These are the cookies featured in SiftingRealities: Episode Two: GUN IN MY TOILET (more info can be found in the previous post). In the episode, Rich thinks Belinda is presenting the cookies as a peace offering of sorts, but ends up just stealing her plate of comfort food. The macaroons in the episode are sans ground almonds.
Above: egg whites (4 in this case as I am doubling the recipe), medium unsweetened coconut, ground almonds, sugar and pure vanilla.
Whip eggs and vanilla until soft peaks form, which look something like above.
Still beating eggs, slowly add the sugar and then continue to beat until (fairly) stiff, glossy peaks form (as shown above). Some times this magic just doesn’t happen, make the cookies anyway, they won’t be pretty, but they’ll still be tasty!
Fold in the coconut and ground almonds, until just mixed.
Drop rounds tablespoons approx. 2 inches apart on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet. Bake.
Um, ya, so I made this… with a lot of help (please see the credits), but yes, this is the sort of thing that comes out of my brain…
#2. GUN IN THE TOILET – Issue: Still attempting to maintain some normalcy within the chaos of her life, Belinda (CARMEN BENNETT) chats with Lise (LACI MAILEY) as Lise picks up baskets of cookies for delivery. However, later, as she is cleaning her guest bathroom, Belinda finds a gun duct taped to her toilet and another man (Rich, played by ROB LAMPARD) in her shower. Life, once again, is anything but normal for Belinda.
Starring: CARMEN BENNETT, ROB LAMPARD & LACI MAILEY
In lieu of the 2nd Baking with the Director episode (which we decided to not shoot so we could launch episode 2 of SiftingRealities) here is the recipe for the cookies that are featured in episode one: MAN IN MY BED (more details in previous post). Of ALL the cookies I bake these are my absolute favourite. This is my go to recipe, for every occasion (except maybe Christmas):
Belinda wakes to find a man (DAVE), who really shouldn’t be in her bed. Issue: Dave really believes he belongs in Belinda’s (or is that Linda’s?) bed. Cookies: CHOCOLATE CHIP PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES
At the beginning of March, we treated ourselves to a trip to the Wick Inn in Tofino for Michael’s birthday and, there, Sunday morning, I indulged in a fresh baked croissant with house made strawberry jam. SO GOOD! Now, I can’t actually digest white flour, so this was a huge, but tasty, risk for me and, though it sat in my stomach like a heavy blob of play dough afterwards, I very much enjoyed the eating of it!
So, of course, I decide I should attempt to make some whole wheat croissants of my own. To that end, yesterday, late afternoon, and not at all daunted with what looks to add up to about 5 hours of work, I set the yeast to proof, sift three cups of whole wheat pastry flour, and pull the butter out of the fridge… hmm, there seems to only be about ¾ of a cup of butter in the fridge… no matter I always have backup in the freezer… except I don’t this time.
I fuss around for a bit, and call Michael to complain about my lack of butter. He offers to pick up as much butter as I would like, but I don’t want to wait the hour or so it will take for him to finish work and get home. (Yes, he IS lovely and supportive while I am crazy impatient and almost always impossible to help). Then, done complaining, I try to figure out what I can actually make, seeing as I don’t want to waste the yeast which has now proofed so nicely. I settle on butter horns, but only have enough butter for half a recipe, so I halve the recipe… except I use the full amount of yeast and declare it an experiment, knowing full well I am NEVER happy when I experiment bake.
In the spirit of this (doomed?) experimentation, I decide I actually want a Danish of sorts, so, while the pastry is rising, I start hunting down possible fillings… I settle on a vanilla cream filling… the kind you would use if you were making a boston cream pie.
Here is the result… the pastry is actually lovely, a feat I have never obtained, to my personal liking, with whole wheat pastry flour (I guess doubling the yeast is the trick!!).
Vanilla cream (whole wheat) butter horns with powdered sugar icing
Seems sometimes an experiment does actually have tasty results!
My sister, Heather, requested the following cake for her birthday this past weekend: strawberries with a light chocolate cake and no icing. I quickly informed her that cake WAS heavy and that I couldn’t possibly make a cake without icing, but I could try a glaze instead of some crazy thick cream cheese icing (which would be MY preference, of course. For me cake is just a delivery system for icing.)
So here is the result in pictures:
Strawberry (organic) compote on 4 layers of Fudge Cake.
The strawberry layer looks super thick here, but really soaked into the cake by the time I served it (with a small scoop of vanilla ice cream in the side, of course).
4 layer Fudge Cake with a Chocolate Glaze
Here it is completed, but without birthday candles, and smothered in chocolate (Callebaut, semi-sweet) glaze.
What would I change?
Bake the four layers separately instead of cutting 2 into 4 (which was finicky and crumbly).
Don’t pour ALL the glaze on at once (it didn’t drip as nicely as I wanted on the first pass and I had to dragged it up the sides from the giant pool that formed around the cake.) Plus I think the extra would have been very nice on vanilla ice cream the next day.
Add a bit more sugar to the strawberries? I added 1/3 cup to approx. 4 cups of strawberries. The Tasters seemed to disagree on this point which is why I use the ?
My personal feedback? The cake was a little too crumbly for my taste and I did miss the icing BUT it wasn’t my birthday and the birthday girl seemed very happy with it and THAT is the point of Birthday Cakes By Request!
SiftingRealities is a webseries… my first foray into online distribution and, as soon as it finishes compressing, I will be posting the pilot episode. Please check it out! Reviews, comments and referrals are gratefully (& hopefully) graciously appreciated.
We have 6 more in the post-production pipeline and 7 more to film to complete the first season. I’ll post more extensively on the process of creating, shooting & releasing this series when I am further into the experience.
I am shooting the first of the Baking with the Director segments this week and #1 will go live on Monday, March 22, 2010. In it I will chat about my oatmeal butterscotch chip cookies (featured in SiftingRealities: Pilot). I’ll be sure to post a link here as soon as it is up.
In other news… more seeds planted this week: basil, 3 types of tomatoes & acorn squash (will attempt to get photos through the week). Strawberries and oregano (now 3 weeks old?) still seem to be struggling but, oddly enough, the melons all seem very happy.
Testing a new cookie recipe, currently called cowboy cookies, got some solid reviews during the SiftingRealities cast and crew screening yesterday, so they might be a keeper… oatmeal, coconut, chocolate chunk – yum!
It is a steadfast rule in my home that the birthday boy/girl gets to select what kind of cake they would like for their birthday celebration …and then I attempt to make said selection.
Michael always picks cheesecake… for almost 10 years now, at least from the moment he first tasted my cheesecake, this has been his birthday selection: beer, pizza and cheesecake with blueberry sauce for dessert.
As yesterday was Michael’s 40th (!!!??), I felt the need to make things extra special, so I also added a white chocolate glaze and ordered a selection of molded white chocolate tools from Chocolate Arts.
It was as yummy as it looks (if I do say so myself). Everyone who celebrated with us last night was very quiet as they ate their slices (some with strawberry sauce, which was also very yummy). Focused eating is always a good sign of complete enjoyment (especially with this expressive and boisterous group).
Michael's 40th birthday cake
Pictured above: Baked cheesecake with white chocolate glaze. Served with fresh blueberry sauce, whipped cream & white chocolate hammer.
So… I made an attempt at whole wheat perogies last evening… perogies are something I had been craving but, given my white flour sensitivity (as in I can’t seem to digest it without a lot of pain and suffering), I haven’t had them in years. Ah, cottage cheese and onion perogies… boiled then fried with onions – yum! Perogies were a dinner mainstay during university (introduced to me by Mr. Barefoot I believe). Anyway, craving… yes. So I sourced a bunch of recipes and then pretty much made up my own based on what ingredients I had in the house and what I was craving (i.e. I mashed the potatoes with a ¼ cup of sour cream). Also, I didn’t have any cottage cheese so I went with cheddar. I even took a picture right before I got started (in a false sense of anticipated success?):
So I make the dough, make the filling, roll the dough (perhaps a bit too thickly?), then fill, crimp and boil the perogies. To finish them off, I fry them up with an onion, try them and I am not pleased… they are doughy enough that some bits stick to my teeth. Michael suggests frying them until they are almost burnt (in fact the onions were unsalvageable by the time he finished frying)… I attempt another taste with sour cream… nope, the filling rocks (enough that Michael opted to take the remainder of it, cold, for lunch today), but I am not happy with the dough part.
Too much work, not enough pay off, to attempt again I think… Michael now has lunch for all next week – he thought they were tasty, of course.
Not everything is #failing around here. We are getting ready to launch the trailer for SiftingRealities on Monday and the seeds I planted last Saturday are starting to wake up:
Schizanthus aka Poor Man’s Orchid seem very happy in their jiffy pellets even though I was skeptical about germinating them in “complete darkness”, but thousands-of-year-of-gardeners know better than I! These were supposed to be for the hanging baskets, which I have also decided to fill with strawberries, so something has to give. I suspect (if they germinate… I see no evidence of that this morning) that the strawberries will win and the Poor Man’s Orchid will be relegated to another part of the garden.
Above: egg whites (4 in this case as I am doubling the recipe), medium unsweetened coconut, ground almonds, sugar and pure vanilla.
Whip eggs and vanilla until soft peaks form, which look something like above.
Still beating eggs, slowly add the sugar and then continue to beat until (fairly) stiff, glossy peaks form (as shown above). Some times this magic just doesn’t happen, make the cookies anyway, they won’t be pretty, but they’ll still be tasty!
Fold in the coconut and ground almonds, until just mixed.
Drop rounds tablespoons approx. 2 inches apart on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet. Bake.
And… enjoy!
