Magic Jewball

This is the only thing about football I know: on Monday, you analyze what you did on Sunday. On Sunday, I baked. Well, Saturday night too. In all, I spent about twelve hours baking and the thing that hurts most is my feet. I need some sort of new ergonomic situation that enables me to roll dough while sitting down. Next kitchen!

Anyway, to mix up my sports metaphors, let’s go around the horn, beginning with the Craisins since those are labeled and clear. By the way, I ran out of Craisins so some people got dried apricots. Those are in 70 calorie packs, which is weird. Could they not stick in a couple more apricots to keep the marketing trend going?

So just below the Craisins are the Cookie Dough Truffles which came out awesome! Just as I predicted but really, how could they go wrong? They actually turned out to be a bit more time-consuming than I thought which would be OK except I was making three other things. Still, totally worth it.

Below those are the Oatmeal Carmelitas and they came out super as well. I once did a bad batch of these and I’ve nightmares ever since. No worries this time. Fantastic!

To the left of those are the Peanut Butter cookies. You can tell from the cross-hatch pattern. What cross-hatch pattern, you say? Oh right, it disappeared. That was so odd, they just faded away in the oven. Now, I have a new oven since the last time I made these but I wasn’t aware that it baked up cookies fluffier than before. Or, maybe it was because I accidentally bought crunchy peanut butter instead of smooth. It was hard to feel motivated to go out and buy a replacement at 3am when I was making this dough.

Lastly are the Hamantaschen in the three flavors. Well, two of them. I had a last minute change of heart with the raspberry and decided to be interesting or something. I did blueberry instead. That’s the one right up front (I like to make the new guy stand right up front). Behind that is Apricot, and Nutella is in the rear, which is where it ends up fat-wise when I eat a lot of it.

Then I threw a bunch of chewy Israeli candies on top to fill it out but this is before that step so you could enjoy the view. I hope you’ve enjoyed the view. And now, back to picking at the baskets from other people that are obstructing my dining room table. It’s a tough job but somebody has to do it.

No song today. Too busy snacking.

This is not my Rosh Hashanah post, that’s Friday. Besides, the standard greeting for that is “Good New Year,” which can be a big difference. If I were writing a paper, which I am in a another window, I might compare and contrast the idea of a happy new year and a good new year. But this is a blog post, people!

Anyhoo, the Etsy store is open for your rugelach cookie pleasure. It’s been open a couple of days but I just wanted to work out the kinks before I announced it. And actually, I only ship Monday through Wednesday so that you’ll receive fresh cookies (they get sent Priority Mail which takes two days, usually) so you can feel free to order this week, but you’d get your tasty treats next week. That’s OK, I understand that treats will be considered desirable next week as well. And every week after that.

Go ahead, click on it!

As you have no doubt surmised, Cinnamon Girl is the name of my shop and at the moment, rugelach are available, but eventually, if all goes well, maybe there will be more. If you like that logo, you should know that a lurker contacted me out of nowhere! I love the Interwebs and that’s why I’m studying them in another window. But should you be interested in her services (and she was lovely to work with), please give me a shout and I will connect you. Continuing my streak of only dealing with International designers, she is from America’s hat. Lovely, eh? As a reward, I don’t ship to Canada. This is because it would cost $25. American.

I have the link of what’s for sale in my sidebar there on the right, although I do take requests, plus, as things sell out I have to manually re-list them, so just check back if you don’t see one of my normal flavors. I debated whether to put it up top or down at the bottom below all the things pertaining to the actual blog (categories and comments and calendar of posts, etc.). I decided to leave it up top for a month or so because it’s new and eventually I’ll move it down below the actual blog links. So the link is in the logo in this post and in the sidebar but in case you’re too excited about pastry to do any of those things, it’s cinnamongirlbakery.etsy.com.

OMG, what did you think I was going to pick?
Neil Young – Cinnamon Girl

I alluded the other day to my Failcake and so I thought I’d follow up on that. I didn’t do that right away because you know how much I love a happy ending so I had to wait till there was one. And there was! Good cake is always a happy outcome.

I had a task, and that was to make an olive oil cake, something I had heard of but imagined tasted like a bottle of olive oil, not something I enjoy in my desserts. But the theme was Mediterranean and since I don’t do baklava (well, I eat it, I just don’t make it), this seemed the best alternative. Particularly when I Googled and found a recipe from the Food Network, specifically from someone who is supposed to be an expert in Mediterranean food. I don’t know from such things, I only watch Ace of Cakes (one day, I will work at that place), but it had great reviews so I went for it. Actually, the idea first popped into my head from an article and recipe in the Times a couple of weeks ago which involved blood oranges and looked great. But it looked like a pound cake, not a fancee cake you serve people you want to impress (anyone other than myself is someone I want to impress) plus, it involved hacking an orange into pieces, not something I had the patience for.

But yeah, this did not turn out well. I should have known any cake calling for a cup and a half of something you usually put on salad or cook fish in was not something that was going to have a good result. This cake ended up having the texture of an Alaskan oil spill (you know how your fingers feel after eating pizza? yeah.) although I will admit it tasted pretty good. You may wonder how I knew it tasted and felt thus when in theory, I should not have been able to cut into it until serving it. But this is how. You see, this thing WOULD NOT be extricated from the pan. I made it in a non-stick bundt, something I use all the time with no trouble, but this was the cake that would not be released. I slid a knife around, then a sharper knife, then a frosting knife, then a spatula and nothing. I pounded on the back of the pan. Stuck. This was at 1am, so it’s lucky I hate my neighbors.

In the end, as you can imagine, it finally came out with half the cake still stuck to the pan. This is what I call Failcake. It looks something like this:

Ouch. I know.

The next day, I was all set to say, “Fuck the Mediterranean” and make the cake I do best, double-banana, but luckily, Alfa passed along yet another citrus olive oil recipe, this one from Cooking Light, which had tangerine instead of orange (whatever) and more importantly, 1/3 the oil (I guess that’s why they call it light). This one needed a little help releasing but did fine and although it didn’t have any olive oil taste (people just had to believe me on that one), it did taste moist and tangeriney and delicious. Oh, and it looked great, judge for yourself:

Yeah, now that’s what I call cake.

Now I just have to figure out what to do with the Exxon Valdez Uglycake.

Recipes
Good cake

Failcake

NY Times Cake

Title based on:
Donna Summer – MacArthur Park

Ha! I’ve been wanting to make that pun for years! To ruin the joke, Haman is the villain of the Purim story. Yeah, I know, there really wasn’t that much to spoil.

I apologize for not running a bake sale this time, especially because I had a cause I really wanted to support and because charity is such a big part of this holiday, but life has just been kind of strange and wacky lately. Hopefully, later this year. In the meantime, please enjoy this obscenely close look at a batch of this year’s Hamantaschen. It’s like you’re actually in the bowl!

Happy Purim!

Filter – Hey Man Nice Shot

You may wonder, after months without baking, where I am currently getting my cookie supply. Because a life without cookies is just not worth living. I mean, 95% of the reason I paid assorted Brooklyn craftsmen my life savings was so that I’d have a better space in which to make cookies.

The other day, I volunteered to my good friend IrishCardinal that I had deigned to purchase Little Debbie gingerbread people. I think this thought scandalized her and she promptly sent me a box of homemade (in North Carolina, I might add), gingerbread people. I say people, because these were clearly of two genders.

Here, as you can see are A-Rod (he’s the one with the pink lips) and his current squeeze. It’s not Madonna, though. It’s Little Debbie.

Irish says, “His build is more like Sidney Ponson’s, but that’s what hanging out with Little Debbie will get you.”

Ha! But if you are confused, the reason he’s now with Madonna is because soon after this picture was taken, I ate Little Debbie. As you’d expect, she was delicious.

Not only is this the only Madonna song I can stand, I actually love it. Sue me.

Madonna – Like A Prayer