I can stop worrying now...

...as I've been told at last that the Spider-Man cake I've been fretting about over the last two days survived a whole night in the office's makeshift fridge, a bumpy hour-long car trip to Arona, and the heat of a summer day in the delightful Piedmontese lakeside town. 

My colleague was kind enough to send me this pic she snapped with her smartphone...

Unfortunately she didn't take any photo of the cut cake, so once again I can't show you how it looked inside. But she did say the kids loved it, and she herself found it pretty good. 

Gotta love it when a plan comes together!

Just your friendly neighbourhood baker

I don't know about you, but these days I feel as if I'm constantly trying to breathe broth. Heat, humidity, and pleanty of sweat - yay summer! 
Just the ideal conditions for baking a cake, right? (/sarcasm)

Anyway, a colleague - actually one of the attending physicians working with us on a rotation to pamper our beloved policy holders with medical advice whenever needed, or otherwise (Look, mama! More sarcasm!) - asked me for a Spider-Man cake for her adopted son Nhat, who just turned six. 
She wanted it to feed about 20 little ones, but other than that she wasn't particular. She showed me a model cake, covered with red fondant, with a blue web covering one wedge of it and a Spidey action figure plopped on top. Only she couldn't find that particular toy, but provided me with a Spider-Man candle instead.

I immediately thought of repeating my Red Velvet feat from a few days ago, since that cake was really delightful, and dramatic enough to satisfy a bunch of kids. 
Only with a bright red interior, I needed blue fondant for a nice bit of contrast, and a red web on top. The doctor was OK with me inverting the colour scheme, and pretty much left me free rein with it... 

...and so, here it goes. 

I thought it better to have the web cover the entire surface, so the kids won't need to fight about who gets to gain a spider sense by eating it. 

I piped it with royal icing btw; I really wanted to use Candy Melts, but I just can't tame the darn things (shame, 'cause they taste lovely and have such bright colours!)

The writing is, likewise, a royal icing transfer, and all in all it was surprisingly quick to do, thanks to this truly amazing Spider-Man font you can download for free OMG!

Since I needed a much larger cake this time, I hit the Internet for a recipe that was already adjusted for a 12'' round pan. (I know, I know... SO lazy of me! But, I was short on time as the party's tomorrow, so I really needed to take all of the guesswork out of the process to be on the safe side.)

In the end, I picked this one from Food & Wine. 

Unlike the Bake Happy recipe I used before, this one produces little to no dome, as it is actually meant to bake low, like a German Torte. I wanted a bit more height though, so I made two and stacked 'em - even so, I got zero waste from them, as they baked so amazingly flat I didn't need to cut anything from them. 

(This meant, unfortunately, I didn't get a taste of it - but, by the looks of it, I think I like Bake Happy's version better. It was extremely light and soft, whereas this one feels heavier and kind of oily. Granted, the added sturdiness is a bonus in this instance, but in my personal opinion, Aikko's recipe is closer to the real thing.)

I did none of the fancy ice cream and pecan praline thingie - even plain cream cheese icing was a no-no, what with it being for very young kids who might not like its sour-ish taste (which I love, btw!)

So, alas, a canned vanilla frosting it was, and plain American buttercream for crumbcoating. The very thought sickens me, but this way I'm sure the kiddos will not object... plus, I have to admit the hellish stuff is much stabler than anything dairy-based!

Right, now I only need to carry the darn thing to work. Ugh. 

SOOOOOOO HEAVY...

Poppin' my Red Velvet cherry

I don't know which one is weirder - my family wanting to give an American dessert a try, or a rabid foodie like me having somehow overlooked such a pearl as Red Velvet cake. 

This is how it went. 

I was having lunch with my parents last Sunday - something I have to do occasionally, although it never fails to put lots of strain on my nerves - and some baking-related reality was droning on in the background, like Cake Boss or something. And my family was all, "Americans eat shite, trash food and greasy hamburgers is all they can manage, they have no taste all, they just can't compare with our culinary tradition, and all those fancy designer cakes they're so fond of doing taste like crap anyway". (Do they know baking said cakes is my pride and joy? You bet.)

Then, out of the blue, my brother - who's something of a food snob as well, mind you - chimes in: "I wouldn't mind trying Red Velvet cake. I hear it's not super sweet, and more on the tangy side".

Woot, my chance! 

And now's when I spit out the ugly truth: I myself am not sure how Red Velvet cake is supposed to taste! Because yes, I've had a couple Red Velvet cupcakes in my town but, of course, there is now way I can ascertain how close they were to the real thing. 

In comes the Internet ofc... and, following some frantic browsing, I got a fairly precise idea of what Red Velvet should look, feel, and taste like. 

I rounded up the top Google search results, discarded right away those recipes that would have given me anything else than the Platonic idea I had by then formed in my mind, and finally went for one that not only looked spot on, but is from my fave food blogger ever: Aikko of Bake Happy... who is - please allow me to refresh your memory on this point - the very same gal who's responsible for the banana bread I've been making non-stop for more than two years OMG. I could think of no better references, really!

 So... go have a look at Aikko's Red VelvIet cake recipe, then hop back here. We have some baking to do!

The recipe lists quite a few easily found ingredients you could substitute buttermilk with, but since this is my very first attempt at Red Velvet (and its outcome will shape my view of said cake forever and ever), I went all gung-ho about getting the original stuff. Thus, actual buttermilk it was. 

One thing I did my own way, though: I swapped the red food colouring for an equal amount of LorAnn's Red Velvet Bakery Emulsion I had bought online on a whim ages ago, and that had been biding its time in my pantry ever since. It looks like thick, honey-like red gunk... but once whisked into your liquid ingredients, it not only imparts them a beautiful, vibrant red shade, but also acts as flavouring. Good stuff!

I got two 6 in. cakes out of the given doses, which was just the perfect size for this. 
Only as you hopefully can see from the (fuzzy, blurry, smartphone-made) pic above, both of them domed quite much, which meant I had to cut what amounted to more than 1/3 from each base. And yes, of course the scraps won't go to waste, still I think I'll try lowering the oven temperature one notch next time I bake this into silicone moulds. 

Right. Onward to the filling & frosting step!

Notwithstanding the heat, I opted for a traditional cream cheese frosting - because yay authenticity, remember? 
I know it's nowhere as stable as buttercream (or even cream cheese buttercream) but in the end, my brother wanted tangy, so he's in for the full experience!

By the way, I used Austrian Quark as my cream cheese, instead of the ubiquitous Philadelphia... which is creamy and fresh and absolutelt delightful in many ways, but no tangy at all. 
Again, I've never sampled real cream cheese in America, but judging from online descriptions of its texture and flavour, what I got here must be pretty darn close!  

Aikko covered her cake with crumbs all over, but I wasn't really sold on the idea. So I simply picked the biggest closed star tip in my collection and piped random rosette-like swirls all over the place. It looks impressive enough IMHO. 

(Plus, who am I kidding? My brother will scarf the whole thing down with barely a glance at my mad piping skillz...)

Waiting for him to come and collect his cake right now. Will it be enough to convert my family to the delights of American desserts? I wonder...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

EDIT AT 20.14 - I just spoke with my mother, and she said the cake's almost gone already. They loved it! Woot! (/does Snoopy happy dance)

[T&T] Bar Harbor New England Style Clam Chowder

I purchased this can of Bar Harbor New England Style Clam Chowder, like, ages ago (thank God these things keep forever!) and finally decided to give it a try today, before the weather changes for good and pushes soup out of my mind for a further six months.

It was an impulse buy in the first place, as I wasn't looking for clam chowder specifically - to be honest I hadn't even heard about it at the time. 

But it sounded interesting and yummy, and the can's so stylish and pretty that I couldn't help wanting it!

The blurb on the label goes:

All-natural seafood speaks for itself. 

The taste of wind, weather, and clear cold water; it's not a flavor that needs improving. We create our New England Clam Chowder in small batches, like people on the Maine coast have been doing for generations - loaded with juicy clams and simple, all-natural ingredients. It's as close to fresh off the docks of Maine as you can get without being here.

Bar Harbor is a special place. You can taste it!

Sooo... Not only I got myself an American staple, but one from New England! That mythical place that is and will always be, in my mind, peopled by the likes of Hester Prynne and the Deep Ones, Gordon Pym and the Pequod crew, not to mention every Stephen King character since the dawn of time!

Now here's the opened can, filled with pearly white stuff studded with clams and bits o' potatoes...

...and the same content, plopped into my trusty pink pan, log-style. Not its most attractive shot for sure!

(And FYI, since I know what you're thinking: no, my pan is not rusted. It lost part of its non-stick lining over time, but I still use it as it's a very convenient size for my needs - plus it was a present from my brother, and the lid's got a piggy snout on it. Which ends the whole argument as far as I'm concerned.)

Now seriously - it's not flaking nor affecting the way my food tastes, so don't worry, it won't kill me!

I had enough soup to fill two bowls, and the first one I ate plain as the label suggested, with just a drizzle of oil and a pinch of black pepper.

It tasted... good, I suppose, but really bland. I was a little disappointed, because I was expecting it to be a bit more interesting - then again, boiled potatoes (while hearty and delicious) are not exactly a powerhouse of flavour, and the clams themselves contribute more in the field of texture and chewiness than actual umami. 

The consistency was delightful btw, not too brothy nor overly starchy, just like the ideal winter soup should be. And there is something deeply gratifying in finding huge chunks of actual vegetables and clams into a canned soup... that is to say, it makes me feel less lazy for resorting to it in the first place. Almost... virtuous, I daresay!

The second bowl, though, I muddled up with wasabi-flavoured furikake, plus a few taralli as impromptu croutons. American, Japanese and Italian ingredients in one bowl? Yes, please!

Needless to say, I liked this "bastardised" version much more. If you're shuddering at the thought, please feel free to blame it all on me being anosmic, and thus unable to fully appreciate subtlety in flavours...

Both bowls were good enough that I'd gladly pick up a can from time to time, were it available here; it's not worth ordering from abroad though - it's something I wouldn't mind eating a couple times during the cold season, but I don't foresee craving it as such.

I would however like to try cooking it from scratch. Great, one more recipe just got filed in my "To Do" folder... 

YAY BIRTHDAY!

Who's the birthday girl then? 
WOOT! I am!

Lookie here, I even got my own doodle... 

...and Etsy sent me this lovely "cake"!

I won't be celebrating that much today unfortunately, as I'm going to be stuck at work till midnight - but, I gave myself a nice little gift to enjoy in the meantime! 

Wanna see what it is? 

It's not one of those fancy cast iron skillets everyone keeps raving about, but the next best thing for sure: an aluminium one! 

I've collected a nice bunch of recipes already, and I can't wait to try it out! Wheeeeee! Can you see I'm excited?

Superhero Cupcakes - at last!

Remember back in February, when I told you I was making superhero-themed cupcakes for the opening session of my friends' new RPG campaign, set in the Marvel universe?

Well, as you know, that batch... didn't turn out as expected. So I took a page from any good supervillain's book and bided my time. Planning ahead. Waiting for the next special session...

...which could logically, at that point, only be the closing one. 

(Insert cheesy flash-forward effect here, s'il-vous plaît...)

And here are, at last, my superz cupcakes!

I knew Flavio wouldn't be able to attend the session, which is kinda sad, I presume (since, unlike me, he's a rabid superheroes fan). But to me, my uber-picky BFF's absence meant that I wouldn't be limited to chocolate cupcakes anymore! 

Before going into that, though, I have to tell you about the decorating part - although I know my readers are smart and will have recognized the edible sugar sheets already!

I used Wilton's, and boooooy... is that stuff brittle!

And pricey. Did I mention pricey?

Now seriously, this is all there is to it. I cut some spikey balloons - there must be a proper definition for these LOL - in outrageously garish primaries, then sketched your typical superhero comics sound effects with a food marker, and cut these out as well. 

I used tiny sewing scissors and lots of patience, and still had managed to break many of the onomatopoeias... 

(See? I can use the correct technical terms when I want to!)

Although you can't see them from the photo above (which is the only one I had the time to take before the cuppies were carried away - so much for me planning ahead, all evil mastermind-like...), the wrappers were as relevant to the superhero theme as the cupcakes themselves. 

I bought them from one of my favourite Etsy shops, cakeadoodledoo - I got the boy design only, at 15 € (plus shipping) for a set of 12. 

I truly recommend you Tricia's shop, really - her wrappers and favour boxes are funny, creative and extremely functional. You might, of course, balk at the cost, but for that very special occasion once in a while, they're well worth splurging! Plus, Wilton's laser-cut wrapper packs don't come for much cheaper either... and Tricia's are handcrafted!

Image belongs to Tricia @ https://www.etsy.com/shop/cakeadoodledoo

(The following pics were stolen by my sweetie with his trusty smartphone during the gaming session itself, btw...)

As you can see, the edible paper sort of softened into the frosting. This is actually supposed to happen btw!

The food marker bleeding, on the other hand, was unexpected and a bit of a bummer... but I guess it's my fault for using a very soft, cream cheese-based frosting. I bet it wouldn't have happened, had I used proper buttercream or ganache instead... oh well! 

Now about the cupcakes themselves! 

They were lemon-flavoured, as I still have plenty of the gorgeous lemons I brought back from my blitz holiday on the Amalfi coast. 

The original recipe's called Lemon Blossom Cupcakes and it's from a cookbook called The Cupcake Diaries, by Katherine Kallinis and Sophie Kallinis LaMontagne - but you can get it from here as well, courtesy of Bundt-loving blogger extraordinaire, The Food Librarian!

(She's absolutely right about the grated zest quantity btw... My lemons were huge but 1/2 cup just doesn't make sense. I used 2 of them and called it a day - and I think more than that would have been overkill actually!)

The cupcakes turned out delicious and very lemon-y, if a bit too dense and buttery for my taste. I'll take crumbly over moist any day, but that's just me - I have uncontrovertible evidence that the gamers loved them as they were!

[T&T] The Kraft Mac & Cheese Deathmatch

Seriously, does someone else remember Celebrity Deathmatch?

Ah, those were the days...

It aired on MTV a dozen years ago, and I was a huge fan of the show, despite being unfamiliar with most of the American celebrities it featured.

The claynimation was pretty spiffy, and the ridiculously gruesome maimings never failed to crack me up - and this is from one who can't bear watching even the trailers of splatter movies! Celebrity Deathmatch was cartoony enough that it didn't make me sick, but the sadistic, Itchy & Scratchy-esque humor fully got through.

I miss Johnny and Nick (as well as bloodthirsty referee Mills, and Stacey Cornbread) so much! Please MTV powers-that-be, would you consider realeasing the original episodes on DVD, so that dewy-eyed nostalgics like me can bask in the memories of those politically incorrect days of yore? Thanks!

Image belongs to Kevin A. @ http://weirdkev-27.deviantart.com

Now, while waiting for my plea to be heard so that I can show your average Pokémon-ogling kiddo how much fun we used to have in my days, I will proceed to review two products at once, and see which one's best.

Tonight's match will see the long-standing champion and crowd favourite, Kraft's original Macaroni & Cheese ("Ask for the blue box!"), challenged by the upstart new entry, Kraft "Just pop me in the microwave, baby!" Easy Mac.

LET'S GET IT ON!

I sampled the Easy Mac first, as it seemed to be the quicker to make.

On the cup it says I have the Extreme Cheese Explosion version. To rub in the concept even further, the plastic lid proclaims enthusiastically how CHEESY the product is.

Now, I'm no native speaker so it's entirely possible that some subtle nuance got lost on me, but... well, it made me giggle. A lot.

Under the unwittingly amusing seal I found: a cup or so of teeny tiny fusilli, the cheese mix packet, and a little plastic fork (not very handy, but I can totally see how it'd be invaluable in those "30 min. lunch break" situations.)

All I had to do was add water up to the indicated level...

...microwave on the highest setting for 3 1/2 minutes, and stir the cheese mix into the cooked, wet pasta. 

And this is where I had to go Ewww - because the mix was orange. As in, marker pen orange? In its powder form, it was scary. 

Once mixed up, though - it was scarier! 

Don't get me wrong: I know Cheddar is supposed to be orange. I know it's because of annatto, a traditional plant-derived food colouring that is actually much healthier than most of the stuff I eat daily. 

Still. Angry orange goo on my pasta? Sorry, but... Ewww. 

I found the pasta to be quite good: not really al dente, but not mushy at all. I got it right at first try just by following the given directions, which is a huge bonus when you are at work and really have no time to play around with the cooking time and settings. 

I don't even know whether Italian and American microwaves have the same settings, which goes a long way in showing how foolproof this product is!

The infamous sauce, on the other hand, I found a tad overwhelming. 

It didn't taste chemical at all, but it was very tangy, bordering on acridity. It is the kind of sharpness I associate with cheeses like ricotta scanta, a ricotta that is deliberately left to go sour - I love it when tempered by a sweeter element (usually tomato sauce), but on its own it's a bit too much. I didn't hate it, but I can't say I was a fan either. 

All in all, I'd say I would buy this product occasionally, were it available in Italy, but I'd be sure to pick a different flavour choice. 

Now for the "blue box"...

(...and no, I don't mean the Tardis!)

According to its Wikipedia entry, the classic version has been around for ages and is considered a staple in Canada. It comes as no suprise, then, that the blurb on the back of the package harps on the "old reliable" motif:

IMPORTED FROM YOUR CHILDHOOD

Congratulations. You just picked up a box of deliciously gooey macaroni & cheese dinner. Chances are you'll be serving it to your kids but at the same time helping yourself to a spoonful or two. Don't worry, we understand. It's the same classic cheesy taste you know and love from your own childhood. So go ahead, dig in. Your kids may be the perfect age to enjoy the gooey, cheesy goodness - but remember: you were there first.

Yep it's true! It's all printed on it, down to the meaningful italics!

I suppose this goes a long way to show how different commercial communication can be from a country to another, as here in Italy, this kind of nudge nudge, wink wink intimacy would be unthinkable. Closest we ever could go would be the ads Barilla aired back in the Eighties, which were heavy on the "family tradition" motif - like, sledgehammer-heavy - and so cloyingly sweet and soppy, that their edulcorated little happy family became a sitting duck for every stand-up comedian ever since.

So much food for thought! (Hee hee, see what I'm doing here? Ah, I just kill myself at times...)

But, back to the match!

The box serves three, in theory, but I found half of its content to be barely enough for a decent serving. To be fair, though,  people in America are probably not used to have pasta as a stand-alone main course, the way we Italians do.

Despite how tiny the pasta was, I found the recommended cooking time to be not nearly sufficient.
This was a bit of a bummer, honestly. I mean, it's not that figuring out on my own how long pasta needs to boil is rocket science, but... 4 minutes off? For real?

The dehydrated cheese was not as creepy as the Easy Mac's, but still proudly orange.
I omitted the additional butter because this "experiment" already packs a lot of calories from just the carbs...

...yet the sauce still turned out deliciously creamy.  

It still had tang, but itwas much more tolerable than in the "cheesy cheesy cheesy" microwave version.

All in all, the pasta was nice, but far from memorable - and the worst part is, after scarfing down what is supposed to be almost two portions, I was still pretty hungry.

Now, I know it would be unfair to compare this with homemade pasta, as the latter packs a filling power that is just on another level. But a portion of, say, Chinese noodles or ramen soup usually leaves me fairly sated - this stuff costs thrice as much, takes more time to prepare, and the calories are more or less the same. Sorry Kraft, but it's basic economics at work here.

THE CHALLENGER WINS! 

Why?

Simply because, nasty orange alien cheese aside, the microwave-able bowl made a lot more sense to me.

- First of all: I know it's called "Mac & Cheese", but I think using fusilli in the microwave version was smarter, as they're much better for scooping up sauce than actual maccheroni.

- The instructions given for the Easy Mac were clear and the suggested cooking time was spot on. Not so with the "Blue Box."

- Weird as it may sound, the pre-portioned bowl felt more like a meal than half a box of classic M&C. I wasn't exactly full (as in, I could have eaten more), but I wasn't left really hungry either. 

- The Easy Mac is really quick to make, and what it yelds - while obviously not comparable with a dish of homemade pasta - is a fair deal when you consider it only took four minutes. The classic version took about 10 minutes, and in that time I could easily have grated and melted some fresh cheese... so I didn't really save time (or money) by buying a "kit", which kind of makes it pointless. 


So now that we have our winner, I guess all's left to say is:

GOOD FIGHT, GOOD NIGHT!

Peppermint Kiss Sugar Cookies, or: Is Xmas over yet?

There is one little thing you need to know about me: I do not care about "seasonal".

I am known to fancy persimmons in April, rhubarb in December, pumpkin in June or what have you. At any given time my freezer drawers will be bursting with ingredients I squirreled away months before, so when one of my ill-timed cravings hits, I am ready.
This arrangement works especially well for me since I'm broke most of the time (wanna try being a foodie on a CSR's budget, hmm?) and it's cheaper for me to grab the leftover seasonal goodies after the holiday's over and the prices plummet.

I won't deny, of course, that my main reason for despising seasonality in food may be that I got the "Mary Mary, quite contrary" bug pretty bad.
Take peppermint, for instance. It's one of my favourite things in the world (and hands down my favourite when paired with chocolate), and I would gladly eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner every single day of my life - except in the week-or-so that goes from mid-December to Xmas. You know, when everybody and his dog is baking candy cane-flavoured anything, as if there's a global-level flash mob going on or something.

This is why I baked my test batch of these cookies in mid-October, with candies I had bought back in January, and kept sitting in my fridge during the summer months.

They were delicious (why, of course - we're talking peppermint sugar cookies here, gents!) but not perfect. In retrospect I think I overbaked them, because they ended up far crispier than your average crinkle cookie.

And I'm baking them again now, with Kisses I ordered online and had shipped all the way from the other side of the big pond. Talk about a time-consuming mise en place!

Once you can get you dirty paws on some of these elusive Peppermint Kisses (and, possibly, the baking chips Hershey makes in the same flavour around Xmas, so you don't have to unwrap another bunch of them just to chop them up), the recipe's actually very easy. 

You can get it HERE, by the way! 

It's weird how I still am unable to automatically associate the colour red with anything peppermint-flavoured. 

I mean, the rational part of me knows it's because of candy canes, only... every time I see the iconic red-and-white stripes, the first thing that occurs to me is strawberries and cream, because these are the flavours I grew up associating the colours with. To me, mint candies must be green or white, or both.  
Oh well...

Sugar crinkles are yummy and cute enough as-is, but pressing an unwrapped Kiss into each warm, soft cookie is what makes the magic happen. The candy will melt slightly and go all creamy inside and shiny on the outside... 

...See? It's magic, I tell you!

As with all good sugar cookies, these have a slightly crunchy surface and a soft, crumbly heart. They're wonderful with coffee, or hot cocoa, or with your balsamic infusion of choice - and even more so on their own, so you can concentrate on the different textures and colours of the cookie and candy.

On a side note: sugar cookies freeze exceptionally well as a rule, and these are no exception. Only once they're thawed, the Kisses will have lost the creamy quality and gone back to their pristine condition of hard chocolates. Sad, really...

Now, about my manicure. Isn't it adorable?

If you want to treat youself to candy cane nails too, here's a video tutorial for you...

The idea of painting my nails to match the cookies I'm serving would never cross my mind normally, but this tutorial was so easy and fun, I just couldn't resist!