This cake has balls!

Since my last post was a long winded rant, I figure it's time for a lighter, happier post about one of my favorite topics:  sweets.  In my adventures throughout the blogosphere I have started seeing cake balls all over the place.  I've seen a million recipes, and even purchased a gift box of them from Etsy.com to send to a friend in FL, but I've never had one and I've never made one, until now.

Today is a friend of mine's birthday so I decided to bake a cake, but then I found out someone else is already baking him a cake, and not one to be outdone, I decided to make sure my cake had balls...cake balls.  On St. Patty's day this year I made Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes to bring to a friends house, and so I had the better part of a bottle of Jameson and some Emmet's Irish Cream Liqueur still hanging around my house (I managed to take care of all of the Guiness without a problem though...) so I decided to continue with that theme and make Irish Car Bomb Cake Balls, but because this friend is an avid beer fan (and home-brewer) I decided to use a local brew instead of Guiness, and went with Rock Art's Stumpjumper Stout, which has a nice bold flavor that would stand up well in the dark chocolate cake.  Here's whats fun about cake balls:  It's like making a whole cake, but then you get to smoosh it!

I took the recipe from here but basically, I cheated and bought a boxed cake mix this time...making the process much easier and cheaper, but using the Stout in place of the water.  Bake that up in any shape or size you see fit, let it cool, and them smoosh the heck out of it!  Beat up a basic buttercream frosting, using the Jameson and Emmet's for flavoring, in place of vanilla (add to taste, about 3 tbsp Emmet's and 1 tbsp Jameson).  Add the cake crumbs to the frosting bowl and mix as you go, until well combined.  Scoop out onto cookie sheets in ~2 tbsp size balls and pop them in the freezer for awhile to harden up a bit (I left them in there over night).  Next melt up some chocolate to dip the frosty cake balls in, the recipe called for white, I did about half and half - one bag of white chocolate and one bag of dark covered the whole lot.  What an interesting treat they turned out to be!  I'm bringing them to the birthday party tonight, hopefully no one else will like them and I can bring them all back home.....just kidding!  :-)

Dancing, Greening, and Baking on Mother's Day Weekend

This was a big weekend for me for many reasons.  It's Mother's Day and I'm a pretty big fan of my mom, so thats always a big deal, but it was also Vermont Green Up Day on Saturday and the JSC Dance Show on Friday.  This means that Friday I attended a dance show with some friends and then went out dancing to various live shows around town after (a band called "The Thang"  embarrassed me into holding still at the Hub so I headed out to Moog's in Mo'ville to watch Chad Hollister play solo-definitely worth the trip-where I danced my butt off).  Then on Saturday I spent my morning picking up garbage along the Rail Trail where I walk my dogs, scaling a steep hillside up towards the road to pick up old skoal cans, McDonald's wrappers, and to try to steer clear of at least this years bags of deer guts (at which I was mostly successful).  Saturday night I first made a triple layer chocolate cheesecake/mousse dessert for both my friend Holly and my mom for mother's day and then in the later hours I made spaghetti dinner and garlic bread for dinner followed my preparing my mom's mother day breakfast after she went to bed.  This consisted of maple walnut cinnamon buns from a recipe I found in a magazine and adapted to my needs.  Then on Sunday I finished up the cinnamon buns and sliced up some fresh fruit for a surprise breakfast for my mom that was ready just as she came downstairs in the morning.  The bun recipe was from a magazine but I'll post the cheesecake concoction recipe below, but first: Pictures.

Sunrise outside my window, I love the silhouettes of trees in the foreground

Instead of pictures of garbage from Green Up Day, you get pictures of things that are already green, because they're really what it's all for anyway....

I am in love with baby leaves.

Sunshine on new leaves...nothings better

Fiddleheads!

Baby fern

Morning Dew

Mother's day Breakfast!

Cheesecake concoction: I made this cheesecake, then covered it with ganache and topped it with this chocolate mousse...wasn't crazy about the cheesecake recipe but all in all I think it turned out alright. 

Then I made chocolate chip peanut butter cookies.  What a weekend!  Goodnight all! 

pillows!

So i know, i haven't posted a recipe in a whileeeee and i'll tell you why...because my last 2 attempts at baking at altitude have been epic failures, first with collapsing cookies and then a collapsing zucchini cake...very disappointing for me.  I made cookies and cream cheesecake cupcakes again for my roommate for her birthday, but since i had already posted the recipe I didn't feel the need to put that one up again.  So today, for a friends birthday, a friend who recently gave up eating dairy, i finally got to make a recipe I have been looking for an excuse to make for AGES....andddd it worked perfectly, even at altitude!  I'm so happy!  So without further ado, this is the recipe and these are the cookies:

Yummmmmm!

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Whoooopsy!

So hey, sorry about being on hiatus for almost a week now, as you may or may not have already figured out, I don't have internet at my new house.  I have been taking daily pictures though so here they are:

Sunday:

ummm awesome.  zoom way in on this guy and you can see the hairs on his legs!

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Monday  (Moving Day!)

On the drive up, you can't see it on this little one, but the moon looks sweet

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Tuesday:

New Home:

beautiful!

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Wednesday:  

All in my second days work! Spent the day here, monitoring groundwater levels

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Thursday: (TODAY!)

Woohoo!  All caught up!  Today I did what I do all the time, I baked.  Cherry Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies!

Made from the same recipe I used here except in place of coconut and butterscotch I used dried cherries! Yummmy!

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guess what i did tonight!

if you guessed "baked" then you're right on.  I guess its time for a brief update, for those of you who are not my mom and haven't been following my more recent adventures and have just heard ominous phrases like "big decision" and "new home" dropped in here and there for the past month.  About a month and a half ago the company I am serving my AmeriCorps assignment at went through some major lay-offs.  Among the casualties was my direct supervisor and while efforts were made to keep me feeling happy and productive without her, I was still given, and ultimately accepted the offer to change sites.  I have selected a new site located in South Lake Tahoe and will be moving there this very weekend I believe. SO as I am leaving and one of my current coworkers has a birthday coming up, but it will be right after I leave, I decided now is as good a time as any to make him his birthday cake.  He selected a cookies and cream cheesecake and I opted for individual style, for easier distribution and consumption at work.  And ta-da! we're back to baking...I got the recipe here, it makes exactly 30, even with ample tasting of the batter (inevitably leading to the most delicious tummyache ever!) and they are pretty neat little buggers with oreo's as their bottom crust (i.e. no smashing cookies and melting butter and pressing crumbs into the bottom of muffin cups, just dropping a cookie in there) so here is a small photo montage of the making of the cheesecakes:

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lovely flowa

taken today at work in gold bug park.

i have an addiction.

to something other than taking pictures....

i'm addicted to baking.  i just can't help it.  i fought it for hours today, and ended up making 2 batches of cookies.  i didn't even eat any, i was already full when i started making them.  oatmeal craisin almond chocolate chip cookies, chocolate peanut butter sauce pan cookies.  

someday i'll be a full time baker.  can't wait. :o)

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gifting...

i made housewarming party presents tonight...i'm confident posting them on here because i don't think the person they're for reads this.  I made a cranberry almond scone recipe (based roughly on this one)and a double chocolate coconut butterscotch chip cookie mix (based on this one, but drop the chunks for chips and add butterscotch chips and shredded coconut too), all the dry ingredients and a card with how to finish them up, wrapped nicely in a tea towel and tucked in a basket.  i hope they like them!

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early update!

I'm posting my photo early today because I won't be here this evening and I don't want to forget again.  So what do I have for you?  Whats this?  A strawberry with a rosie-reddish hue?  Thats right...these little buggers are ripening!  My first strawberries that I have grown all on my own!  Hurray!  Look at how cute too!  Photos can be a little deceiving sometimes, I know it looks pretty large, but its really about the size of a marble....still, its awesome! :o)

Also, I made some fabulous rocky road fudge this morning from this recipe I remembered from longggg ago, the last time I made it I still lived in Peru.  It is the easiest fudge recipe in the world and you can find it online in millions of places under the name Super Easy Rocky Road Fudge, but I'll put the recipe here for you, since its so simple.  I know that I originally found this recipe on the inside of a label of a can of sweetened condensed milk, so I'm sure its by Nestle or something...anywho here it is, seriously give it a try.  You won't regret it!

Super Easy Rocky Road Fudge

• 2 cups Chocolate Chips (I used Ghirardelli 60% Cacao chips)
• 1 14oz Can of Sweetened Condensed Milk
• 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
• ~3 cups Mini Marshmallows
• 1 1/4 cups Chopped Walnuts

Line a pan with waxed paper or lightly greased tinfoil.  Combine condensed milk and chocolate chips in a large, microwave safe bowl.  Microwave on high for 1 minute and then stir, if the chips are not completely melted continue microwaving in 10 second intervals and stirring until mixture is smooth.  Stir in vanilla extract, then fold in marshmallows and nuts.  Press into a 13x9 pan (for ~48 thinner pieces) or 9x9 pan (for ~24 thicker pieces) and refrigerate until set.  

This is the basic recipe, but you can mix in anything you want....some of my favorites:  peanut butter chips and mini pretzels, coconut and butterscotch chips, mint extract and crushed oreos.  I dare you not to love these!

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you say tomato...

i say why does my tomato plant look like its been in a knife fight?  a bit of poor leaf health...but its green and blooming, so it can't be tooooooooo unhealthy....

I made chocolate coconut butterscotch cookies again, since tomorrow a few volunteers are getting together for dinner.  I ate way too much cookie dough but i have lots of yummmy lookin cookies to share tomorrow!  Hurray!

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coooooooooooookies

Today I got to spend my lunch break on the shores of beautiful Jenkinson Lake (aka drinking water reservoir) in Pollack Pines.  I had an apple and baby carrots and some tasty brie I got at a little cheese shop downtown, it was a pretty fabulous lunch.  Heres a little photo memory of my bright, sunshiney afternoon for photo numero one hundred and oneeeeee!

After my amazing afternoon at the park I decided the only way to end this Friday was with my new favorite evening activity, going to the baking/kitchen aisle in the nearest department store and letting myself pick something out.  Tonight I got a mixing bowl, a new cutting board (because my old one was cheap and made out of glass and it ruined my only knife....booo!), and a can opener.  Then I popped over to the grocery and got everything I needed to make one of my very favorite cookie recipes of all time, Chocolate-Butterscotch-Chip-Coconut-Cooooookies!  (Adapted from my Mom's old school Betty Crocker Cookbook recipe for "Sugar Jumbles") and lucky you, I'm going to share it with you here:

Mix thoroughly: 1/2 cup of butter, 3/4 cup sugar (half white and half brown), 1 egg, and 1 tsp vanilla. 

Sift together and stir in: 1 and 1/8 cup flour (i used whole wheat and they were still delicious), 1/4 tsp baking soda, and 1/2 a tsp salt.

Fold in: ~1/2 cup chocolate chips, ~1/2 cup butterscotch chips, ~1/2 cup shredded coconut

Drop by rounded teaspoons onto a lightly greased (or non-stick) cookie sheet and bake at 375 for 7-9 minutes, cool on sheet for 3 minutes, then move to wire rack and finish cooling, then enjoy...if you can wait that long!

okay, they don't photograph well, but they're still amazingggly tasty...try it, I dare you not to like them!

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this one goes out to Luis!

Luis my Friend, I know its a bit late, but this cake was made with you in mind.  I miss you sir!  Hope your birthday was happy and wish you were here to share some cake and share some of your infinite knowledge about why Portugal is the most awesome place ever...someday I'll get there!  and when I do...you can bet your ass there will be cake!

Happy Birthday to: Arthur (6th), Elly (11th), Luis (12th), Becca Moore (14th), Me (14th), Hsiao-Han (15th), Celia (16th), Becky Fogarty (29th), and Meaghan Gallagher (31st)!

And of course lots of love, smiles, and happy thoughts to everyone, no matter when your birthday is!

And now for the photo of the day:

(click to enlarge if you'd like a better look)

Taken on a hike this morning in Coloma, CA, this is a fence post with a few dozen acorns tucked into it.  I learned that the Acorn Woodpecker stores their winter snacks in just about any wooden surface they can find, such as a fence post, or perhaps a little more irritatingly, the wooden siding on houses round these parts. 

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