I made some oat jam squares. I just looked for the original recipe, but I found that the blog has since been taken down. I did once email the recipe to someone though, so I suppose I should post it, with some slight modifications.
(Also, I want to show off the nifty blue pyrex dish I just got from Goodwill.)


(And, I want to freak out my former roommates, assuming they still have me on their RSS feeds...it's only been since, um, October...)

2 1/2 cups oats
1 3/4 cups flour
3/4 cup melted butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup jam

Preheat oven to 375 F. Combine everything except jam. Put 2 cups of the dough aside, then press the rest into a greased pan (9x9 or 9x13). Spread the jam on, then sprinkle the rest of the dough on top. Bake 25-30 minutes.

(Upon reflection, I used 3/4 cup butter, and it turned out too crumbly, so I should have packed down the top layer, or just used the 1 cup butter as in the original recipe. So instead of taking them to work they are still on my counter...)

Pies

For those you who were not at dinner, and therefore not on the large mass email I sent out inquiring about the menu, you missed out on the Pie Wars of 2007. Apparently the chasm between Apple and Pecan is unbridgeable, with accusations of fundamentalism and unpatriotic behavior being bandied about wildly. And obviously, pumpkin pie has to be made for Thanksgiving. So I ended up making three pies, which was actually the easy part, as I, you know, like baking. And since the pie crust is the biggest bother, scaling up is no big problem if you're already making one.
My usual problem is that I don't roll out the pie crusts enough, or there simply isn't enough dough. Using a butter:Crisco ratio of 2:1, I made crusts for 5 pies, and rolled out 4 crusts from that, which worked well. Also note my apron in the picture below, sewed by my same sister. I'm too much of a throwback sometimes I fear. Still, it lets my wipe my hands on something other than my pants or shirt, which is probably a good thing.
Now, I know the last time I made a pumpkin pie, I said I would try to make it from a real pumpkin this time. Ha! I didn't even try to look for a sugar pumpkin. Three pies is still more than enough work without having to boil pieces of pumpkin. But next year, people, next year! Also, the way to test for doneness is to have a knife come out clean, but it leaves a large mark. I don't know what to do about this. Maybe I should bake a leaf of crust on the side so I can cover it later. This might be thought of as "obsessive." Anyway, the same recipe was used for the pumpkin pie as before, and I turned to Baking Illustrated for the apple pie, although I used six apples, not seven.
The pecan pie I was most worried about, since I had never made it before, and most people (5 out of 6) wanted pecan over apple. It turned out very very good, and I wouldn't mind making it again soon. It didn't really really fill the pie shell completely, so I guess I should have used the smaller pie tin for it instead.

i like polygons, okay?

i can feel your disappointment. i'm disappointed in myself, really. but i tried! i tried to find a sugar pumpkin to make pumpkin pie from scratch with. i went to three stores! so, you (and i) should really be disappointed in new york city and their terrible supermarkets and groceries.
so, i went back to my old tried and true friend, libby's pumpkin. which still took me four stores in my neighborhood to find.
this is also a story about how i can't, for the life of me, roll out a pie dough to fully cover any sort of pie dish. i think this may have to do with the fact that my chopping board is too small, the width of saran wrap is too short, and cookbooks don't actually know what 1/8" actually looks like. however, i should also know to just make a recipe and a half whenever i make pie dough. whatever, at least i actually had shortening (helloooooo crisco) to put in it this time.


as for the filling, i deviated from my normal libby's pumpkin side-of-the-label recipe, because, as i said, i was GOING to eviscerate my own pumpkin. alas, there's always thanksgiving. i used this recipe, which is probably still the same as most other pumpkin pie recipes. and turned as just as delicious. it made a bit too much for my pie tin, so i put the overflow in its own ramekin. because if there's anything i love, it's ramekins, squirrels, and geometric shapes, all neatly represented in the next two pictures. again, i know, we're all disappointed in me. i should have tried to get them all in one shot.

mmmmmuffins.
actually, not so much, which is probably why i've taken so long to post this. i think i wanted something more fluffy and not as moist and dense as these. they weren't bad, but i didn't eat about half of them. i may have been picturing one of the most perfect muffins i had at my high school cafeteria and was also orange and chocolate.

but pictures, anyway.

Sweater Weather

Ah, fall. The air grows chilly, the wind is brisker, the leaves change colors, rainstorms abound.

Almost...none of this has happened. We had rain yesterday, but it felt more like a quick summery shower with some thunder and lightening thrown in. In my desire to hasten autumn along, I made this apple cake, which is less like a cake and more like an explosion of apples barely held together by a custard-like cake binder. The recipe is from the New York Times, and for some reason, I have a paper copy of it. Thanks to the good people at the Times, who have recently seen fit to open their archives to all, we see that it was published September 22, 2004. This all leads me to believe I probably bought the paper in the airport on the way back to the start of my third year of college. Which why would we be talking about now, since I made the cake a few days ago? Right. Here are all the apple slices in a bowl. This was sort of a pain. Here are...all the slices in a pan! (Not to be confused with previous photo.) But really, this is much more apple than cake. It is also...slightly too full, as I discovered when I was settling down to read my chemistry textbook while it was baking, only to be interrupted by the smoke alarm going off. Repeatedly. The very high ceilings of the apartment mean that this involves me jumping up and down a lot trying to wave the smoke away. Thankfully, roommates were not home. Although the smoke alarm did go off the next two times the oven was used, when they were here. On to other things that probably appall my roommates, this is the carnage leftover from peeling, coring, and slicing five apples. Which I cleaned up promptly, of course. And, the finished cake. The issue with the smoke alarm meant I took it out of the oven about 10 minutes before I would have normally, but the apples are nicely caramelized, and the cake was halfway between cake and custard. All persons partaking of it approved.

Our freezer is similar to Mary Poppin's bag; it holds all sort of things, more than would seem to logically be able to fit in it. I had a roll of phyllo dough leftover from CONNECTICUT (I have a distinct memory of throwing it in my car straight from the freezer in my old apartment and driving straight to this apartment, about a 2 hour drive on the best of days). My other roommate had a package of frozen spinach, so it was logical to make spanakopita. I was vaguely worried about this, as I've had spanakopita I've liked and disliked before, and I'm not a huge fan of either spinach or feta. So I decided to half the recipe, and cut the phyllo into two, making a small thing of baklava. Because I was pretty sure I wouldn't screw baklava up. Now, I was having a really awful day, and was devastated when I realized I rushed and cut the phyllo dough into half the wrong way. But I calmed down, and cut it in half again to lay the pieces side by side. Which worked out just fine, as butter and sugar and dough and walnuts tends to do. Had I been thinking properly, I probably would have chopped up the walnuts finer (they were in 'baking bits' from Trader Joe's) but it still worked out fine. I halved this recipe and made it in an 9x9 baking pan, with room leftover on the sides. Also, the butter is just used for brushing the dough, and 4 tablespoons in a halved recipe was more than enough to douse everything.

The apartment has been trying to clean out the freezer, as I have previously mentioned. But here's why:


While it's exciting to pretend our freezer is turning into Hoth, it is not very practical. Neither practical is the three frozen pie crusts my roommate has had in there for months. But someday! He will make us quiche. But probably not in the next week. I had a bag of frozen berries that I hadn't used yet, so with my college-learned skills, I came upon the novel idea of making berry pie. I'm a genius, I know. I didn't think I would have enough berries though to fill up a pie, so I also bought some fresh strawberries. I glanced at my 'vintage' (1985!) Sunset Pies and Pastries book. They called for 6 cups of fruit, while the frozen pie crusts want 3.5 to 4 cups of filling. This detail was somehow lost on me, as I used about 5.5 cups of fruit. This ended up filling the crust to the brim. Hmm. This is also a problem when you put the pie into the oven or take it out, as the flimsy disposable pie tin is...flimsy. And bendy. Anyway. The below is somewhat adapted from the Sunset book, although it's really pretty basic.

End-of-the-summer, dying-freezer berry pie


Thaw frozen berries for a few hours, and drain off any excess water or juice. Add enough sliced strawberries to make 5.5 cups of fruit. Add 1 cup white sugar, 3 tablespoons cornstarch, and a half tablespoon lemon juice. Stir gently and let sit for about 15 minutes. Take out frozen pie crust and also let thaw for 15 minutes. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
While everything is sitting, make the streusel for the top. Sunset says 1 cup flour, 1/2 brown sugar, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, then rub in 6 tablespoons of butter. I had to sub white sugar, as I really truly believed in my heart that I had brown sugar. I also added 1/4 cup of oatmeal for a healthy sort of appearance. Dice the butter first, and then mash it in with a fork, then your fingers. This ended up being too much for my already overloaded pie and I had maybe a scant cup leftover.
Brush pie crust with a beaten egg. (I poked it a few times with a fork, but I don't think I really needed to do this.) Add as much fruit filling as possible. Panic. Top with streusel, panic some more. Wrap edges of pie crust with tin foil. Place in oven for one hour. (If you are me, don't make the streusel until after you put the pie in the oven, because you're looking at a different recipe. Make the streusel, and add it on 10 minutes later. Take the pie out of the oven, spilling filling in the process. Wipe up with kitchen towel. Add topping, place back into oven. Spill more filling. Wipe up with kitchen towel, which is now scarred for life. Thank your lucky stars that you had enough forethought to place a baking sheet on the rack underneath the pie when it spills some more, because this sort of thing has happened before. Not recommened, except that last tip about the baking sheet.) Take out of oven-carefully- after about an hour, when streusel is golden brown and filling is bubbling or near bubbling. Let cool while you're passed out from the combination of late August heat and standing in front of the oven while you were trying in vain to get the pie out safely.Confidential to travelling roommate: Come back soon. Other roommate apparently doesn't like berry pie at all, and I'm pretty sure I could eat the whole thing myself if I really tried.

Anti-depressant peanut butter chocolate chunk cookies!

I'm in a foul mood. I haven't needed nor really wanted to leave the apartment all day, I read the new Harry Potter in about 6 hours and now it's all over, and I've spent far too much time on the internet. Everything I've eaten today has been bland and unappetizing, and just thinking about food now is slightly nauseauting.
Which means if I want something good to eat, I'll have to make it myself. Peanut butter chocolate chip cookies should do the trick. I already took out the stick of butter once to warm to room temperature, only to decide I didn't really want to make cookies and placed it back in the fridge. But now it's four hours later, and although I'm still not convinced I really want cookies, I've taken it out of the fridge again. Because even if I don't eat these cookies (well, I'm sure when the time comes, I'll step up to the challenge), my enterprising roommates will.
Here we begin with exhibits A and B, The Joy of Cooking, 1964 edition, and a stick of warming butter. Mmm. As I have a multitude of cookbooks, I consulted Bakers Illustrated (they wanted ground peanuts, requiring a food processor, so for once let me down) my Joy of Cooking, my roommate's JoC, 1997 edition, and the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. Strangely, the simple recipe from JoC (1964) is different from a more complicated version in JoC (1997.) Since the first recipe is no longer in print, I'll post an adapted version of it here. It claims it makes "sixty 1.5 inch cookies." All cookbooks are liars. This made about 27 cookies, perhaps 2 inches across.
Preheat oven to 375^oF.
Cream one stick of butter, add 1/2 cup brown sugar and a 1/2 cup white sugar and beat. Add 1 egg, 1 cup peanut butter (I used chunky), 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp vanilla and mix. The JoC says you should "sift before measuring" 1.5 cups of all-purpose flour. Sifting flour for cookies is absurd. Who knows, maybe they would have been even more delicious, but there's really no reason I can for it. Anyway, add that and mix it all together.
I then took it upon myself to add chocolate bits, from the giganto-block-o'-chocolate from Trader Joe's. Hand included in picture for scale.
I broke off a fourth of this and alleviated some angst by chopping it into small bits, reducing a once formidable chunk of chocolate into this:
It was between 3/4 and 1 cup of chocolate, and got mixed in. Place balls of dough on a greased or parchment-ed baking sheet, and press fork tines down orthogonally. (My roommate did wander in while they were baking and said they smelled wonderful. Although he enjoyed eating them, he wondered why there were fork impressions in the cookies . I am led to assume that he's never had peanut butter cookies before, as making the criss-cross and eating it is one of the best parts about these cookies. He's also the same one who didn't know that one did not have to bake Rice Krispie treats, so he may not be the best go-to person for this sort of thing. That said, I guess you don't really *have* to flatten the cookies with a fork, you could do it with your palm or the bottom of a glass, but why wouldn't you? Gah.)
Aw, I sometimes wish they could stay this way; uncooked, young, innocent, free from worries and the heat of the oven/world. (Hmm. See previous posts about killing myself with bacteria. Into the oven they go.)
Bake for 12-15 minutes until light golden brown, and let cool on sheet to finish baking slightly to your taste.

Okay, fine, they did cheer me up. It's what cookies do best.

J-E-L-L-wait, is this trademarked?

I had some packets of gelatin left over from a marshmallow making experiment (Okay, it turned out fine, and the marshmallows made excellent s'mores. I think I looked at a few different recipes and combined them somehow. Okay, here's a picture.)

On the back of the box, Knox promotes Fruit Juice Knox Blox. Or, as I like to call it, Generic Gelatin Dessert. It is as simple as Jell-o, just sub out water for juice. Ingenious! Black raspberry juice from Trader Joe's led to these rather gothic looking animals. The cookie cutters were a gift from a roommate, despite the fact that he rescinded the frog almost immediately. I found it in his room however and freed it. Long story. The pig, because it's the year of the boar, and the squirrel because I have a thing with squirrels. Note the squirrel on the plate, a gift from the other roommate. They taste strangely rich and fatty, but not as sweet as Jello, so more 'grown-up.' Because if there's one thing that screams grown-up, it's squirrel-shaped generic gelatin dessert.

Now that i have a phone-pc connection, I can retroactively talk about foods I've eaten. Please, don't fall off the edge of your seats.
First up is MY birthday cake, which turned out just okay. I've realized that storing cakes in the fridge really takes something out of them, rather than having them fresh from the oven. Again, shocker. Still, it was very pretty and very "American" as a non-American friend put it. It was inspired by birthday cakes I had as a child.


The raspberry curd is from this recipe. I didn't mix it with whipped cream as suggested, although that probably wouldn't have been a bad idea. The frosting is here, which was my attempt to not have a butter-based frosting but instead...whipped cream. N.B., let the cream cheese be completely softened before mixing it into the whipped cream. If you don't, you get...large cream cheese chunks. So I'm not sure I would make this frosting again even though it probably didn't turn out well because of my own impatience. Plus, it was really rich (duh) and made me feel sort of ill. Finally, the cake is from the old go-to Baker's Illustrated. The cake was very light and fluffy out of the oven. Weighing it down with cream cheese and drying it out in the fridge did not help it much.

In non-birthday related news, I made a blueberry buttermilk tart as I had some extra buttermilk leftover from that chocolate cake posted below. I also chucked in some frozen raspberries I had languishing. Come to think of it, I think I did make this for a friend's birthday a few years ago. The crust is slightly burnt, I should have kept it wrapped in foil. It's very hard to put foil on mid-way through the baking process and leads to burnt fingers and smoking pieces of dough on the oven floor.

marshmallowy chocolatey goodness

So, for my roommate's birthday, I baked her a cake. This (bookstore-) famous cake.
The recipe was kindly online here, although I am considering buying the book (or making someone buy it for me. 162 days til Christmas!)
We start with the mise en place, as inspired by the probably insane French Laundry at Home.
Fairly standard stuff. Which means this was probably a pretty boring picture for you too look at. You may instead marvel at my other roommate's bizarre paper towel stand. Moving on.
Dry and wet ingredients are combined separately, then joined by chocolate chips and buttermilk in steps to prevent a flour-cocoa explosion in my kitchen. Although that happens to me now matter how slowly I add them.
Now, I have problem in that I only have one cake pan.
"But Donna!" you say, "Cake pans are so cheap, why don't you just buy another one?"
Because I have anxiety attacks when I spend money. I also have anxiety attacks when I can't properly split cake batter into two equal portions, and when the Latter-Baked Cake comes out Mormon. I mean, doesn't rise as much as the first one. In any case, I used one cake pan and things came out more or less all right.
See? Although, indeed, the second one was not as tall as the first. However, the recipe calls for cutting each layer in half, making four layers, with the fourth crumbled up for outside decoration. I assumed this was not as crucial, and could be skimped on slightly. This was (foreshadowing) a minor mistake.
Persevering on! I made the frosting. There are no pictures of this as it was very hot and sticky, and my cell phone does not appreciate such things. In ALL senses of the phrase. It was very exciting however, pouring boiling sugar syrup into fluffy egg whites and then beating them some more. By exciting I mean traumatic. (In 7th grade, I got a really bad blister on my hand between my thumb and forefinger from caramelized sugar the week we had to play racketball in gym. Also, when I made marshmallows a few months ago, I did about the same thing and nearly killed my handheld mixer in the process.) I probably could have whipped it up a little more. I ended up not having quite enough in the end, although I should have just reduced the amount between the layers. Which, conveniently enough, are shown below. It's so pretty, I almost wanted to stop here.
But no, there were sides to frost! And crumbled cake to press on! I should add here that marshmallow frosting is incredibly sticky. The crumbled cake...I should have let the cake half dry out a little before crumbling in order to get smaller crumbs and a more even covering. Which was, as I alluded to earlier, already sort of in a dire position with me skimping on the size of the cake "half." With a moderate amount of effort, we present this.
You can see there's some white patches. It adds character, okay? C'mon.
Now it needed some birthday-ification-tion. Guess how old she's turning! Guess! Guess!
Fine, don't guess. The number 23 and the fuzziness of the picture had been brought to you by viewers like you. And strawberries and mint leaves, which were carefully arranged after about ten minutes of staring at a strawberry.
Long story short, she loved it and I'm the best roommate ever. However, cutting it was sort of difficult as large chocolate chips were in the cake. If they got caught on the blade it got messy and the layers started to shift. As seen here.
Next time I would use mini-chocolate chips or chocolate shavings, as I think was originally in the recipe. Also, I really need a cake dome to store in the fridge, but the cake held up pretty well for a week with a large pot covering it. I would make/eat this again, although I probably wouldn't because it wasn't the best cake I've ever tasted in my entire life, and there are so many cake recipes still out there.
That's a boring way to end this post. Here, instead is a picture of frosting and cake that I didn't work in earlier. If you're not already overwhelmed by excitement/diabetic shock.