New Job

It's amazing how a job that gives you satisfaction can improve your entire well-being. I just got a new job selling shoes at a locally owned shoe store and while I have only been doing it for four days now I absolutely love it. It's a complete deviation from my career path (ultimately, I'd like to become an escrow officer) but I work with dynamic people, the pay is great, and I can see myself doing it for a long time. I loved my previous job as a property manager but I only worked a few hours a week and it didn't pay nearly enough to sustain my cost of living (let alone increase my bank account). Now, I'm excited to go to work and instead of coming home exhausted I come home energized. I just hope this honeymoon phase lasts...

Turn obstacles in to popsicles...

Whenever I am feeling down, cranky, or upset I always try to remember to "turn obstacles in to Popsicles." I read that phrase in a magazine many years ago and it has stuck with me ever since. It may not make any sense but it is whimsical enough to get me out of any funk that I'm in. The hard part is remembering to remind myself to say it.

It's been a while...

I must admit I haven't had much to talk about. Nick and I had an amazing honeymoon at Disneyland and ever since then we've been playing catch up with our lives. I officially changed my last name but haven't yet informed the DMV, my bank, or any of my insurance companies. I really need to get on that.

I have my Halloween costume picked out. Nick and I are going to be Gomez and Morticia Addams. I'm also going to be having a Halloween party on Sunday. Unfortunately, my house is not nearly as decorated as I would like for it to be. I need to get on that, too.


I've also been trying to get the house back in to its clutter/mess free state. I had both my house and my car spotless before the wedding. However, Nick's friend attacked my car with chapstick and that stuff just doesn't seem to want to come off!! The house got bombarded with wedding presents. Boxes, wrapping paper, bows, instruction manuals, cards...all sorts of things were randomly thrown about. It's funny because, in my head, when I pictured us opening our wedding presents it was considerably more organized. I finally got the mess taken care of but I must admit quite a few of the presents are currently living in the garage because I haven't yet found room for them in the house. Yup, I need to get on that.

What can I say. I've been lazy.

Daring Baker Challenge: Vouls-au-vent

The September 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Steph of A Whisk and a Spoon. She chose the French treat, Vols-au-Vent based on the Puff Pastry recipe by Michel Richard from the cookbook Baking With Julia by Dorie Greenspan.

This challenge was super fun. I was terrified it wouldn't puff because the butter kept oozing when I rolled it and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't roll the dough into a perfect square or rectangle. Still, it came out great. When completed, the pastry dough tastes very similar to that of a turnover. Yum.

I used heart shaped cookie cutters to make the sides and bottom.

I've always been a fan of lavendar pudding (and lavendar cheesecake!) so I decided to try to make lavendar pudding to fill these adorable pastry puffs. In order to make the lavendar pudding, I adapted a vanilla pudding recipe that I have. Here is the recipe:

INGREDIENTS
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 cup 2% milk
1 egg yolk, lightly beaten
1 1/2 teaspoons butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon dried lavendar (I actually used 2 Tbsp but it was very strong!)

DIRECTIONS
In a small saucepan, combine the sugar, cornstarch and salt. Gradually stir in milk. Add the dried lavendar. Cook and stir over medium heat until thickened and bubbly. Reduce heat; cook and stir 2 minutes longer. Remove from the heat.

Stir a small amount of hot filling into egg yolk; return all to the pan, stirring constantly. Bring to a gentle boil; cook and stir 1 minute longer. Remove from the heat. Gently stir in butter and vanilla.

Cool for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Strain the pudding through a cheesecloth to remove the dried lavendar. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour

RESULTS

I was surprised to discover that the dried lavendar didn't add any color to the pudding so I added a little bit of purple food coloring. However, that didn't seem to make much of a difference so I added A LOT of purple food coloring. OOPS! Now the pudding looks like the purple people eater. Oh well. As for taste, the pudding was way too strong to just eat with a spoon but it was great with the puff pastry. The puff pastry seemed to settle the flavor. It was very good. I later tried to cut the taste of the pudding with whipped cream which made it much tastier to just eat but not as good with the pastry. :-) Since I had so much dough, I tried other types of fillings, also. I made a pumpkin pie filling and a pineapple with whipped cream filling. My favorite was by far the pineapple with whipped cream. The acidity from the pineapple really seemed to compliment the pastry. It was fun experimenting with the different types of fillings.

The Most Amazing Day of My Life

The wedding is over and I had the bestest time. It couldn't have turned out better. It was a whirlwind of fun and excitement. The few days before the wedding were spent with close friends and family. The day, itself, went rather smoothly. The only real hiccup was our musician didn't show up. Luckily, I had the foresight (and paranoia) to bring along a cd player and a wedding song compilation cd that I received as a free gift from Macys. I was ever so slightly worried that our officiant wouldn't show up since she was the only other "non-do-it-ourself" aspect of the wedding. I had a back up plan for her too since my ex-brother-in-law (who was a guest at the wedding) is ordained in the state of Oregon. My fears were unfounded, however, as she not only showed up but she did an amazing job. She really helped make the day special.


Nick and I both wanted a very intimate, very inexpensive, but very special wedding. And I am happy to say that's exactly what we got! Some of the unique aspects of our wedding is that we had polaroid cameras for our guests to take pictures of their favorite moments. We set up a shrine by the fireplace to display pictures of our married guests on their wedding day. We had a picnic reception with blankets set up on the grass inviting our guests to sit down (and play with bubbles) but we also had picnic tables set up so that our older guests also had a comfortable place to sit. Nick and I are both kids at heart so it is no surprise that our wedding was tilted towards the whimsical. We had a cotton candy machine (which was a huge hit with both kids AND adults), pinatas, chalk for the kids to draw pictures on the ground, and pinwheels. I was tickled when I over heard my niece exclaim "This is the BEST wedding ever!!" :-)




The best part of all is the total cost! While we didn't reach our original goal of keeping the wedding under $1,000, we only over shot by about $200 (not including attendant gifts and a very expensive locket that I bought for my mom as a thank you). The most expensive aspect of our wedding was my dress, alterations, and undergarments which came out to about $640 (over half of our total wedding expense). The reason we were able to keep our expenses so low is that we did practically everything ourselves. The roses and hydrangeas were picked from my mother and her co-worker's backyard. We did purchase some extra flowers from the grocery store the day before on a half off sale. Practically all of the decor including tablecloths, serving utensils, plates, baskets, blankets, candles, etc were all things we already owned. We gathered everything from my house and my parent's house a few months in advance and just filled in what we needed from the dollar store. My Aunt Jan and my mom made the delicious sandwiches, desserts, and side dishes. It also helps that one of my best friends is an amazing photographer. She took all the photos and her husband did the videography as a wedding present. I made our own wedding cake so it only cost me the ingredients (which was about $20). We did splurge on reserving the location for our wedding ceremony and reception (you can get married there for free but for a whopping $75 you are guaranteed the space for the whole day...BTW, that was sarcasm. I'm fully aware that $75 is very cheap for a location).

Wedding Bliss

I am in the throws of "wedding" bliss right now. With my wedding just slightly over a week away I find myself absolutely thrilled, nervous, excited, and about a billion other adjectives right now. A few nights ago I began battling some serious wedding-induced insomnia which forced me to wake up at 4am and peruse wedding blogs for a few hours before I could finally fall back asleep. While not ideal, I did find a few photos during that time that remind me of the plans I have for my big day and I've decided to share them with you ...
I plan on topping my homemade hummingbird wedding cake with two little birdies very similar to this one.


My wedding flowers are going to be big pink cabbage roses from the same bush as the flowers my mother used in her wedding bouquet.

Nick and I have rented a cotton candy machine for the big day. I have the feeling that this along with the big rose pinatas that my mother and I made (Thank you, Martha Stewart) will keep the kids very happy.

I stumbled upon this picture a while back and have decided to incorporate the idea in to my wedding as an alternative to a guest book or well wishes book. After the wedding, it will live in my kitchen. :-)

My first daring bakers challenge!

The August 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Angela of A Spoonful
of Sugar and Lorraine of Not Quite Nigella. They chose the spectacular Dobos
Torte based on a recipe from Rick Rodgers' cookbook Kaffeehaus: Exquisite
Desserts from the Classic Caffés of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague.


I had my parents and Nick's parents over for dinner to officially meet for the first time and I decided that this would be the perfect dessert for such a meeting. I, personally, had never heard of a Dobos Torte until this challenge but I was so excited to give it a try. While the 6 layers seemed daunting, I was determined to get it right. My eagerness paid off because the end results were absolutely fantastic!

The dobos torte is a multi-step process. First you start with thin sponge cake layers. My first attempt at making the sponge cake layer was a dismal failure. I tried to interpret the directions the best I could but having never made a sponge cake before I wasn't sure how long I was supposed to beat the eggs. Needless to say, I severely underestimated how "frothy" they were supposed to be and the first attempt resulted in something more resembling crepes than sponge cake.

In frustration, I decided to youtube how to make a sponge cake. After watching a few videos I felt a little more confident about what the batter should look like so I tried again. This time I was highly successful! Another trick I used was instead of making a circle on parchment paper and filling in said circle, I just covered the bottom of a springform pan. It was easy and resulted in even circles.

I made the buttercream frosting and top caramel layer just as stated in the recipe. However, when putting all the layers together, I brushed a thin coat of hazelnut liqeuer on each of the sponge cakes and I used ferrero rochers to hold up the caramelized pinwheel layer, as opposed to a plain hazelnut. YUM!



Verdict: HUGE SUCCESS! It was amazing. Both my dad and my BFF said it was better than Sweet Life (an amazing local patisserie that my family frequents religiously). Nick's parents, who typically eat less than the average four year old ate a generous portion of lasagna, salad, bread, and zucchini (Nick's dad even had seconds!) and still managed to eat all of their serving of Dobos Torte. Which is especially amazing because 1. they aren't big on desserts 2. the servings were twice the size they should be since I couldn't cut in to the caramel layer.

I will definitely be making this again sometime. It requires a lot of time and effort but if you find baking therapeutic and/or fun I definitely recommend trying it. Next time I am going to follow Audex Artifax's brilliant idea of making chocolate sponge cake layers soaked in coffee with alternating coconut and chocolate buttercream frosting. Mmm...