Lemon Tea Cookies

I saw a recipe on Pinterest for some lemon tea cookies with frosting on top about a week ago, and I got super excited to make them.  But after looking over some of the comments on the recipe, I saw that many people complained that the cookies fell apart after baking and crumbled into a total mess.  The recipe for the cookies contained no egg or other emulsifier, so my guess is that the dry ingredients weren't willing to stick to each other through sheer force of will.

However, I wasn't willing to give up on my lemon tea cookie urges, and I found a more promising recipe from Taste of Home.  I almost gave up making them today, because the delicious lemon frosting filling required powdered sugar, which I did not have on hand.  Luckily, the internet came to the rescue and told me I could make my own!

Turns out, powdered sugar is just mashed up sugar with some cornstarch.  For however much powdered sugar you want, just place that much granulated sugar in a blender and blend on high for however long it takes to become powder.  (These are some extremely technical directions, people.  I hope you appreciate my genius.)  And after some maniacal laughter and loud blender noises... voila!

Then, add 1-2 tablespoons of cornstarch for each cup of sugar.  The cornstarch is optional, but great for frostings where you might want to thicken a mixture for some structure.  If you don't have cornstarch, why the heck not?!  Have you seen this?  Or this?  Science demands that you have this at all times!

I mixed the powdered sugar into a mixture of butter, lemon juice, and lemon zest to make this beautiful delightfulness.

Lemony goodness...

The cookies themselves were crazy simple.  Cream together softened butter and sugar, beat in an egg yolk and vanilla, then mix in flour.  You'll get a pretty nice dough that looks like this.

Then form it into a square-shaped roll, wrap it in clear plastic wrap, and store it in the fridge for a few hours.

Be thankful I'm not majoring in architecture

The recipe said to leave the two rolls in the fridge overnight, but that would imply I have some amount of patience.  (I swear I can hear my mother laughing 3000 miles away...)  It seemed that 3-4 hours was plenty.  So after a few House of Cards episodes, I cut the very solid dough into 1/4 inch thick squares.

Then I popped them into the oven for 10 short minutes, and the rest is history!

Adjustments / Substitutions

I didn't have any oranges on hand, so instead of adding orange zest to the filling, I added lemon zest.  This made it super lemony, which I don't think is a bad thing, but I'd love to try it with the orange flavoring.

Next Time

Aside from using orange zest instead of lemon zest, there's not much else I could change.  I don't think my powdered sugar is as finely ground as store bought powdered sugar, so I don't think I would regularly make my own.  Having even a semblance of granules in the filling makes it a little bit less smooth, and I want all the texture focus to be on the cookies themselves.

Source: http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/lemon-tea-cookies

Vanilla Frosting Fail

If you're ever having a bad day and need a good laugh, I give to you...

SLOPPERS MCCAKE!!

The cake itself turned out wonderfully.  The frosting... not so much.  After adding over 1.25lbs of confectioner's sugar to thicken it, I gave up and just slathered it on.

Maybe next time I'll choose the 4 sticks of butter buttercream frosting over 2/3 cup of Crisco.  *shudder*

UPDATE: Apparently, this recipe asked for 1 (2lbs) box of confectioner's sugar.  Not 1 (1lbs) bag.  Whoops...  It is really tasty too!!

Source: Crisco Vanilla Frosting

Blueberry Muffins with Lemon Sugar

If you like crunchy, delicious tops on your muffins and a boatload of blueberry flavor, this muffin recipe rocks.  While it has a few preparation steps to handle, like making blueberry "jam" and prepping lemon sugar, it is totally worth it.  Ammmmmazing.

To make the lemon sugar coating on top, you need some lemon zest.  Zesting lemons feels sadistic if you have a tendency to anthropomorphize your fruits and veggies, so try not to think too hard about it.  After that, mix the zest in with the sugar and let it absorb all the delicious flavor.

Zesty.

After that, you make a blueberry "jam".  I put that in quotes because you don't end up adding any pectin for preservation.  To make it, you simply heat up blueberries with some sugar and mash them until they look like this.

I could fingerpaint with this stuff.  Edible art!

The batter for the muffins is fairly standard, but super delicious.  You mix in real blueberries to the batter and scoop it into your muffin tin with your trusty ice cream scoop.  I like to use a silicone muffin "tin" because the muffins just pop right out.  But there is the downside of not getting to pick out adorable muffin papers. =(

After that, you place 1 tsp of blueberry jam into the center of each muffin and swirl it around with a toothpick in a figure 8 pattern.  This adds a lot of awesome blueberry flavor, and makes the muffins a cool shade of purply/blue.

Finally, generously sprinkle on the lemon sugar.  Make sure to lick all the excess off your finger tips and skip wildly about the kitchen.

And after a very short baking time, voila!!

Adjustments / Substitutions

None this time.

Next Time

I would definitely double the recipe, since this only makes 12 muffins.  After my boyfriend and I both ate 3 muffins fresh out of the oven, they didn't stand a chance to make it to sundown.

Source: The Science of Good Cooking (ISBN: 978-1-933615-98-1)

Pancakes

Mark Bittman, cook and renowned columnist for the NY Times, said he had no idea why people buy pancake mix instead of making it themselves.  After making these pancakes from scratch, I totally agree.  They were amazingly fluffy and simple, and they totally made my morning. =)

So here's a little pancake science.  This recipe calls for mixing 2 tbsp of white vinegar with 2/3 cup of milk.  Why?  Adding vinegar (or lemon juice) to milk is a great way to make your own delicious buttermilk!  But why doesn't that curdle the milk and make it gross?  Here's an answer from foodreference.about.com:

When adding lemon juice or vinegar to hot milk, it will curdle almost immediately, but adding it to cold milk will not produce a reaction for quite some time.

As with so many cooking things, temperature is a huge factor.  Cold slows so many reactions, which is why putting food in the fridge often stops it from breaking down as quickly.  I love science!!

It always takes me a little bit of time to figure out the right heat, but after briefly experimenting with a cast iron skillet, I find that I prefer a standard non-stick pan at medium-low heat.  If I had a griddle, I would use that in a heartbeat, but it's another item on the cookware wish list for now...

What more can I say?  Pancakes are awesome and you should eat them.

Adjustments / Substitutions

I used lactose-free milk instead of regular milk, and they tasted totally awesome.  No qualms there.

Next Time

I would just start off on a lower heat instead of a higher one, because I feel like it's much easier to just wait longer for them to cook and adjust upwards instead of burn them and go "Aw crap!  I just burnt one of my 8 precious pancakes!!"

Source: Fluffy Pancakes - kris (5 star rating with over 4500 reviews?  Yeah, they're good.)

Chicken Katsu

I really like black olives.  Don't judge me.

Chicken katsu, known as tonkatsu when prepared with pork, is a very satisfying meal and super easy to make.  As long as you have raw chicken breasts, flour, egg, panko bread crumbs, copious amounts of canola oil, and a healthy respect for hot oil, it'll be smooth sailing.  Did you know that oil doesn't actually boil?  Between roughly 160-250C (325-475F), oil will reach a smoking point and produce a blue smoke.  (Neat!!)  At this point, the oil loses its flavor and nutritional value, so when deep frying, it's good to use an oil with a high smoke point.

Anyway, to make delicious chicken katsu, put the flour, eggs, and panko into three separate dishes:

Try to make as much of a mess as possible

Using either whole chicken breasts or slices, prepare them by dipping them into the flour, then egg, then panko crumbs.  Set them aside until your oil is hot and ready, then start frying!

And then, fairly quickly, they'll come out looking like this!

But if you load too many little nuggets into the fryer at once, your stovetop might look like this:

A lesson well learned

Adjustments / Substitutions

I totally forgot to rub the cutlets in salt and pepper before giving them the flour, eggs, crumbs treatment, but the panko crumbs were flavorful enough without it.  Plus, all the yummy taste came from the delicious tonkatsu sauce.

Next Time

I would be careful not to overfill the vat of bubbling oil, because that is crazy scary.  I think I could've got away with using a bit less oil, but it's still important to make sure that the pieces of chicken are totally covered.  Finally, the tonkatsu sauce called for dijon mustard, but this made it have a little too much bite for my very wimpy taste buds.

Source:
      Chicken Katsu: www.allrecipes.com - saukraiiko

      Tonkatsu Sauce: www.seriouseats.com

Ziti al Forno (Baked Ziti) w/ Meatballs

Ziti al forno is a labor of love, and it is well worth the effort.  As a girl surrounded by Italian food in my home state of Rhode Island, and in the kitchen I grew up in, Peter Bocchieri's recipe brought back so many fantastic memories.  It is not a complicated dish to make, but if you're anywhere near as incompetent as me, prepare to be burned by jumping oil and crushed by falling cans of tomatoes.  (28oz is a lot of ounces on your big toe... ouch!)

The ingredients are what truly make this an incredible meal.  It calls for mozzarella, ricotta, and pecorino romano cheese; the last of which really gives the cheesy layers their flavor.  San Marzano tomatoes, which were originally grown at the base of Mt. Vesuvius, make for a sauce that my great grandmother Stella would be proud of.  Substituting out any of these ingredients would be a crime against humanity.

The preparation has three main phases: preparing the meatballs, simmering the sauce, and baking the ziti.

The meatballs are tiny; about the size of a grape.  The recipe makes about 50 little meatballs.  The edges are browned in a skillet, as well as some Italian sausage, and they are then cooked all the way through in the delicious sauce.

Can't you just smell it?

After 1.5 hours of your house smelling like some villa in Naples, you remove the meatballs from the sauce and begin creating an epic mixture of ziti, sauce, and cheese.  Creating layers in a 15"x10" casserole dish, you are oven-ready.

And voila!

Why does it have to cool for 20 minutes?!

This was a challenging dish for me.  I ended up preparing it over the course of two days, but I have no regrets.  It took almost 3 hours for me to chop up all the necessary ingredients, prepare the meatballs, and make the sauce.  Then it took another 2 hours or so to cook the pasta, arrange the casserole dish, and bake it.  This would be a great weekend project instead of my brilliant choice of "Let's start at 6:30pm on a Tuesday!"

Adjustments / Substitutions

I accidentally bought ground Italian sausage instead of linked Italian sausage, so I had to take the time to shape it before browning.  In the future, I'll definitely be buying encased sausage.

Next Time

This is my favorite dish that I've ever made, so far.  Instead of browning the meatballs in only 2tbsp of oil, I found myself adding oil to make sure they all browned.  However, the meatballs seemed a bit more oily than I would have liked before I added them to the sauce, so I might scale that back a bit in the future.

Source: Cooking Italian Comfort Food - Peter Bocchieri