The Muffin Lady and Altitude Attitude

Back in August I bought this book. Amazon.com and being bored at work is a very dangerous combination. I wanted to get some more info on high-altitude baking, especially on how to alter recipes for high altitude. One of the reasons I chose this book is that the author is local and sells to a lot of my favorite local businesses, including the Tattered Cover, which I go to at LEAST once a week. I've been trying the recipes as often as a I can.

I made the Peach Cobbler first with fresh Colorado peaches from the farmer's market. This was unreal. I brought it to a cook-out for a friend's birthday. Unfortunately, I learned with a group of boys at a bbq, you can't bring a dessert which requires a fork. They ate store bought chocolate chip cookies over the cobbler. No one ate it and I went home, sulked, and ate half of it myself before throwing it down the trash chute so I wouldn't eat it all. Lesson learned.

After another trip to the farmer's market I made some peach bread and muffins. These were really delicious and moist and my mom requested the recipe again in muffin form for my brother's shower. They're really good the first day, but go really bad after that, although I haven't figured out why.

Yesterday I made her banana bread topped with some chocolate and peanut butter chips. I think it's the best banana bread I've ever had. This got divided up so quickly I don't even have a picture.

And now for the rest of the story.....

In September some of my co-workers and I went up to Vail for the weekend for a girl's trip. On Sundays Vail hosts the largest farmer's market in Colorado. As we were walking through all the stalls I instantly recognized my book perched high on a table covered in brownies and cookies. "Are you the muffin lady??!!" I asked. She was indeed the muffin lady and I was so excited. I told her how I just bought her book and the peach cobbler was so good I ate half of it by myself in one sitting.

And you know how you meet someone and they're not at all like you thought they would be? This is a perfect example. The next thing she asked is if I wanted to buy her next book. "But, I just got your first one". I replied. With the her newest book in my face, I had to politely beg off right before my friend took an awkward pic with me and her. Pushy, pushy. Well, her recipes are really good and she did yell after me as I left to e-mail her if I ever had any questions.

On a side note, we ran into this cupcake stand for a local cupcakery. My friends instantly starting chatting up the girl about how we're obsessed with cupcakes and we're going to open our own shop, etc, etc. And you know what she said? "Don't open it in Vail!" Well fine, snarky-pants. We won't try your cupcakes anymore. Another awkward picture that she so wasn't having.

Lesson: Be nice to your fellow bakers. Even if you have a small business to defend. Maybe it's the altitude.

TWD: Chocolate-Chocolate Cupcakes for Cupskates

I don't even know where to begin with this post. I guess I'll come right out with it. I didn't make Dorie's cupcakes. I only made the glaze for the cupcakes. If this month's TWD challenges don't reflect what a crazy couple of months I've had, I'm not sure what else would. To make a long-story short I resigned from my job today to go back into the world of professional ice-skating. It was a vvvv stressful decision, but now that it's officially made I feel great about it!

So with going back to performing, first things first. I had to break in the new ice skates I bought over a year ago. But before I could even do that I had to get them decorated! My friend K, who's pretty much gotten me ever professional gig I've done including this upcoming one, has a lot of random talents. One in which he paints your ice skates! What did I get on mine??

Cupcakes! So now I have cup-skates! And they don't have any calories! Yes, there is in even a rhinestone on the cherry on the top of the cupcake. I decided to pay K in cupcakes in return. I was going to make Dorie's, but didn't have all the ingredients so I whipped up Martha's One-Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes I saw over at How to Eat a Cupcake. These really were easy and made for a delicious, rich, and quick cupcake. (But, of course, I bet Dorie's are better!)

But I couldn't leave my cupcakes naked! So I also whipped up the chocolate glaze from Dorie's Chocolate-Chocolate Cupcake recipe and topped them off. It was so rich and made for a grown-up chocolatey treat. I packed them in a shoe box and brought them to the rink the next morning. Cupcakes for cupcake skates.

Check out the other TWD-ers and their creative cupcakes here and our host's Clara's adorable Halloween cupcakes here. I especially like the one with the witch-ice cream cone hat. Now that my life has settled down- at least for this week- I'm looking forward to some serious TWD baking this weekend!

I'm on Vacation, but I did TWD... I Promise!!!!

I have not been a very good blogger lately. I'm on vacation, and with my the craziness of everything I just didn't have a minute to post the last two recipes. Which I did, I swear!!! I made the biscotti (which is my fav thing to bake) for the girls while we were getting ready for my brother's wedding.

The pumpkin muffins were enjoyed by my co-workers. I baked them in my new scone pan for the fun of it, and they turned out like muffin-tops, which was cool.

For now I'm in the Caribbean and will be back to baking next week!

Too Sick for Baking :-(

Wow- I am sick. Fever- everything hurts-sick. I had to forfeit this week's TWD. I tried to make this weeks Carmel-Peanut Topped Brownie Cake. I really did. I even bought all the ingredients while getting a million prescriptions filled at the grocery store. Instead of peanuts for the toppings, I got peanut-caramel-chocolate cluster candy things to chop up. Ewwww even the thought of all that food is challenging my stomach's stability right now. The thought of baking, or eating, or looking at food has been way too much for my body to handle for the past week. I haven't even been able to bring myself to look at how the other bloggers did with their cake. So, in lieu of being a lame, sick non-TWD-ing girl here are a few random baking-related pics that will hopefully make up for my lack of a carmel-topped brownie cake:

"Our cupcakes are better than sex." How great are these business cards??

Aren't these cookies gorgey?? A family friend of ours makes these as well as real wedding cakes. They were the favors for my brother's shower customized in their colors. And they taste amazing too!
German Apple Pancakes. My very favorite food. Ever. My dad made these for the shower brunch. Honestly, I'm afraid to try to make them myself because my dad = these pancakes. Whenever I used to come home from a long trip, or tour, or show, or something these would always be ready for me in the kitchen.

And now I'm going to get some rest with my new pal Codeine....

Double Tuesdays with Dorie with a Rewind

Holy ga-moly! Can you say busy?! I have this coming weekend to catch up on all the recipes I've tried and photographed, but haven't blogged about before my brother's wedding and then a much-needed vacation-post sprint incentive at work. Phew-I'm getting tired. And last week I had to be tardy in making TWD's Dimply Plum (or in my case, nectarine) Cake. It was for good reason though.....my very very good friend B from HSM was visiting for the week!!!!!!!! In between hikes, skating fun, Avenue Q, coffee shops, thrift stores, a full on Season 1 Heroes marathon, and oh yeah, work, there just wasn't time for baking. We were going to bake together, but we only had time for sushi-ing together.

Making some homemade sushi for a living room-Heroes picnic!

Last Thursday I drowned my sorrows that my friend was gone by baking this cake. I got to use my new grater/zester that I got for my birthday for the orange zest. I used nectarines instead of plums. Plums are my favorite fruit and they were no where to be found last week :-( Suddenly, I can find them in the stores again. I'm not sure if this cake was really meant to be. The cake tastes pretty good, but I'm not obsessed with it. I've mostly been letting my roommate eat it and when I grab a bite, I don't like any pieces that have nectarine in them. You can find the recipe at last week's host, Michelle's site, Bake-En.


For this week's TWD, after the whirlwind of B's visit I just didn't have it in me to a. buy ramekins for the creme brulee and b. risk my apartment's safety with the broiler action. So I did a rewind. I appreciate Mari's challenge, though! It was actually easy to narrow down which recipe to try, even though there are so many I want to! I got some fun birthday presents: a silicone scone pan, and a hilarious brownie pan, so it was either brownies or scones. I opted for the French Chocolate Brownies and I added a white chocolate glaze.

I love this recipe because it's really a cake masquerading as brownies. Perfect for this Edge brownie pan (my dad picked it out for me, ha). It's designed so that every piece has an edge, which is the chewiest and best part of a brownie, especially with this recipe.



These brownies lived up to their chewey promise! For the glaze, I just melted 2 ounces of white chocolate left over from the cookies two weeks ago and brushed it on the cooled product. You can check out the Creme Brulee recipe on Mari's blog, Mevrouw Cupcake and the French Chocolate Brownies (which look gorgey) on Fool for Food.

Tuesdays With Dorie: Chocolate Chunkers

Dorie says these cookies are so good they are only deserving of using the very best chocolate. None of this Safeway brand semi-sweet chocolate chip business. If you're going to be spending all that money on these cookies, they should only be for special occasions. So, it was great timing that the couple's wedding shower I was hosting for my brother and future sister-in-law was this weekend! And you know your desert is a hit when you get asked for the recipe.

I used Ghiradeli bittersweet and white chocolate, in addition to the semi-sweet chocolate chunks and cocoa powder. I got a great look of confusion from the check-out guy at the store when all I bought were 4 giants chocolate bars and 4 Luna bars. I'm sure he was just jealous of the delicoiusness I was about to make.

I also used dried sweet cherries instead of the raisins which were the BEST part of the cookie. I opted for almonds for the nuts. I didn't have time to roast them, but they still added a nice crunch to all the cookie chunkiness. Scooping them into rounds for baking was interesting because there were so many chunks and so little dough holding them all together, but I managed ;-).
I LOVE these cookies. They are tied for my favorite with the Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chipsters from a few weeks ago (which also set a 20 minute disappearance record at work when I brought them in after round two of making them). They are decadent, soft, chewy, and have just enough variety. I really recommend using cherries. You can find the recipe over at Claudia's place.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Chocolate Malted Malteser Drops

I think every time I opened Dorie's book I would look at this recipe. I was so excited to see it on the list of upcoming recipes so soon after I started TWD. This was a great recipe and a HUGE hit with my co-workers.

I made a special trip and picked up some Maltesers to use instead of Whoppers. I like to pretend I'm Britsh, remember. I actually just threw away a hugh bag of Maltesers not too long ago. My Finnish friend from studying in London sent me a giant box of Maltesers for Christmas and six months later I decided I needed to get rid of the left-overs. They would have really come in handy...

This was the gooey-est dough I've ever made. I ditched my little cookie scooper asap. But it did make soft, cakey cookies, which is my FAVorite texture for a cookie.

See how ooey-cookie-chocolatey-yummy this was! I agree with a lot of the other TWD-ers that it was too choclatey. This cookie put me in a chocolate coma. But that didn't stop me from eating the whole thing, I just needed a whole glass of milk to help me finish it.

I added an extra tablespoon and a half of flour for high altitute. Also, I was a little short on Maltesers (I didn't chop them, just put them in a plastic bag and crushed them with a meat mallet), so I added some more chocolate and malt powder. I think they were too malt-ey with the extra malt I added, so I will definitely cut down on that next time. Thanks to Rachel from Confessions of a Tangerine Tart for choosing this ooey-gooey-Malteser-tastic cookie. See how the other TWD-ers got their cookie on at the TWD blogroll.