Basketball (was on "B" team, and scored one basket the whole season... for the other team), Winter soccer (I liked the rugby shirts because they looked sporty but it was far too cold for running around outside), Lacrosse (all the cool girls played it! I don't think I successfully caught or threw the ball, and the rules were confusing), Field Hockey (I think I had a brief flirtation here around the time I had the tryst with lacrosse... neither went far), Tennis (I have a wickedly dangerous and unpredictable backhand), Biking (a guaranteed fainting spell and day long wooziness), Adult kickball (it turns out not even I can kick a giant red ball right in front of me but the drinks were good), Running (think wounded three-legged hippopotamus... I did get a varsity letter in track statisticianing though), Rollerblading (I don't do well with wheels for feet), Horseback riding (let's not go there), Cheerleading/Dancing/Aerobics (let's also not go there, there, or there), Walking (most of the time okay but I have more skinned knees post-early elementary school than I would like to admit).

Swimming is about the only actual sport I am even remotely good at, although more from a distance perspective than a speed perspective. Why my high school swim coach insisted upon having me be the anchor leg (that's the last one, right?) of the relay team is beyond me. Tragic with a capital T. The nice thing was that in an empty pool you can really hear your teammates cheering you on! But yoga, oh yoga, how I love you. I am actually good at yoga. Now you may say yoga is not a competitive sport, and I would agree. But I totally don't care. Because I can do it. I don't get flustered because I'm losing, or messing up a team, and I don't lose track of what the instructor is doing. I am proudly in the front row. I wonder if when I move to Cincinnati and join the Cincinnati Sport and Social Club, I can respectfully decline the Sport portion?

Flours

I had another one of those very quiet weekend mornings this morning. I just linked back to myself - is that metablogging? I was waiting for a garbage disposal repairman to arrive. I am often waiting (at inconvenient times) for repairmen (never repairladies) to come to my apartment. I think it took two months of "Saturday, between 8 and 12" to get a new washer and dryer installed. It was dreary and rainy and grey this morning in Philadelphia and the weather demanded a low level of activity. I decided I wanted to watch a movie, and I really wanted that movie to be Stranger Than Fiction. I love this movie. It's about a tax auditor who falls in love with a baker. Will Ferrell is a great actor and is funny even when his character is sort of tragic. I particularly like him in this movie because he charmingly brings the baker flours instead of flowers.

After my quiet morning, I went to Wegmans. Not quiet. Not even close. I bought rhubarb. I'm going to make something rhubarby with it. More on that later. I also bought Biscoff cookies. Lest my bloggings stray too far from the theme of this blog (moving to Cincinnati and/or baking and/or picture taking), these cookies are served on Delta and one of Delta's hubs is Cincinnati. And the cookies are totally divine. They're like shortbready, gingery, brown sugary deliciousness. They also crumb easily which makes me look like a messy five year old every time I fly on a Delta plane. What if Cincinnati doesn't have a Wegmans?? Where will I get my hard-to-find international foods and British candy?

Que lindo! or would it be que linda?

Cake Balls Take 2. Yellow cake. Chocolate icing. Cake ball perfection. They were a little less lumpy this time due to a longer stay in the freezer; midway through their creation I was distracted by a Skype fourway. I love them with the sprinkles, plus they cover up some of the imperfections that make them look like dumpy little blobs instead of elegant balls of cakey goo robed in the finest non-returnable chocolate purchased from Sheila's Party World. Make! Enjoy!

Update: I decided to post the recipe instead of linking to it

Cake Balls
(adapted from Bakerella). Check out her website for decorating ideas!
1 box cake mix and ingredients to make it- I used yellow cake
1 16 oz tub frosting- I used chocolate
1 lb candy melts or chocolate bark- I used chocolate
wax paper
decorations

Bake the cake according to directions on the box for a 9x13 cake. Allow it to cool completely. I take it out of the pan immediately to help it cool faster because (a) I'm usually baking at night and I don't want to be up until 2 am and (b) I don't care if it cracks or breaks because it gets crumbled anyway.

After the cake is cooled, crumble it into a large bowl. Don't worry if there are crunchy bits, it will all get mixed in. Add about 3/4 tub of frosting. Mix well with a wooden spoon until it comes together and looks sort of like dough. Add more frosting if it seems dry. It's sort of inexact.

Use a cookie scoop to make balls and then roll with hands to even out. Or, roll with your hands into quarter-ish to golf ball-ish sized balls in the first place. If it seems like it will be two good bites of cake, it's probably the right size. Put on a cookie sheet and refrigerate until not squishy (a few hours). Or, put in the freezer (see reason I take cake out of pan immediately).

Melt candy melts or bark. Dip each ball into chocolate until well coated. I've tried a spoon, I've tried a fondue fork, I've tried a regular fork. I don't have a good system. Whatever works to get the cake balls coated. Try to tap off excess chocolate. Place them on a wax paper covered plate or cookie sheet to harden. If you want to decorate with sprinkles, you have to do it immediately after dipping because they harden really quickly.

That's it! You can refrigerate or store at room temperature. Apparently they last a long time, but so far mine haven't stuck around more than a few hours.

Notes: Michael's has tons of flavors/colors of candy melts. So does Sheila's Party World (and I imagine other Party Worlds not owned by Sheila). I think you can really do any cake/frosting combo that you want. The yellow cake/chocolate frosting combo was definitely the most popular in my world. Although no one complained about the devils food/cream cheese frosting combo either.

Fruit

I HATE bananas. Well known fact for all who know me. I don't like the smell, taste, texture, or anything about bananas. I have returned smoothies which had bananas in them, as the lady argued with me that bananas gave a better consistency. I understand bananas are good for you and contain potassium and are an excellent breakfast or treat for after running. My running career was relatively short lived so I don't worry about that too much, but I tend to go for the soft pretzel after a well-walked "race" anyway. For a long while, I banned bananas in my immediate vicinity, but my office this year is quite small and that's not really fair to my friends and coworkers who enjoy the occasional (or twice daily) banana. Despite my love for all things baked, I can't do banana bread either. Have you ever noticed that when baked, the seeds in bananas look like hairs? Since I never buy bananas, I never have to worry about what to do with overripe bananas but many people make banana bread out of them. Well, when my friend and her son came to visit, all I was instructed to buy was bananas. Which I did. Because I'm a good person. But I forgot to tell my friend to take the bananas when she left so I now have two OVERRIPE bananas on my counter (I cropped out the clutter):

So here's the thing. Every night I've come home from work, and thought, huh, I should make banana bread. No need for them to go to waste. The problem is that the last time I made banana bread, (it has occurred on occasion because I have a sister who I like a lot who likes bananas) I had to hold my nose because the smell gave me a tummy ache. So I have neither made banana bread nor thrown the bananas away. I'm gearing myself up to do one of those two things. As soon as I get a biohazard suit and some tongs.

5 facts

There's no basement at the Alamo!

There isn't. It's true. Poor Pee Wee Herman on his Big Adventure. Just a guy trying to find his bike. Luckily I had important conference business to attend to in San Antonio and did not have to worry too much about my distress that the Alamo was not what I was expecting. I remember it being in the middle of the desert in the movie, but it is smack in the middle of the city. A city that was in the midst of its Fiesta celebration. I'm still not 100% sure what was being celebrated, but it required a lot of confetti and loud yelling/honking until the early hours of the morning. My personal Fiesta celebration included a lot of guacamole and salsa. And a little picture taking. The Alamo:

50 dollar parking at Denny's:

I hope it was a typo. I don't know what the world is coming to if Denny's is charging $50 to park in their lot. I obviously need to think harder about my moneymaking strategies.

I've been robbed!

Sometimes when I come home from work and my apartment is super tidy (from my having tidied it at some point), I think someone broke into my apartment and stole my clutter. Really. It keeps happening. I do a quick mental check to see if the computer is still where I left it, and it always is. And then I remember, right! I cleaned. I have not been burgled. I even have a subscription to Real Simple which I thought would help with this clutter problem. It came in the mail today, and promptly got placed on top of the pile of magazines that I mentally labeled, "to be read when I have time," after I finish knitting my sister's scarf, catching up on tv, organizing my pantry, learning how to use my camera, hanging up some pictures, curing the world of its problems, and cleaning out my closet. I don't make my bed every day. And I sometimes eat a cookie for breakfast. Maybe I'll be better at being uncluttered when I move to Cincinnati? Although I've also thought I'd be better at it when moving to Miami and Philadelphia and that has not quite played out. I have significantly improved since Boston either way. Maybe it's just a gradual process. Or I just have broken frontal lobes. Or someone broke in and robbed me of my clutter. Again.

What it would be like to run a B & B?

So I made a very cute little boy pancakes this morning. If he had asked me to make him an elaborate breakfast buffet I would have done that too. I also would have given him world peace if he had asked. He didn't, but we did have a good talk about our favorite zoo animals. Mine is a camel in case anyone is curious.

I like to make my pancakes in shapes, so I made an S, a W (inexplicably his favorite letter), and a mancake. My brother invented mancakes but that is a story for another time. So I loaded the pancakes up with chocolate chips because that's how it's done at AnnaNicole's house, dumped 2 kinds of syrup on them, and sent him along with his mommy with a sugar high that probably hit about 15 minutes out of Philadelphia. But how can you resist this face? Wearing only Big Bird underwear at the breakfast table??

And then I got home from work and I made these delicious scones, which should be made immediately (unless you are my coworker because then we might have too many scones tomorrow morning).

My picture takin' ain't so bad!

Bliss

It is perfectly quiet in my apartment, other than the whining of a siren going down those city streets that I love. There's no studying for the EPPP to be done (taken and passed, thank you very much). There's no interview preparation to be done or planes to catch. There are no forms to fill out or get notarized for licensure (sent off last week). There's always work to be done but I cannot bring myself to do it. I'm having a totally zen moment of peace that I cannot disrupt by doing work. I think the most work I might do today is a crossword puzzle. I have had a totally delicious weekend so far and it was so needed after the last three months. There was a spa day, many thanks to my sister, with one of my college friends (I kidnapped her from her children for the day) topped off by a little French bistro lunch at Parc. I've also eaten a lot of Asian food this weekend, including some suspicious looking but completely delightful dim sum at Dim Sum Garden and a little excursion to Vietnam. And later today, in what I imagine will be a welcome break from the quiet of my apartment, my VERY OLD (in friendship, not age) friend and her son are coming to visit. And to complete my culinary tour of the world this weekend, we're heading to Dahlak for "Eritrean bar cuisine" which I am hoping is the same as Ethiopian food. If the adorable Sam crashes and doesn't make it to evening time, everyone is getting peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner because I did not go to the grocery store. I was busy this weekend!

Chef Paul's chocolate balls

I'm in the process of making chocolate cake balls, which sounds just saucy enough to make me chuckle. I have a younger brother and many younger boy cousins and on vacation one year we had a personal chef (one evening only, we're not that fancy) whose specialty was chocolate truffles, lovingly referred to as Chef Paul's chocolate balls. I digress. Cake balls/cake pops are tres chic these days. I am not one to get left behind on a trend (a baking trend anyway). I bought candy melts at a shady party supply store. I hope they aren't made of lead and poison. The best thing is I needed no new pans.

I had an interesting conversation (or gmail chat) with my madre today, who suggested that prior to moving, I purge my old clothes (great idea) and my kitchen (bad idea)! It got me thinking that while I believe I have a moderately well stocked kitchen from both appliance and bakeware perspectives, others might find it a tad cluttered. And I don't even have madeleine pans, or mini springform pans, or popover pans. And I only have six metal pie pans and two ceramic ones (I used to have three but one met an untimely end during a Canadian Thanksgiving party). What if I needed to make ten pies one day? I'm also unsatisfied with the number of mini muffin tins I have. So no mommy, no I will not get rid of my kitchen things! I might even buy some new ones. And since I'm a real grown up with a real job I can do that.

Update: they look more like Miracle Max's miracles than fancy cake balls...

Higher education

I would like to nominate myself for an award for being wildly over-educated yet slightly lacking in common sense/good listening skills. It turns out these new-fangled Mac computers have a little slot on the side where you can stick your memory card in and voila! Pictures go from camera to computer (to blog, but not today). Fascinating. It is possible I had 2 people tell me this and I denied its existence.

I officially officially (on paper/pdf via email really) accepted my new job today. Which leaves me with: 148 days or 4 months, 26 days or 12,787,200 seconds or 213,120 minutes or 3552 hours or approximately 21 weeks, depending on your preferred time counting style, until it's time to leave Philadelphia. Now I just have to make a to-do, see, and eat list. Suggestions?

Cinnamon

Normal people come home from work and watch TV, go to the gym, take a nap, whatever suits you. I come home from work and decide to make cinnamon rolls.* These are the very same cinnamon rolls that tipped the scale toward me unwisely buying a Groupon for 5 spinning classes after I ate one as a dinner appetizer. I don't spin. I don't really even ride a bike because it makes me woozy. It is also possible I don't have the right exercise wear for spinning- apparently yoga pants can get caught in the gears. I'm all about Adventure! And Change!

I took some pictures but they're still trapped inside the camera. Probably a good thing though as I don't quite think I've figured the thing out yet and I want them to be pretty and impressive. They looked green on the viewfinder thingie so I might be doing some camera studying this weekend. Or wicked Photoshopping.

*For my baking friends, my only change to that recipe is brown sugar instead of white sugar which I think makes them the best things I've ever eaten.

I heart Costco

I want to have like 1000 of Costco's babies. I am literally obsessed with it. I love wandering around the warehouse and just watching and marveling at the consumption of the American consumer. I'm not judging - I'm on the boat with them, but it is interesting to think about why exactly the average family needs 3 pounds of hummus at one time. And the snacks! Oh how I love the snacks. I'm a big fan of tasting menus and tapas because I have a hard time making decisions... so getting to wander around Costco and having a little bite of fake crab dip here or a little popcorn shrimp there is like food Disneyworld.

I went specifically today to get butter and cinnamon for baking, and a new camera for picture taking. Everyone's got photo blogs these days and I can't get left behind. Plus, maybe I'll be like the Pioneer Woman and become wildly famous and Reese Witherspoon will play me in a movie.

So I got the Nikon D3100 (thank you Mr. Kutcher) which gets good reviews and looks awesome, and really, was available at Costco and came with a bunch of extra stuff. I'm a simple lady. The really tricky thing is the one thing it does not

come with is a way to move the pictures from the camera to the computer, which I think is kind of irritating. I've got like 12 lenses (okay, maybe 2), a bag, batteries, chargers, etc and no way to get the pictures out of the camera. Makes me feel like Hansel and Derek in Zoolander trying to get the files out of the computer. I'll let you know how it turns out.

The Beginning

When people ask me where I'm from, I never know what to say. Baltimore until I was 12 1/2, Cleveland-ish until college, lovely Poughkeepsie for college, Boston post-college, Miami for grad school, and Philadelphia most recently. My dirty little secret is that I gauge my audience and use whatever city fits in best. I like the east coast- I don't mind visiting other time zones, but I feel unbalanced. I need east coastedness to feel settled and whole.

Maybe it is because that move to Cleveland-ish was a tad bit on the traumatic side. I still remember the terror of getting dropped off on my first day of 8th grade, including what I was wearing (a sweet polka dot tee dress). I think the only reason I'm not in a mental institution at this point is due to a quick thinking 4th period math teacher. Anyway, I swore that as soon as I could, I would move back to the east coast. Which I did. And stayed. And I never ever wanted to leave. 98% because I love it here in Philadelphia, but 2% because I HATE MOVING. I hate packing and unpacking and arranging and decorating. I'm not good at it. I really do not like finding a new place to live. I hate having to get adjusted to a new oven. I don't mind meeting new people or starting a new job or discovering a new city, but the whole moving thing really stresses me out a lot.

But now, due to an odd and perplexing twist of kismet, I am moving back westward, to Cincinnati (a city I find absurdly hard to spell), to a state I thought I would never live in again. Some may say I was being unreasonably stubborn by avoiding it. I'm sure I've offended my Ohioan loved ones with my refusal to even consider moving back, but I like what I like. I like liberalism and ethnic food, concrete, tall crowded buildings, loud streets and being near the ocean. I like being able to drive to NYC or DC or other cities ending in Cs. I even like the Lincoln Tunnel. I like that on a silly Saturday I could drive to DSW in NJ, Costco in DE (hello tax free shopping!), and then come home to PA with new shoes, a ginormous bag of chocolate chips and 12 pounds of salmon. I adore and love and am slightly stalkerishly obsessed with the restaurant scene in Philadelphia. I like walking to places. Or taking the occasional train. Don't get me wrong, I logically have nothing against Ohio. It has a lot going for it, with the stark exception of sports championships and the whole ocean thing.

So this blog will be my goodbye and I will love you forever letter to Philly and my life here, and my attempt at chronicling this new adventure to Ohio and handling it with what I hope will be more grace than I did 20 years ago. There will be no polka dots this time which will probably help.