Tito

Happy end of 2011! This year on Christmas my little brother Tito and I made the sugar cookies pictured above. We decorated the cookies with a lime infused cream cheese frosting that tasted like key lime pie. Eating the cookies felt like heaven, and it was definitely a highlight of the year. Here are some of the other best things that happened to me this year (in no particular order):

Getting into grad school!
Moving to my apartment in Boston to go to Grad School.

My 11-11-11 party.

Making new friends in Northampton (NoHo) and in Boston.

Visiting all my Cali friends (LA! SF! SD!) and visiting my grandparents in Lake Tahoe.

Potlucks in NoHo.

Meeting celebrities!

The Joy the Baker Podcast.

Frisbee in NoHo.

Finding an awesome yoga studio in Boston.

Kayaking in an icy swamp in 25 degree weather in New York.

Spotify (I could say this about ten times, it makes me soooo happy).

The Community Servings donation Christmas gift (thank you Gabriel!).

Discovering the best lobster rolls ever at Espresso's in Gloucester.

Doing well in Grad School.

Some more specific moments:

Dinners at Rachel's house, voice lessons with Dan, driving stick with R.L., kayaking with Megan and Melissa, going to Jamaica Plain with Gabriel, the traditional New England Clam bake with BSLUG (UCSC Alums, Boston), discovering that there is decent Mexican food on the East Coast with the BSLUGs.

This year has been challenging for me, but it had some amazing moments!

See you next year,

Gretta

Mudslide Cookies

I discovered an inspirational food blog, How Sweet It Is. Chef Jessica has assembled an incredible dessert section with creative recipes ranging from red velvet brownies to cake batter chocolate bark. Two days ago I whipped up her cake batter crispy treats. They were a gift from heaven. And recently I made her salted mudslide cookies, which rocked my world. These mudslide cookies are addictive and have officially been added to my dessert repetoire. Thank you, Jessica, for your informative and imaginative blog! It is my new guiding light in the kitchen.

Cook's Illustrated German Chocolate Cake turned Cupcakes

I miss the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), my alma mater. Santa Cruz is special in a myriad of ways, including its redwood forests, diverse animal life, ocean setting and dynamic people. UCSC's mascot is a banana slug, because the slug itself is native to the area, and because it represents the uniqueness of the people who attend the school. We are a peaceful bunch who respect alternative ways of living. Recently I discovered the lively UCSC Boston alumni group, which brings a taste of home to the East Coast. When one of the alums invited me to his home for a gathering I knew I had to make a good impression. I took the Cook's Illustrated German Chocolate Cake recipe and transformed it into cupcakes by pouring the batter into cupcake tins and reducing the baking time to about eighteen minutes. When they cooled I slightly scooped out the centers of the cupcakes and filled them with coconut-pecan frosting. The cupcakes proved to be irresistible, and one woman thought it was the best cupcake that she had ever had. Though I really liked these cupcakes I think the Gooey Chocolate Coconut Cupcakes that I made back in 2009 are slightly better! Still, I think I made some new East Coast UCSC friends!

A Chocolate Tarte from Robert Linxe

See the beautiful chocolate tart pictured above? This dessert made all of my sophisticated friends cry out with pleasure, expel tears of joy and experience nirvana. I may be exaggerating, but jeepers, I served this tart to over twenty people and everyone complimented me on it in an over the top manner. The sheer ecstasy that this tart evoked made me realize that if I ever have the privilege of baking for royalty or the like, this is the dessert that I would prepare. It would be my way of getting "in" to a well known family. Kate Middleton, eat your heart out. Carla Bruni, this is probably the best thing you can consume during your pregnancy. Though I am confident that Kate and Carla would love this tart, as for me, well, I would never bake this for myself in a million years. Something about the buttery crust turns me off, which is why I am not a huge fan of traditional apple pies or confections with shortbread crusts. Yes, I would make those types of recipes for my friends (like Ladurée's strawberry tart), but they are not my absolute favorite go-to sweets. Still, I would whip up this tart on any day that I know important company is coming over for dinner. The recipe I used is Robert Linxe's of the landmark La Maison Du Chocolate, via Dorie Greenspan's outrageously wonderful and groundbreaking cookbook, Paris Sweets.

Vegan Peach Crisp

I should not be writing this. I should be studying marketing for my class tonight or writing an essay for my seminar next week.

My life has again changed dramatically. I moved to a new city, Boston, and have started graduate school, a new job, and searching for new friends in the area. Despite these huge changes, I feel relatively happy and incredibly sane. I am taking everything step-by-step and making a conscious effort to avoid getting bogged down by work. Friends from Noho...you know who you are...can you please move to Boston (except for Dan, who should move to NYC)!!! Speaking of friends, I miss our weekly potlucks the most. The peach crisp above was made for Vanessa's birthday potluck in late August. The recipe is adapted VegNews online and was a great success. I made two of these babies and not a single bite was left over at the end of the night. The biggest surprise about this recipe was how well the oil worked as a substitute for butter; the topping was incredibly crunchy and had robust flavor. This will be my new, go-to vegan, summer dessert! Now, back to studying...

Toffee Bars

I am confused. Why are bars with a shortbread crust and a chocolate layer on top referred to as toffee bars? According to the New Oxford American Dictionary the definition of toffee is "a kind of firm or hard candy that softens when sucked or chewed, made by boiling together sugar and butter, often with other ingredients or flavorings." Thus, calling a cookie-like bar a toffee bar sounds like a misnomer to me.

Despite the inaccurate name, I went through with making the bars for a recent potluck and they turned out to be a wildly popular. I adapted a recipe from the Food Network; my only adjustments were substituting pecans for the cranberries and melting the chocolate with a shot of brandy before pouring it all over the shortbread crust. The brandy was an excellent choice, as it intensified the chocolate flavor. Nevertheless, the next time I make toffee I want to use a Heath bar-style recipe, perhaps the "Best Toffee Ever" from Allrecipes, which includes only butter, sugar, salt, chocolate, and nuts.

Caramel Corn

After eating two bags of caramel corn from Nuts on Clark at the Chicago Airport over a month ago, I have not been able to get caramel corn out of my head. I finally caved and made my own batch, using the recipe from Little Blue Hen (which is via Smitten Kitchen and adapted originally from the The Craft of Baking). This treat is easy to make (no baking required) and addictive, however it is not as buttery or as deeply caramelized as the corn I had at Nuts on Clark. Next time I make this recipe I will use a tad bit more butter and replace the granulated white sugar with brown sugar.