Presents!!

So, a few weeks ago my husband sold some of our old, useless electronics to Amazon, and as such, got some credit there.  Like the lovable hubby he is, he used the money to surprise me with a book by one of my favorite people....

AB is one of my favorite chefs (just in case you didn't already know that.  I know I've left some question on the matter).  Which, by the by, I have my brother to thank for.  Thanks R!  I'd have never discovered Good Eats if it weren't for you...

Cough, cough.  Anyway, Mr. Brown frequently says on his show that the only uni-tasker that belongs in a kitchen is a fire extinguisher.  As such, I'm excited to read all about what he has to say about kitchen gadgets (and potentially stock my kitchen accordingly).  What's that?  Did you just mutter to yourself that I'm a total fruitcake foodie dweeb?  That's ok.  I'm good with it.

I'll let you all know once I've finished it, and whether or not I recommend it.  As for me, I'm about to settle in for a fun-filled evening of reading.  Happy Tuesday everyone!

Brinner!

For anyone who doesn't know, brinner is what some people (myself included) call it when breakfast is served for dinner.  I'm not entirely sure where the word came from, but I think it may have started with the TV show Scrubs.  Even if they didn't start it, Turk pretty much sums up right here my feelings about brinner:

Tonight, internet friends, we had BRINNER!  German pancakes, to be exact.  For anyone who's never had them, let me tell you, you're missing out.  I hadn't ever enjoyed the delight that is german pancakes until after I got married and Hubs made them for me.

That's right- he cooked for me.  My hubby is pretty much the breakfast expert of our home- (don't get him started on his extraordinarily mad pancake skills) although I have to admit, they are pretty mad.  Just saying.  Anyway, when it's time for breakfast he generally kicks me out of the kitchen and goes to work.  It all starts with the family recipe book:

Sounds simple, right?  Well, it is.  Here's everything you need to make 'em:

You start by putting a stick of butter in a 9X13 pan, and putting the pan in a 450 degree oven.  The butter will melt, and when it's piping hot you'll pour the batter in.

The batter is mostly eggs with some milk and a bit of flour.  You'll start by whisking the eggs together with the milk and salt, then adding the flour a little at a time until you have a runny, smooth batter.  When the batter is ready, and the butter is completely melted (it's even OK to let it brown a bit, like in this picture), you pour the batter into the ridiculously hot hot 450 degree pan, (it'll sizzle- be careful), and shove the whole thing back in the oven.

Note: this is sort of like our official german pancakes baking dish (thanks, Paula Deen!).  It's got a bit of texture, which helps the batter cling and climb the walls of the pan- which is exactly what we want.

Next, you set a timer for 15 unbearably long minutes, and if you have an oven with a window, you'll want to watch for the last few (as if you weren't going to anyway- because it's just so dang COOL, and the anticipation was killing you...) When the batter stops climbing and looks roughly like this, you're done:

COOL, RIGHT??!?!  Serve these IMMEDIATELY (they'll start to fall quickly) with berries, syrup, and fresh whipped cream.  It's like breakfast, meets dinner, meets dessert.  You'll get hot, salty, crunchy from the pancakes; pair it with tangy tart, cold berries and sweet, cool whipped cream, and it's like brinner heaven on earth.

All right, it's a poorly lit photo, but still, your mouth is watering, right?  I knew it.  A little bacon and some OJ rounds it out for a great, fast, delicious (if unhealthy) meal.  So go forth my friends, and 

                                     embrace

                                 BRINNER!

Pretzel Time?

This last Sunday my hubby made a suggestion to me: that I make something I hadn't made in, oh, several months at least.  SO, breaking from my usual habit of making or baking some sort of sweet over the weekend, I made homemade pretzels; a favorite of ours.  I make them every Christmas at least, but usually more often than that.  It's a nice break from sweet baked treats (although I do love sweets...).

The first time or two that I made homemade pretzels, it was SUPER time consuming, because I was learning as I went along off of a basic recipe I found in a book.  I've since adopted the following recipe: Buttery Soft Pretzels, courtesy of user Christa Rose on Allrecipes.com  I'm going to lay out for you exactly how to make these guys; hopefully you'll give it a try, because they're DELICIOUS!

First things first, assemble the ingredients, and make sure you have a large, very clean 

workspace cleared off for when you need to work with the dough.  This is one recipe where it's helpful to have everything totally ready before you start.  

Next up: in a small bowl, combine the yeast, sugar, and warm water.  This will activate the wee little yeasties so they can get their gas on, and make your baked goods (pretzels, in this case) expand.  Yes, it sounds gross, but yeast are in fact fungi.  They eat the sugar, then burp up CO2 gas, which causes expansion.  (If you ever watch Good Eats, I'm sure you've seen the burping sock puppets... if not, Google it.  Now.)  

ANYWAY, You should let them sit until the mixture looks foamy, like so:

Meanwhile, mix the dry goods in the bowl of your stand mixer.  Like this, ok?

Next up, you add the yeast mixture, along with the oil, to the the dry team.  Mix it with the PADDLE attachment until you get something that looks like this:

Once you get here, it's time to switch to the dough hook.  Mix with the dough hook until the mixture comes together and forms a blob, like this:

You're not done yet!  After it comes together, set a timer for 8 minutes, turn your mixer on medium-low speed, and let the mixer knead your dough for you, until you get something like this:

Now, for those of you who don't have a handy dandy standy mixer... well, go buy one.  OK, so you can't just up and buy one?  Well then, you can do all the mixing and kneading by hand.  Start at the point where I say to switch to the dough hook on your mixer.  Here's a clip that explains how to knead dough by hand.  It'll take a while, and your arms WILL be tired afterwards, but the pretzels will be delicious and you'll appreciate them that much more for the elbow grease involved...

Moving on.

Meanwhile, prep a bowl for the rise.  I like to use a ceramic bowl that's a little bit warm.  It'll hold heat in and help the dough rise.  Liberally oil the inside of the bowl, and when you're done kneading the dough, form it into a ball, roll it around in the oiled bowl so that all surfaces are covered, and then cover the dough with plastic wrap, thusly:

Let the dough rise until doubled in size, about 1-2 hours depending on the temperature of the room.

While the dough is rising, prep your workspace by spreading OIL, (NOT four, like the recipe tells you...) all over until you're a greasy mess.

Also, if you have one, zero out a food scale with a plate on it.  You'll use the scale to measure your dough into equal pieces, for forming into pretzels.  If you don't have one, don't fret.  You'll just be eye-balling your dough.

Also, prep two baking sheets with grease and parchment paper.  I like a quick oiling to help hold the parchment in place, then more grease on top.  These pretzels will really want to stick- the oil and parchment may seem a bit drastic, but I assure you, the combo will make your life MUCH easier.

Next up, turn the dough out onto the greased work space, and squish it down.  If you want perfectly evenly sized pretzels, weigh the whole blob of dough and divide it by the number of pretzels you want to make.  Keep that number in your head. (By the way, the recipe says 12, but I usually make 18 slightly smaller pretzels with one batch of dough).  I then squish the dough it into a roughly rectangular shape, which I will explain in just a minute.

With the dough squished and your scale ready to go, you can use a dough blade, or pizza cutter, or whatever you have, to cut the dough into small rectangles of the appropriate weight.  For 18 pretzels, I find it's good to have each piece way around 2.1 oz.  (I've done this enough times that I don't bother weighing the whole blob anymore- 2.1 is usually close enough)

After you divide all the dough, you'll form the pretzels.  Your recipe will tell you to just start rolling each piece into a 3 foot rope.  I'm here to tell you, this will be next to impossible.  Instead, take each rectangle, and try to pull and roll it until it's about a foot long, then set it aside, and move to the next piece.  Once you've done 3 or 4 pieces, go back through the line.  The first pieces will have had time to rest, the gluten will have relaxed a bit, and you'll be able to continue stretching and rolling until you get a long roll of dough, like this:

NOW, is everyone ready?  Pay attention.  This is how you form a pretzel:

The dough will be very springy, so if your pretzels are a little small and blob-ey, well, that's ok.  Again, after you form a few, let them rest.  This will help them hold their shape.  

Once you have a few formed and rested, it's into the baking soda bath.  THIS is what makes a pretzel taste like a pretzel!  Dip the whole thing into a pot, bowl, or dish filled with warm water and baking soda.  Let them soak for about 30 seconds, then fish them back out.  A lot of times, the dough will initially sink to the bottom.  Generally, when it floats back to the surface, it's been long enough.

Fish them out using using a skimmer or slotted spoon.

The pretzels will probably have loosened up, (the water makes the surface of the dough slippery- be careful!) so you'll want your prepped baking sheets handy.  Place the pretzels directly on the baking sheet, like so:

When the sheet is full, sprinkle the pretzels LIBERALLY with kosher or sea salt (anything coarse grained), and bake for 8-10 minutes, until they're golden brown.  These ones are just headed into the oven:

And then, FINALLY, after you're ready to give up, cursing me for suggesting you try this, and entirely sick of wrangling dough...

There you have it, folks.  Delicious, home baked pretzels.  I know it's a lot of work, but I promise, practice makes it a lot faster and easier, and it's totally worth the effort.  I've never made these without totally impressing my friends and family- so give it a try!  Until next time... Happy Eating!

But it's DIRTY!! A post about produce. That comes from the ground.

I found an article while perusing the internet earlier, and thought I would share it.  It's called Romancing the Food: The conundrum of Beautiful food.  It's about how we look at produce, and I think the author raises some great points.  If we only buy the pretty produce, what happens to the ugly stuff?

Here's the thing: as a kid, I remember eating out of our garden all summer long.  My parents had a HUGE garden, and we ate fresh-picked corn, cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, green beans, peas, squash, pumpkins; you name it, we probably grew it.  And guess what?  When we picked it and brought it up to the house, it was dirty.  It comes from the earth!  It's supposed to be that way.

There's also an apple tree in my parents' front yard; the type that produces odd-shaped, sour, green apples of some unidentifiable variety.  And guess what?  Everything we grew tasted fantastic.  Was it always pretty?  No, not in the sense that everything was uniform and blemish free.  Check it out:

It's a lovely, LuMPy, yellowey-orange tomato.  And I'll bet it tastes fantastic.  I just thought I'd share this, with a reminder that food, especially produce, doesn't have to be pretty to be delicious.  In fact, in most cases the nice-looking stuff you buy at the grocery store has been genetically engineered to be just that: pretty.  They breed the plants so that they get a long-shelf-lived, shippable, storable, good-looking product; flavor is usually not their first, or even second or third concern.  Just another reason to show your local growers some love, people! Or, if you're feeling adventurous, plant a little garden.  You'll enjoy better tasting food, while helping the farmers in your communities.

Who doesn't love that?

SPEAKING of Famous Dave's...

So, I had a bad day at work on Friday.  I was at home on my lunch break, and my hubby and I were trying to figure out the logistics of grocery shopping, then making and eating dinner, and then making the hour drive up to SLC to pick L. up from the airport, all between 6:30-10pm.  (I get off work at 6 and L.'s flight was due at the airport at 9:45).  I was frustrated.  We needed to grocery shop before I could make dinner.  THEN Hubby was like, "Well, we could just stop at Famous Dave's on our way to the airport..."

Genius.  Pure genius.  The closest Famous Dave's restaurant to us is about 40 minutes north, in Midvale, and it just happens to be (mostly) on the way to Salt Lake City.  SINCE we were headed to SLC anyway, and I was having a crappy day, I decided we should go.  I apologize in advance for the poor photo quality; I was taking them on my phone.

Welcome to barbeque heaven, people.

You know you're in a happy place when there's a cartoon pig on the menu, for starters.  His name is Wilbur.  Here's a big picture, so you can read what it says:

Also a good sign- they don't mess around with napkins.  It's all about the paper towels (I personally enjoy their paper-towel-holder.  It's a pipe, on a board.  Classy.)

And while you're waiting for your food to arrive, you can sample the sauce!  Every table in the house is stocked with these 5 sauces- you never have to ask for them to bring it out.  Oh, and if the server catches you sampling on your fingers, they're very happy to bring you a plate and spoon to use instead.  I like the Rich & Sassy; that's their signature sauce that they put on everything.  I'm also a BIG fan of devil's spit, but be careful not to use too much or you'll have a small bonfire in your mouth.  Both can be purchased at most grocery stores, horray!  The others, you mostly have to come to the restaurant for.

Drumroll, please! For the low low price of around $15, this is how much food you'll get:

I ordered their 2-meat combo, and got Georgia chopped pork and Rib tips.  In other words: porky goodness that had been smoked and smothered to perfection.  In case there's any doubt in your mind about how much food is on that plate, I ate so much that I was actually in pain on Friday night, and had enough leftover fries and rib tips for both me AND hubby to eat for dinner on Saturday.  Yeah.  I wasn't kidding.  Here's a picture of the smoke ring on the meat; it's a little hard to see but look for the pink ring on the chunk of meat I'm holding here:

And, last but not least, there's this little goodie they include to help you clean up when you're all through.

Yep, it's a wet-nap, complete with a cute little saying, like the taco bell sauce packets.

So here's what I'm saying: If you're a carnivore, even if you don't THINK you like BBQ, you should really check this place out.  My friend C. was under the distinct impression that she in fact disliked BBQ until we ate there for my birthday a few years ago.  She's now a wiser woman, after experiencing an eye-opening pile of pork.  SO GIVE IT A TRY!  To find a location near you, click here.  You won't be disappointed, I promise.

Don't be a Cheapskate!

Hey everybody!  So, since I'm (trying) to do an eating-healthy thing at the moment... well, I don't have pictures of anything delicious or inspiring to post.  I haven't made anything exciting recently.  Instead, I thought I would talk a little bit about buying "brand name."

Here's the thing.  Sometimes with food, it's just better to buy brand name, or at least a brand you know and trust.  Other times off-brand is ok, as long as it's good quality.  a brand name or pricetag doesn't always indicate quality, but sometimes it does.  Either way, these are some of the ingredients that I don't cut corners with, because quality matters a lot.

1.  CHOCOLATE!

It doesn't matter what it is for me: cocoa powder, melting chocolate, or chips for baking cookies with.  (Or just for eating because I like it, for that matter...).  I like to buy brand name, for a few reasons.  One: I like my chocolate strong and dark, and I just feel like you get better flavor with brand name.  Two: when it comes to melting chocolate for more advanced cooking and baking applications, chocolate can be finicky.  A nightmare, really.  On the bright side, however, most brands behave the same across the board, because they are formulated the same.  That means that if you get used to using one brand, you can save yourself time and frustration because you're used to how it handles.  I typically buy Ghiradelli, at least for melting, because it's what I'm comfortable with and it tastes good.  I also enjoy Hershey's when it comes to cocoa powder.

2.  Baking Powder

Baking powder is one of the most frequently called-for leavening ingredients in baked goods, especially in American fare.  (European cooking tends to favor Bicarbonate of Soda, aka baking soda, and beaten eggs).  If your baking powder doesn't come through for you, POOF!  Flat baked goods.  Nobody likes that.  I know Clabber Girl isn't exactly "the expensive stuff" by any means, but it's reliable so I like it.




3.  Cinnamon (Spices)

I got this cinnamon at Market Spice in Pike Place Market, in Seattle, WA.  It's a WONDERFUL spice shop- I was in heaven!  A friend told me about the place a year or so ago, but I didn't believe him until I got there.  They take online orders here.

Anyway, my basic rule, for ALL spices, is this: buy good quality, so you can use less for the same flavor.  Also, when you buy the best quality you can afford, you'll enjoy a greater depth of flavor that will really make the food pop.  Another big plus: the aromatics will bring your whole house to life, and people will be asking, "What's that delicious smell!?"  And you can be like, "Oh nothing, it's just a homemade ___________ in the oven, no big deal," and really impress people.  I'm just sayin.

4.  Kosher Salt

Not only has this stuff been given the go-ahead by a Jewish Rabbi, but it is also coarser than typical table salt.  The coarse texture (big grains) take longer to dissolve, so if you put it in food, when the grains touch your tongue you enjoy a saltier flavor than with normal salt.  If you want, you can use less actual salt to keep your sodium intake in check... Or if you're me and like things on the salty side, go ahead.  Salt on.

PS- you get the same basic effect with coarse sea salt, but I wouldn't use sea salt for baking because of the irregular grain size.  With Kosher, however, go right ahead.
5.  Booze

As I believe I've already mentioned, I don't actually drink.  However, you should use good quality alcohol when you cook, because the flavor will affect your food.  For example, I always use a good craft beer when it's called for in a recipe.  It doesn't have to be a national brand or anything (I tend to prefer local, actually) but don't buy the cheapest stuff you can get.  Crappy alcohol generally won't have the desired effect on a recipe's flavor that good booze would have.



6.  Oils and Vinegars

Oils.  Here's one of the times where it's quality, not brand or price, that matters.  Kirkland signature (from Costco) is an "off-brand" that I have a love/hate relationship with.  MANY Kirkland signature products are fabulous- for example, this olive oil is very inexpensive (2, 2-liter bottles for around $25), and it tastes really good.  I wouldn't, however, ever recommend buying Kirkland signature maple syrup.  You'll regret it.  Trust me.

Flavored oils are great for cooking, but I especially like them for homemade salad dressings.  Next time you would typically use olive oil, try something else, for example, truffle oil.  Yum.

Vinegar.  Oil and vinegar are the base for most homemade salad dressings, and recently I've been trying to go homemade whenever I need to dress something.  This has definitely been a learning experience for me- As a kid, we really NEVER had vinegar with ANYTHING, so it's a taste I'm acquiring over time.

You get a much richer flavor, generally with much less fat than store-bought, by making dressing yourself.  Because of this, I like to buy the oil, and vinegar, that i can get.  Better vinegar brings a nice sophisticated "twang" to your dressings (and come on, who doesn't like to be sophisticated?!)

It's also surprising how many different types of vinegar there are.  Do yourself a favor and buy "the expensive stuff" next time.  I've found (through my highly sophisticated and non-mathematical trial and error, no less) that with vinegar, price is generally a reasonable indicator of quality when you don't really know what you're doing (like me!).

7.  HOT SAUCE!!

I thought I would also mention a couple of condiments that I'm picky about.  Hot sauce is definitely one of them.  In my book, Cholula is the best there is, but I begrudgingly understand that there are some Tobasco fans as well.  Either way, don't buy "off brand."  It's not like even the most expensive hot sauce is a bank-breaker, and the actual FLAVOR is better with the brand names.

That's right.  Flavor.  Some hot sauces just bring heat to the party, lighting your mouth on fire and making it so you can't in point of fact, taste anything else you're eating.  I'm not a fan of that sensation, personally.  Instead, Cholula has a delightful peppery flavor and also brings some heat to the party.  Cheers!

8.  Barbeque Sauce

Last, but SO TOTALLY not least, is Barbeque sauce.  If you're using store-bought BBQ sauce, Famous Dave's is by far my favorite.  Famous Dave's is a restaurant that started in my neck of the woods; the very first restaurant in what is now a thriving chain is located in Hayward, WI.  And baby, their Barbeque is to DIE for.

Their bottled, sold-in-the-supermarket sauce manages to taste deliciously homemade.  (Dirty little secret: I haven't been able to find homemade that beats it- I ALWAYS use this stuff.  So much for being a food snob!).  For inexperienced BBQ-ers, forget Kraft (Shudder).  Pick this up the next time you want to cook out.

Well, I hope this helps.  Basically, the moral of my story is this: try different versions of the same product, and decide which ones you like best.  Sometimes you won't notice a difference.  Other times you'll taste two products side-by-side and notice that you really favor one over the other.  When you find those certain foods, or ingredients, or condiments, or whatever that just taste better in a certain brand name, I think it's worth splurging.  It'll make eating that much more enjoyable, and I'm all about JOY when food is involved.

Till next time, Happy Eating!

Here, fishy fishy!

Yes, I'm talking about fish today. Here's why: My awesome SIL, J (that's sister-in-law, if you were wondering) has put together a get-fit challenge, which my husband volunteered us both for. J is totally inspiring: she's a marathoner, with somewhere around 16 marathons (correct me if I'm wrong, J- I know you've run a LOT lately) under her belt, along with countless half marathons, 5k and 10k's. This lady's totally awesome. She's inspiring people around her to get healthy through diet and exercise.

Here are the basic rules for our challenge- you get daily points for:

• Eating 5 fruits and vegetables per day
• Drinking at least 48oz of water per day
• Exercising at least 30 minutes per day
• NO sugary treats (You get one freebie per week)
• Points are given on a weekly basis for each pound lost

Now, I don't have a ton of weight to lose, but I definitely do have a tendency to eat too many sweets (I can't help it- I LOVE to bake!) and exercise too little. I don't know about you all, but I definitely go in cycles when it comes to being health-conscious with regard to what I'm putting in my body. Having said that, I'm going to try to eat, and therefore cook, a bit healthier in the coming months. Goodbye cake (good thing I gave most of it away, right?), red meat, and greasy goodness; hello grill, all-fruit smoothies, veggies, and yes, FISH.

Fatty fish is a great way to get essential proteins along with the Omega-3 fatty acids that do our bodies so much good. The problem, in most cases, is making it appetizing without dousing it in butter or breading and deep-frying it (both favorite presentations of mine...). For example, my husband doesn't like taste of fish. Why? Because it's fishy, of course. There's also a cost issue associated with fish. I'm working in a budget, and fish is simply more expensive than other meats.

SOOOOO, here's a solution that I've found: Tilapia. Tilapia is a VERY mild fish. Because it doesn't have a lot of flavor, it takes on the taste of the ingredients you cook it with. Hear that? That's opportunity knocking. In this particular circumstance, bland = potential.

Also a plus: it's an inexpensive, farm-raised fish. You can buy it in most supermarkets in an already-

filleted format. This is good for us wimps who don't like handling fish that actually looks, well, like fish. My father will be ashamed when he reads this, but it's true. I don't know how to fillet a fish. I could probably learn, but whole fish (along with all crustaceans, but that's another post ENTIRELY) really do freak me out. This is also why you'll never see me cook and serve fish in its whole format. I can't handle a fish on a plate that looks like it could still swim. Or has eyes. Eew.

So now that I've blathered on and on about it, here's a great recipe (courtesy of food network- I'll bet you can't guess which host) for grilled Tilapia. This is fast and EASY to make, and tastes really good.

Here's what you need:

3 cloves garlic

1 cup packed cilantro leaves

2 limes, zested

2 teaspoons ground cumin

1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt

1 teaspoon freshly grated black pepper

1/4 cup Tequila

1 lb. tilapia fillets

1 tablespoon olive oil

Here's what you do:

Put the garlic, cilantro, lime zest, cumin, salt, and pepper in your food processor bowl and pulse until combined, approximately 20 seconds. With the processor running, add the tequila. Put the tilapia fillets into a big ziplock bag, contents of the food processor and move around to coat each fillet. Set aside at room temperature for 15 to 20 minutes.

Next up, heat an electric nonstick griddle or a regular old frying pan until water dances when applied to the surface. Lightly coat the griddle with the olive oil. Cook the fillets until just cooked through and opaque, about 3 to 4 minutes per side. You can cut them into strips and serve as the base for fish tacos (Hubby’s favorite), but I just like to serve it paired with a fresh spinach salad (This is my favorite, from allrecipes.com. I like to add feta to this one).

If it looks like this, I think you did something right:

Happy, Healthy eating, everyone!

Too much cake...

Well hello again! I thought I should update you all on the whole, quest-for-the-best-chocolate-cake-in-the-world situation. Sunday's cake was quite good, honestly. I'd call it a home-style cake, almost. It tasted just like Grandma's cake should: sweet, chocolatey, tasty- A even asked me for the recipe! I'll bet you can tell from this picture exactly how tasty it was:

Alas, it was unfortunately not the great wall of chocolate. So I was back to the drawing board, and this is what I came up with. Not pretty, is it? And by not pretty, I mean massive, HUGE FAIL!! It came from Julia Child's cookbook, and I'm not sure where I went wrong. The only leavening action (for you novices, leavening is what makes baked goods expand- both upwards and out to the sides) in the cake was from thoroughly beating the eggs- not just egg whites, mind you (like you would with a standard angel food job), but whole eggs. They were VERY fluffy (sorry, I should have taken pictures but I was working fast).

Because of the Eggs, the cake really behaved like a souffle, which means it was a giant pain in the heiney. Also a possible contributor: this cake is gluten free. Not in the gluten-free sense that it was intended to be such, but as per Julia, this cake uses no flour. Instead, you use cornstarch for structure, which was supposed to produce a very light texture, which I thought would be good. Looking back, I think I was confusing "light" texture with "silky" texture. I was going for the latter. As you can see, whatever the cause, we suffered some serious cracking and falling. These ended up being the texture (and flavor, oddly enough) of fluffy brownies. So, I guess if I had to make gluten-free brownies for someone, I might try this, odd as that may seem.

Those cakes never even made it to the frosting stage- we ate some straight from the pans, but then I gave up, tossed them, and started over. This time it was personal. SO, in case you're keeping track, Grandma hadn't exactly come through for me, and Julia had just plain FAILED me. Where else could I turn?? The answer: to Alton. WATCH THIS EPISODE OF GOOD EATS!!! It's around 20 minutes (you only need to watch the first ten, unless you're interested in red velvet cake- then watch the whole thing), but it has officially changed my life.

Well, did you learn something (other than that AB is a wee bit cheesy, that is)? After hunting for Dutched Cocoa ALL OVER THE PLACE, (I eventually found at a local health food store, ironically enough- the last place I thought it might be), I figured I'd give ANOTHER cake a whirl. That's three this week, if you're counting. See? Like I said at the beginning, too much cake... I was thinking "If this doesn't work, I'm going to have to take a break from cake..." Well, here's what happened:

What's that? Do I hear angels singing in the background? I'm here to tell you, Alton Brown's scientific approach really works with this one. The only problem I had was this: The cakes were VERY domed. I'll need to spread the batter to the edges more next time to accommodate the expansion and hopefully get a more consistent, flat cake. Otherwise, this was great. I assembled this guy in a bit of a hurry, so aesthetically... it's not the best, but it's not ugly either:

So, I've found the perfect cake recipe, and now I just need to doll it up. If I can flatten things out and take more time to decorate, I think I'll have accomplished Mission: Impossibly Devilish Devil's Food Cake (and I'll be sure to let you know when it's officially been accomplished). Oh, and another indicator of this cake's sheer, blissful perfection? It was SO dark and chocolatey that Hubby didn't, in fact, like it... which in my world, means we're right on track.

I'm gonna say it this time.

Bon Apetite!