Not-so-sweet treat, but just as delish

Though this blog is mostly devoted to the lovely world of baking, I will from time to time actually cook. That being said, I want to share with all of you intertron-fans my savory successes as well!

The other night I made a chicken and dumpling recipe that was the easiest AND most home-y, warms-the-soul-on-a-cold-night meal I'm made in a long time. The recipe can be found here, though I only used the dumpling portion. My friend and I shredded a small, pre-cooked rotisserie chicken from the store. We also added green beans (there has to be SOMETHING healthy going on here...).

Might I add, the most fun part of this meal (besides the eating and the tons of leftovers) was slicing the dough with a pizza cutter.

Any other great variations on chicken and dumplings?

Valentine's Day portraits!

Here's just a sampling of the adorableness....

Chocolate Sweethearts!

For the cutesy V-day party my roomies and I threw last night, I decided to make a Martha Stewart recipe: Chocolate Sweethearts. Now, normally, Martha's concoctions are adorable and ever-so-themed, but there's just too much detail involved. But this recipe turned out great!

Find it here.

I had to substitute chocolate chips for cocoa, which I thought would make it super sweet. But, I cut down on the chocolate pieces and the sweetness was just right. Subtle, with a great after taste (and a true relief next to all the other super sweet desserts).

And I have no photo of my own, but I guarantee mine where just as cute as Martha's. And some shots of our adorable V-day portrait area will arrive shortly!

Happy Baking!

Katie-Kelsey-Kupcake-Katastrophe

photo: World's Largest Cupcake by none-other than Duff Goldman, the owner of Charm City Cakes and featured on Ace of Cakes, the Food Network show. (photo courtesy of delish.com)
This past Saturday, my roommate Katie and I ventured into the world of cupcakes sans papers for a friend's birthday party. Greased tins? yes. Successful? Not so much. After peeling away 18 cupcakes by hand to find a soft and extremely messy outer layer, we realized these could not be served. Not as cupcakes, anyway.

So, we smushed them into a casserole dish and iced the top. Oh, and distracted from the gaps by adding heart-shaped strawberries, cookie crumbles and chocolate covered coffee beans. And we called it a cake.

Lesson learned: do NOT use Crisco. For anything (at least, that's my theory.).

The chocolate icing was what was truly to-die for; recipe to be posted soon.

best wishes in your baking endeavors!

I've been busy?

Long time, no update! Ah well, it's been pretty crazy with graduation, the holidays and a niece's birthday. I almost lost my baking touch (gasp!) but I think it may have been salvaged in the last week. My most recent baking exploits:

- Thanksgiving: a chocolate meringue pie. It was my first time baking a pie (though not a first for the pie crust), and my first time making meringue. The recipe looked easy enough, but I think it should have been more specific as far as how long to let the chocolate mixture go on the stove. My chocolate never thickened, even after freezing. The meringue, while delicious, also didn't spread well, so it looked like little icebergs of meringue floating on a chocolate ocean. Delicious according to all and completely devoured by the end of the night, but a bit of a failure in my opinion.

- Pre-Christmas: sugar cookies. The dough was made by my sister and I did the rolling and cutting (very soothing). The cookies themselves weren't sweet enough, but her icing compensated. The only problem was that the icing wouldn't harden, allowing you to stack the cookies. So when I decorated cookies with friends, I made a new icing that advertised itself as perfect for cookies because it hardens quickly. One problem: way too much crisco! It was all you could taste and the tupperware containers were impossible to clean with all that grease! It was good fun though (see picture), as was making creative and hip ornaments for my friends' tree.

- Christmas: Snowball cake. Another fantastic success thanks to Kraft Foods! The recipe was about as simple as it gets, but super delicious with the cream cheese surprise and crunchy coconut. The cake also comes out super moist.

- Soup night: rosemary bread. My first-ever bread and it got rave reviews. A great accompaniment to any soup, this bread is supposed to be an imitation of Macaroni Grill's bread, though most people said its better. I would recommend this recipe to anyone, first-time bread makers or seasoned bakers!

Will do my best to keep up with the blog. Now that I'm done with school (!!!), I'll have a lot more time to try new recipes. A delicious basket of cookies could be just the trick to getting that new job....

Great video for holiday baking

Beginning Bakers slide show!