Hey guys. I really wanted to blog about the awesome weekend I had last weekend today (Noel and I did our holiday early, and it was amazing). And then I realized I wouldn’t have time for that this week so I wanted to blog about these really awesome chocolate mint cookies. But ran out of time for that one too. But I did want to let you all know that I’m still here, and still thinking about all of you, so here’s a little holiday video to get you in the spirit:

Christmas cookies coming next week! Thank you all for reading and being my web family!

Hey! It’s Eileen again; chiming in for Beth while she travels Europe!

Let me start by saying, Minnie Mouse turned out super cute! (Just so you aren’t worried!) This is a story about Baking Partners in Crime and what happens when they are not there to bake with you. I agreed to make a first birthday cake for a friend the first weekend in April. Only much later did I realize that Beth would be in France. “It’s OK,” I thought, “I can do it myself!” Well, Beth will tell you, math is not my strong point. Especially in baking. Beth knows if I am counting out loud, all conversation must stop so I don’t miss count. Well I didn’t even get to the counting out loud part before this mess began.

We make cakes from scratch. We don’t do boxes. I was making a Wilton character pan (the Mickey that I would decorate as a Minnie) and I couldn’t seem to find how many cups of batter go into a character pan. All I found was ‘one box mix’. This was no help, as I don’t do box mixes and therefore have no idea how many cups of batter come out of a box mix! It would have been smart to call my Mom, as she has made SO many character pans in her life, she would know. (Even though she makes box mixes. Shhh!) Instead I decided to try to add how many cups of batter the Wilton yearbook says go in a two layer 9in round cake, (plus a little extra) PLUS what I thought I needed for 6 cupcakes (also part of the order). THEN I had to figure out which size recipe to use!

Like I said math is not my strong point. Luckily, the batter came out right, but I had WAY too much of it! I ignored my instincts that were saying “Hey there is way too much batter in this pan!” and went with my math that said “This is how many cups of batter the pan should have!” Big mistake! I caught most of it on a cookie sheet, but I will be cleaning my oven this week! :(

Either way, Minnie turned out adorable, and the homemade fondant cupcake toppers weren’t so bad either!

Moral of the story is: Don’t let your Baking Partner in Crime go to France when you have a cake to do! :)

Oh yeah, and a box mix makes about 5 1/2 cups of batter; and my Mom says you should have about 6-7 cups of batter for a Wilton character pan! :)

Remember to tell those you love how special they are. We had an unexpected loss in our family this week, and it’s hard to know that someone is gone.

Uncle Martin, we’ll miss you.

Merry Christmas everyone! Thanks for hanging out here with me at 990 Square this past year!

And now, a Christmas treat! A video of the Dancing Lights we saw in Florida a few weeks ago. I shared the stills for last week’s Wordless Wednesday, but the video gives more of the full effect. I may even make an appearance partway through the video.

Hope you’re having a wonderful holiday!

So it seems that my favorite thing to cook this summer is pizza, fired up over our grill. If you’ve never partaken of the joy that is grill pizza, you’re really missing out. Pizza done on the grill is perfect. The crust gets crispy with grill marks but is still soft and chewy in the middle, like pizza done in a wood oven, but it’s fast and easy enough to do at home. Toppings like veggies get just done enough that they still have some crunch, and cheese gets all gooey and good.

Our approach to pizza year round (regular oven or grill) is this: it starts and ends with good homemade pizza dough. I used to buy premade dough, until I suddenly realized how easy it is to do it yourself! I’m a big fan of this recipe from the great Jim Leahy (of no-knead bread fame) but I also like this one a lot, especially since I often make pizza on the fly, leaving little time for rising.

As for toppings, I like to keep some of the mozzarella they make in our local Whole Foods store on hand, and aside from that, and a little bit of olive oil, it’s basically a free for all where anything and everything that’s in our fridge is fair game. Favorite toppings so far this summer include summer squash especially patty pan, garlic scapes, broccolli, and if we have some meat eaters in the house, pepperoni. But I’m sure that’s all going to change as well get closer to fall and the veggies start to change.

The other trick to grill pizza (aside from the dough) is making sure it cooks all the way through. You accomplish this by grilling the untopped dough (as seen in the top right picture above) for a few minutes, until it starts to show signs of being cooked (grill marks, feeling cooked, etc). Then you flip the dough over, so the uncooked side is now closest to the heat. Now is when you add the toppings. And the pizza dough should be pretty solid at this point, so feel free to pile on those toppings! Just make sure you have a cookie sheet or pizza peel at the ready to get the pie off the grill when it’s done. Then eat. Preferably with wine. Or beer!

So about that field trip that I mentioned in yesterday’s post. Well it was to see a football game. Not that football–this football. Or the football that we here at 990square are just a little bit crazy about. So crazy in fact that we once went to London in January (don’t worry it’s not actually that cold) to see two games. It was excellent. But that meant we couldn’t very well NOT go to games when they were in our own backyard. Especially when they featured three of the biggest clubs in the world, one of whom just happened to be Chelsea.

But the really interesting thing about these games was that they were in two different cities, and the crowds really had two different personalities. One was here in Baltimore at the Ravens stadium, and the other one was in DC (well, technically it’s Landover, MD, but who’s paying attention?) at the Redskins stadium. The Baltimore game featured Chelsea vs. AC Milan, and the DC game was DC United vs. Real Madrid. Three huge clubs, and you would expect two huge crowds.

But while the Baltimore game was a sellout, the DC game felt a bit empty. Granted, the DC stadium is HUGE, but still. This is REAL MADRID. And they just signed Kaka and Ronaldo. The Baltimore game seemed to have a fair mix of people supporting both clubs, whereas the DC game was almost all Real Madrid supporters. And the Baltimore game had a little village set up outside the stadium, with stuff on display like the FA Cup (AWESOME!!!). Oh, and there was that little advantage of the fact that we could WALK to the game in Baltimore. No annoying traffic required.

I know I’m biased–we did name our cat Chelsea after all–but I just felt like Baltimore was the better experience. Not that I’m not happy to go to any and all international football anywhere in the greater tri-state area. I just hope it all has that spark of a friday night Chelsea match.

Oh, and FYI, scones make EXCELLENT tailgatting food on 100 degree days!

So usually my Sunday mornings are pretty simple. Get up, eat some oatmeal then try to make it to the market before my head explodes from lack of coffee. But this week, we did something a little different. Instead of just having an impromptu brunch with the usual suspects after a trip to the market, we actually SCHEDULED a brunch. I know, it’s shocking, and totally against the spirit of Sunday mornings. But it was only because we were making a trek later in the afternoon, which I hope to share with you later…

So back to brunch. I couldn’t very well go to brunch empty handed, and the beautiful watermelon that Noel had picked out the previous day at CSA was just not going to satisfy my need to bring something. So I broke out one of my favorite and oldest recipes (well old for me, I acquired it in 2005). A recipe from before the time when I was a crazy baker who stalked recipes all over the internet. A recipe that I actually have PRINTED ON PAPER!! oooh the shock of it all.

Yes my friends, my iPhone, my ever constant baking companion, was no good for this recipe. Although it was too busy looking cute in its new case to really mind.

Okay, so enough waxing romantic about the recipe, time to get down to business. These scones are so wonderful and so delicious, and are simply perfect for a Sunday morning brunch.

And the best part? Well, they’re also pretty simple to bake. So simple in fact, that they don’t really mess with the spirit of a lazy Sunday morning at all, unless you consider using a pastry blender hard work.

Simple Scones
Adapted from the Washington Post, May 27, 2005 (they apparently adapted it from “The All New, All Purpose Joy of Cooking”)

2 cups flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into small squares
1 egg
1/2 cup skim milk, plus more for brushing the tops
1/3 cup dried cranberries
raw sugar for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 425 degrees

In a large bowl combine the dry ingredients. With a pastry blender or forks, cut in the butter until the mix resembles coarse bread crumbs. In a separate bowl, whisk together milk and egg. Pour milk/egg mixture and dried cranberries (or dried fruit of your choice!) into the center of the flour mixture and stir with a rubber spatula or fork until the dry ingredients are just moist. Turn out onto a well floured surface and knead a few times. Pat dough into an 8 inch round, 3/4 inch thick disk, then cut into 8 wedges. Position wedges on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Using a pastry brush or your fingers, brush tops of scones with milk and then sprinkle with raw sugar. Put into preheated oven and bake for 12 to 14 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove and cool on wire rack.

Instant breakfast WOW!

It seems that I got so caught up in all of that birthday cake baking earlier this week that I neglected to share one of the most exciting things that happened last weekend (well exciting in terms of my backyard garden). FIRST HARVEST!!

You see that red poking out from the leaves of our *still blight free thankfully* tomato plant? It’s in fact a red tomato! My long wait is over! Huzzah!

We also took the opportunity to cut off the one and only pepper that our two pepper plants have managed to produce. I’m not sure what’s going on there. We still have pepper buds so I’m hopeful maybe we’ll get another pepper, but not too hopeful.

Look at that perfect tomato! And all of the green tomatoes stll on the plant! Truly, this tomato thing is turning out far better than I expected it to. It looks like this one plant is going to be enough to keep us in big tomatoes for the rest of the summer! As far as cherry tomatoes go, I’m still going to have to buy those at the Baltimore Farmer’s Market, but only so I can feed my secret snack addiction–which I’m hoping to share next week.

Ah tomato perfection. Especially with some locally made mozarella and some olive oil.

So guess what? I actually had the pleasure to make not one but TWO birthday cakes this week! Lucky me! This one was for a coworker who was having a very big birthday and I used the opportunity to recreate one of my favorite cake experiences from childhood, only this time without the boxed mix.

What is it? Funfetti? Oh, if only I’d found the internet recipe for that! No, it was the classic ultra moist yellow cake (just like what comes out of the box!) with chocolate fudge frosting. The recipe is compliments of smitten kitchen (if you can’t tell, I really love her website, and hope she continues with all of her baking after she has her baby next month!).

Since this cake had to travel though–under the harbor and around the beltway and across the quarter mile expanse of parking lot at work–I decided to go for cupcakes instead of a traditional sheet or layer cake. They just travel better, and who can resist them?

I’m happy to report that the recipe made an unbelievable 30 cupcakes! This led to a bit of a cupcake timing disaster for me, since I was only planning for two batches, not three and therefore nearly missed a lunch date as a result. But in the end all was well, and the icing recipe produced more than enough icing, so I was able to ice generously and create those sweet little cupcakey domes, complete with a swirl.

I’m also happy to report that everyone at work LOVED these. And who am I kidding, I loved them too. I had my doubts about the icing at first–have you ever heard of an icing made with sour cream?–especially when it turned out well, a little sour. A night in the fridge seemed to mellow the flavor out, creating a perfect icing that really was like a layer of fudge spread on top of the perfect yellow cake. A yumlish remix, if I do say so.