Decorating Diversions

I have been meaning to take a cake decorating class for years now, and this month I finally stopped traveling for five minutes and signed up for a Wilton course at the local Michael’s.  I think they are taught at at craft stores all across the country.  If you have one nearby and have any interest in cakes, I highly recommend them.  The three classes I’ve had so far have been lots of fun.

I don’t recommend that you take a picture of your cute little cupcakes

And then leave them unattended for half a second

See that extra sheen there?  That’s dog slobber.  Really enticing, no?

 

Orange Cake

In case anybody else out there has come into possession of a Kaiser 8 1/2″ Bundt pan (through perhaps a well-intentioned but misguided boyfriend), and learned the hard way that some standard Bundt cake recipes will bubble out of the pan and end up on the floor of your oven, this orange cake recipe fits nicely.  And even if you aren’t looking for uses for a weirdly-sized pan, it is a very easy and very yummy cake that can be baked in a variety of pans.  I recommend doubling the orange zest.

Special note to Gram: I used some of the oranges you sent me.  They are so yummy!!!

Special note to anyone wondering why I am worrying about orange cakes rather than my thesis defense: Sssshh!  Don’t make me think about it!

 

Coconut-y Vanilla Rice Pudding

I haven’t posted many recipes, but those that I have are the most visited posts on this blog, mainly by people wondering what the heck to do with eye-of-the-goat beans or how you make vegetarian sausage.    So I thought I would tell you about my adventure with rice pudding, which was highly approved by both my boyfriend and my dog.

It started this evening, when I wanted something for dessert.  The scene outside the house looked like this:

So going out for ingredients was totally out of the question.  I wanted to try to make rice pudding, but the only dairy we have is 2% milk (because the world as Howard knows it would come to an end if I bought skim, 1% or whole milk).  However, we do have an extremely large quantity of unsweeted dried coconut, left over from an unfortunate attempt to make coconut macaroons before christmas.  I consulted “How to Cook Everything” by Mark Bittman, which told me that it is actually very simple to make coconut milk from dried coconut.  So I used that with some of the 2% and one of the vanilla beans I’ve had kicking around the house for ages and have been meaning to put to good use.  The pudding recipe is vaguely based on the one in “How To Cook Everything”, but I changed the flavorings and increased the milk/rice ratio because I like my rice pudding very milky, like Indian kheer.  Anyway, like I said, it was gobbled up by me, Howard and the doggie.

• 3/4 cups long grain white rice
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 2+1/2 cups water
• 1 cup unsweeted dried coconut
• 1+1/4 cups milk
• 1 vanilla pod (vanilla extract would probably work, but I highly recommend the bean)
• 5 cardamom pods
• 1/2 cup sugar

Bring the rice, salt and 1+1/2 cups of the water to a boil, then cover and cook on low heat for about 15-20 minutes, until most of the water is absorbed.  Meanwhile, heat the remaining cup of water until it’s very hot and combine with the coconut in a blender.  Carefully blend it for about 20 seconds (the hot liquid will want to explode out of the top of the blender, so keep the lid on tight).    Set aside for a few minutes, then strain through a strainer, extracting as much liquid as possible.  You should be left with about a cup of coconut milk.  Discard the coconut solids.  Combine the coconut milk with the regular milk.  Split the vanilla pod, scraping the seeds into the milk, and then tossing the whole pod into the milk, along with the cardamom pods.  When the rice is done, add the milk mixture and sugar to the rice.  Cook, stirring occasionally for about 15 more minutes.  Then scoop out the vanilla and cardamom pods and serve immediately or chilled.

Yummy!

 

Holiday Review

This holiday season proved once and for all that I am really, really spoiled.  It started a couple weeks ago, when Howard’s new flat-screen TV arrived.  I wasn’t sure how keen I was to have such a huge TV in our house, but since it arrived, I’ve found that I really like it.   Isn’t it pretty:

And do you see that little white box sitting to the left of the TV?

It’s my new Wii!!!!  It was my Hanukkah present from Howard.  See what I mean about the being really spoiled?  So far, we just have the games that came with it.  I wanted to rush right out and buy “Super Mario Galaxy,” which my friend Erin, who sometimes reads this blog (Hi Erin!), recommended, but I realized that Best Buy on December 23rd was about the last place on Earth I wanted to be.  Instead we have a rented copy Super Mario Galaxy, and Howard and I are both totally hooked.

And then, for Christmas, I was spoiled even more, with bubble bath, spa gift certificates and baking gear from Howard and my mom.   Since I am a still a bit tired of Tofurkey from Thanksgiving, I decided to bake a cheddar-cheese and onion pie from a recipe I clipped out of Gourmet magazine a few years ago.  It has a lot more cheese and butter and took more effort than most of the stuff that gets made around here, but it seemed suitable for Chistmas.  And boy-howdy was it good:

It tasted just like one of the cheese-and-onion Cornish pasties I used to buy in England.  And the baking went surprisingly smoothly.  It was my first success with an all-butter pie crust, and didn’t even require pre-baking.  AND, the leftovers gave me an opportunity to use the cute little pie-keep my mom sent me:

I seem to get a lot of pie-related presents.  Howard told me I’ve been pigeon-holed, but I told him that I’m happy to be in this particular pigeon-hole.

Merry Christmas, everybody!