A Failure's Frosting

Grr. Frosting :/ 

It makes cupcakes prettier. And it tastes good. It's like a cupcakes lip stick.

Also like lip stick, you shouldn't try to make your own. At least I shouldn't (I'm talking about frosting now.)

Because I can not make frosting. Just can't. As was evident in my latest adventure, frosting.

The picture on the recipe's page showed a fluffy, light textured creation that sat atop the cupcake like a crown.

It was obviously a picture filled with deceit and lies.

Maybe you'll do better than I did. I don't know. I'm too depressed about this frosting to give hopeful comments.

Might as well get on with this (sigh).

Things you'll need (for failure);

4 large egg whites

1 cup granulated sugar

1 pinch of salt

1 tsps vanilla

First thing you'll obviously want to do is get those egg whites. My mom's friend showed me a handy trick where you use an empty water bottle to suction cup the yolk up out of the white (go check it out on Youtube!), but the water bottles were all the way upstairs and I was downstairs and this whole shin dig with the frosting was kind of on a whim so I just said "ENOUGH OF THAT SILLINESS. I'M TALENTED ENOUGH BY NOW TO DO THIS MYSELF!"

Not so. 

Maybe this is where I went wrong, but there were some yolk in the whites :/ BUT ONLY A LITTLE! And I didn't stress out too much about it because I didn't think it was enough to damage anything.

But anyway, egg whites. Make sure there isn't any yolk.

Then mix those with everything except the vanilla in a metal bowl. You're going to have to place the mixed contents in a bowl over a pot of simmering water, so that's why I say metal.

Put the mixed stuff in the bowl over a pot of simmering water and CONSTANTLY whisk it. You must do thins until it is hot to the touch.

Maybe this was another point where I went wrong. I had been whisking this thing for 15 minutes before I said "YOU KNOW WHAT, THAT, DEAR SIR, IS AS HOT AS I'M LETTING THIS MIXTURE GET."

My arms were about ready to fall off!

So then you're supposed to put the mixture into a bowl and beat it with an electric mixture for 3 minutes, adding the vanilla in the process.

At the end of three minutes, it was supposed to look like marshmallow frosting.

Mmm-hmm.

Fluffy as a newborn kitten.

And that's after 5 minutes of beating.

I was really frustrated, so I just put them on some store brand peanut butter cookies (we didn't have anything to make cupcakes) and called it a day. I also made it purple, in an attempt to cheer myself up. It didn't really work :/

 

That felt good, though.

At least I got some peanut butter cookies out of this disappointment! 

 

So yeah.  My advice is to not always trust Pinterest wholeheartedly and try to make the best out of a sucky situation by turning it purple.

 

Pineapple Every Which Way Cake

As I said in my previous post, my mom's birthday was yesterday. 

(HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!)

Anyway, I told her she could have anything she wanted. At first she was just like,

"Oh, sweetie, I'll love whatever you make me."

That didn't give me a lot to build off of.

Finally I got her to give me something. A pineapple upside down cake.

After searching through COUNTLESS cookbooks (okay, 23), I couldn't find ONE pineapple upside down cake.

So I turned to the Internet and found a decent one. 

I advise you read this entire post before making this.

Here's what you need.

1/4 cup butter

2/3 cup brown sugar

9 slices pineapple in juice

9 maraschino cherries

1 1/3 cup flour

1 cup granulated sugar

1/3 cup shortening

1 1/2 tsps baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup milk

1 egg

I was really excited to be making this for my mom. I had a perfect vision in my head of a pristine pineapple upside down cake that could have been in a cooking magazine. The pineapple upside down cake in my head was gorgeous. 

My pineapple upside down cake was not this cake.

My pineapple upside down cake was the king of all disappointment. I cried for this cake.

Anyway, might as well get on with this thing.

First, get yourself a 9 x 13 inch pan and put the butter in it. Preheat your oven to 350mand melt the butter in there.

Pull the pan out once butter is melted and sprinkle the brown sugar all over the pan.

 Then, take your pineapple slices and arrange them in rows in the pan. 

Now for the batter.

Beat with electric mixer the rest of the ingredients in a bowl for three minutes, scraping the bowl the whole time. 

Pour the batter over the pineapples and cherries and pop the whole thing in the oven for 50-55 minutes. 

I did this and I was ecstatic because so far everything had gone great! I set the timer, turned around, and just as I was patting myself on the back, saw the shortening on the counter. 

Unopened.

 I crumbled to the floor. I shook my fist in the air.

I got so angry with myself that I yanked the stupid thing out of the oven and angrily threw the whole thing back into the bowl.

I threw the required shortening into the mess and angrily smashed everything up.

I poured it back into the pan, threw it into the oven, and cooked it for 50 minutes.

This is what came out.

I will say, it looks like something that came out of a dogs stomach, but it tasted darn good. Maybe a real pineapple upside down cake would have tasted better, but I've never had one, so I can't say.

Happy birthday, mom!

PLEASE STAND BY

Hey there fellas.

It's my moms birthday, so unfortunately you will have to wait until tomorrow for my blog post.

Don't worry, it will be worth the wait.

Peanut Butter Fudge

A few weeks ago my grandmother found out I was writing a baking blog and gave me probably about 30 cookbooks. Everything you could ever imagine is in those books, and I've been meaning to do something from them for the past few weeks, but I just got caught up with the pies and Pinterest had such good looking food on it that I got sidetracked. 

But this week I resolved to doing one of the cookbook recipes. I picked a random book, opened it up to the third page, and found what I was going to do. 

They're the ones on the far left.

These were also REALLY simple and I had everything I needed in the house already. 

I originally had a picture I took of the recipe from the cookbook, and was rejoicing because typing out all of the ingredients is my least favorite part.

Somewhere along the lines, though, it got lost.

Sigh.

You'll need;
3/4 cup smooth peanut butter
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tsps vanilla extract
1 1/2 cup flour
1 1/2 tsps baking powder
1/8 tsps salt
1/2 cup chopped peanuts

Preheat your oven to 375.

First thing you'll need to do is get yourself a nice big bowl. Then, acquire some peanut butter. About 3/4 of a cup.

It hurt my heart a little bit to offer up that much peanut butter for this recipe. Peanut butter is my most favorite thing in the whole universe. I think I love peanut butter more than I love my guinea pig (and my guinea pig is dang cute).

 

*sniffle*

Next, get yourself some brown sugar. Put that on top of the peanut butter.

I will admit to wanting to make a sand castle out of that stuff.

Soften some butter, slab it on there.

Now, mix that all up until combined.

Add your eggs and vanilla.

Mix that up nice and good.

Get a separate bowl.

Combine baking powder, flour and salt in said bowl.

This was another instance of  "Is this cookbook messing with me?".

Seriously. 1/8 of a teaspoon of salt. What is the purpose of that salt?! EXPLAIN TO ME.

But I was worried that if I didn't add it the whole thing would either explode or spontaneously com-bust. So I just did it.

Once you mix the dry stuff together, throw it into the peanut butter stuff and mix until well combined.

Next, get yourself a pan (it says a 9 x 13 inch pan, but I never measure), and line it aluminum foil. The foil should cover the edges, too. Spray the foil with cooking spray.

Then, start scooping the mixture into the pan.

.

Note; you'll probably want to use your hands to pat the mixture down to make it even.

Then, get some peanuts.

The recipe called for chopped peanuts. Pfft. Ain't nobody got time fo dat (and yes, I did just use that).

.

Sprinkle "chopped" peanuts onto stuff.

Concentrated face.

Pop it in the oven for 17 minutes at 375 and make sure you're around when it's done.

Or else that happens.

Connor thought it was awesome.

It was gone within 2 days. I call this a success.

Cushaw Pie

Ever since I can remember my grandparents have had a garden. They grow everything, cucumbers, tomatoes, squash, pumpkins, corn, peppers, and a whole bunch of other things!

One of those 'many other things' is called a cushaw. It's kind of like a pumpkin, and kind of like a squash, and ALL southern. My whole family is from Tennessee.

 My grandpa has been subtly asking me to make a cushaw pie ever since they started coming in, and my dad's birthday was a few days ago, too (he loves pie), so I decided to make one!

First of all, you're going to need a cushaw.

This is what it looks like.

You'll also need;

1 unbaked pie shell

2 1/2 cups cooked cushaw (I'll get to that in a minute)

1/4 cup sour cream

2 beaten eggs

1 cup sugar

1 tbsp flour

1/4 tsps salt

1/4 tsps nutmeg

1/4 tsps pumpkin spice

2 tbsp butter

Okay, the first thing you need to do is cook this cushaw you have.

By the way, I have no idea how you're going to get one. I have never walked into the produce section in the store to find a cushaw section.

But anyway, when you get your cushaw you need to first wash it.

 Then, you will want to cut it into four quarters.

 A small piece of advice; cut off the top part near the stem first.

Then scoop out the seeds and cushaw innards.

  

And that thing poking it's head into the trashcan is my dog's snout :/

                                                                                

          Into quarters now.

                                                                                

Spray cooking spray on a oven safe tray (or two), preheat your oven 425 degrees and put the cushaws in there for 25 minutes, or until the outside of the cushaw is soft.

Mine was a little burnt, but that didn't seem to matter much in the final product.

 

Then, take a spoon and start scooping out the inside of the cushaw, but don't get the skin.

You'll need 2 1/2 cups of the stuff.

 

And then, you are supposed to mash it.

Not, really, possible.

I don't have a masher, or a squisher, or a flatener, or whatever they expected me to use.

The best I could come up with is an electric mixer.

 

But that didn't seem to do anything besides spray cushaw everywhere.

 

So then I decided to use a whisk and beat the cushaw.

They didn't do anything either.

 

And THEN I thought an ice cream scooper might do the trick.

 

It didn't.

At this point I had spent 10 minutes on trying to mash this cushaw and I could see that it just wasn't happening.

So I decided to just move on with this whole pie thing and hope for the best.

I added the sour cream. 

The sour cream was actually just supposed to be cream, but we didn't have any. Sour cream is kind of cream, right? Is has the word cream in it. It can't be that far from it. Maybe they're cousins or something.

There. See? Now it's cream.

All mixed up.

Put in the salt, flour, sugar, nutmeg, butter, and pumpkin spice.

The recipe called for something called 'allspice'.

What, in the world, is allspice.

 That doesn't even sound good. That sounds like I took all of the spices from the cabinet and poured them into the pie.

I decided to use pumpkin spice instead.

 

Mix that up nice and good.

 

Get your pie shell.

 

Pour mix into pie shell.

 

Put it into the oven for 10 minutes on 425 and then turn it down to 350 and cook for 50 minutes or more, until you can insert  a toothpick in and it comes out clean. I know mine took way more than an hour, and it was still a little mushy.

 

There it is, all finished up!

 

Like I said, a little mushy, but most of that was due to my inability to cut a pie right.

 

My little brother Connor loved it, though!

 

I also made a pumpkin pie for my dad, which turned out beautifully.

 

It was his 41st birthday.

 

My entire family loved it as well. Some relatives were in from Tennessee and loved it, too! You can't really make a pie ugly, so THIS PIE IS PERFECT!!

If you try this out, tell me how it went in the comments!