Orange Olive Oil Madeleines

Today, something horribly wonderful happened.

Joss Whedon (yes, the actual Joss Whedon, Avengers-Buffy-Firefly-Toy Story wait- I didn't know he wrote the screenplay for Toy Story! That makes me love him even more than I thought I possibly could!) tweeted my string ensemble's arrangement and video of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog:

How much do I love this? The most much. #cornell #culture https://t.co/hP3LNFp2Wd”
— Joss Whedon (@josswhedon) June 25, 2013

ahsdjfklaskjdhfjkadlskjdhfjdalskjdhfjkla WHAT IS AIR.

HOLY HAMMER FREEZE-RAY.

I suddenly had over 50 Youtube notifications in my inbox from within a single hour. We went from just over 4,000 views (and that was after a few "tumblr-famous" people had already reblogged our video) to over 15,000 views in less than a day. CRAZY.

And still, though the numbers seem impressive, my mind is still boggling over the fact that the venerable Joss Whedon, master of all things horrible and/or shiny in the 'verse, has seen our video, let alone that he liked it. Scratch that, loved it! A video with me in it! My quartet! Joss Whedon! Me!

Donna Noble: spirit animal

Yeah... so what does this have to do with food? Absolutely nothing.

But I did make more madeleines yesterday!

taken with my iPhone

I adapted the recipe I used previously for these lemon madeleines and came up with these orange olive oil madeleines! I actually think these are moister and fluffier than the previous ones, and now I don't have to smell that awful raw butter stench anymore! (I seriously don't know what's wrong with me, but I can't stand that smell.) Plus, I'm willing to bet that these are healthier!

Since most of the steps are identical to those of the lemon madeleine post, I won't spam you with the requisite amount of photos I usually include, and will just give you the instructions instead!

(Still freaking out about Joss Whedon.)

INGREDIENTS

- 2 eggs
- ¾ tsp vanilla extract
- ⅛ tsp salt
- ¼ cup white sugar
- ½ cup AP flour
- 1 Tbsp orange zest
- ¼ cup olive oil
- (optional) powdered sugar for decoration

NOTE: The batter using olive oil instead of melted butter is a little more liquid-y, so it makes 28 mini madeleines (which probably translates to 14 regular-sized madeleines).

• Preheat oven to 375°F. (You may choose to turn on the oven a couple of steps later, after having beat the eggs/sugar mixture and grated/zested the orange peel, but it won't hurt to preheat early so that you don't forget.)

• In a medium to large-sized mixing bowl, beat the eggs, salt, and vanilla extract at high speed until light and slightly frothy, using an electric mixer or hand mixer.

• Beating constantly, gradually add the sugar, and continue to beat the mixture on high speed until it is thick and pale, and ribbons form when you lift the beaters. (Beating for 3 to 5 minutes was sufficient time in my case.)

• Sift the flour into the rest of the mixture a third at a time, gently folding in the flour after each addition.

• Add the orange zest.

• Now, measure out ¼ cup of olive oil. This is the point at which I prepared the madeleine molds, rather than right after preheating the oven. You can use some of the ¼ cup olive oil to grease the molds, using the very tips of a basting brush. Then lightly flour each mold.

• Now, use the rest of the ¼ cup olive oil, pouring it around the edges of the batter. Quickly but gently fold the olive oil into the batter.

• Spoon your batter into the molds; the batter should slightly mound above the tops. Again, the olive oil version is more liquidy, so the mounds won't be as prominent as they would be with a butter recipe.

• Bake for 14 to 17 minutes, or until the madeleines are golden and the tops spring back when gently prodded by your fingertip. (Mine baked in 15 minutes.)

• Let the madeleines cool in the molds, for at least 15 minutes. Pop them out of the molds carefully, and let cool on a plate.

I made these late at night, so the lighting is very different from usual!

I personally think these taste best when still warm - go ahead and test "a few" after they cool off a bit :P - but they can keep for a few days, and are even good beyond that when dunked in coffee or tea! Because the olive oil ones are moister, you may want to lay them shell-side down on a dry paper towel in a container.

(Another note: the grooves/shell patterning are more noticeable when using nonstick molds, rather than silicon. Nonstick pans also give a more golden coloring to the madeleines. However, nonstick cooking ware have chemicals, or so my mom tells me, and in any case, silicon is so easy to clean up at the very end!)

I brought these to work and also gave a few to friends (shoutout to Maddie and Marza!), and they all loved them! (And then Maddie told me that one of her summer course professors was raving about our video in class.)

Brilliant end to the day! (Or should I say... horrible?) <3

(Vegan) (Dark) Chocolate Mug Cake

[edit] I received some comments that some of the products I used for this are in fact not vegan. The base recipe allows for a vegan version, but as I am not vegan, I am not as strict about which products I use. It was definitely an education on what goes into some products, so this is a disclaimer that while this recipe can be made to fit a vegan diet, it might not necessarily end up being vegan depending on which products/brands you use. [/edit]

In the past couple of weeks (read: finals weeks), I have been on a mission. A very important mission.

Make all the mug cakes.

All of them.

I believe that at this point, I have tested out 5 different recipes. They have all been successful except for the failed incident of the banana mug bread - looked good, tasted like rubber - of which I shall never mention again. (Poor wasted banana. You had a good inanimate life... while it lasted.)

The only thing that might possibly bar you from the most joyfully easy cake experience of your life is the amount of calories. Not that I really understand how to calculate calories from a bunch of ingredients. Not that I would ever want to. I refer you to the [self-proclaimed troll-] queen herself:


(I love her so so much sometimes.)

But on all the food blogs that I have frequented in order to find the mug cake recipes, some (I'm sure well-meaning, but as you know, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions... and a certain narrator named Dante who is prone to fainting spells) commenter has pointed out just how many hundreds of calories you're going to intake and how it will make you cry big fat tears of fat. (Or that's just how it comes across to me. I hate the 'thinspiration' movement, not only for its pretentious name.) I like healthy, just not judgmental tyranny.

Now, I don't know how many calories this one has (please don't burst my bubble), but it has a lot less oil than the other ones I have tried thus far, without sacrificing taste! In fact, I think this vegan chocolate mug cake had the best consistency out of all them, although that might have been because I am now a practiced mug cake-maker.

I got the original recipe here from a blog called Aromatic Cooking. The first time I made it, I microwaved it for a bit too long, because the previous mug cakes were a bit too moist originally. But the specs provided on the original recipe for this one are spot on!

I'm not vegan, so I did add a tiny scoop of vanilla ice cream the first time I had this, but the good thing is that if you are vegan, this is at its basis a vegan recipe! Also, cooking with eggs can be messy and/or just annoying, especially since salmonella really scares some people, so this recipe is quite simple and stress-free.

In addition, this recipe takes about 5 minutes to make, or perhaps even less time if you don't get distracted by an episode of Elementary like I did.

I will repost the ingredients and instructions here with my slight modifications, but definitely do check out the original recipe page!

INGREDIENTS *

3 Tbsp AP flour
2 Tbsp sugar **
1 1/2 Tbsp dark chocolate cocoa powder ***
1/4 tsp baking soda
2 Tbsp + 2 tsp orange juice
2 1/2 tsp oil

*be sure to check your products' ingredients if you wish to make this vegan! The cocoa mix and baking powder I used are not vegan, so substitute accordingly.
**original recipe calls for an extra tsp but I found it was fine without
***original calls for unsweetened cocoa powder. If you used sweetened cocoa powder, use less than 2 Tbsp sugar

Add all the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, cocoa powder, and baking soda) into a mug and mix. (Say hello to my awesome heat-changing TARDIS mug!)

Add in the orange juice and oil, and mix well. Make sure no clumps remain at the bottom or on the sides of the mug. (TIP: If you're lazy like me, you can use the other end of the spoon to stir, leaving the other side clean for eventual eating of the mug cake. You're welcome.)

Microwave for 1 minute 45 seconds. (You can go up to 2 minutes, but check at 1:45 to see if it's the consistency you want before adding on time, otherwise it could get quite dry.) Let cool.

(See? The TARDIS materialized into space on the other side of the mug! It travels in space and time! In a small white box that does magic wibbly-wobbly heat wave things when you set a time!)

If you want to transplant the cake from the mug to a plate, let it cool for at least a few minutes, otherwise it might crumble apart.

Feel free to decorate! Fruit, yogurt, powdered sugar, etc. I used clementines this time to complement the orange juice, but I used bananas (see above) last time and it was very delicious.

Noms.

Later that night, I got to see my favorite band of all time, The National. I got second row tickets! The music was absolutely phenomenal: they really are such great musicians, and Matt Berninger is a god.

I also got one of the band's setlists! It now resides next to one of my Audrey Hepburn posters in my bedroom.

I can now die happy.

Hope you have fun making your mug cake, and as always, comments are much appreciated! Let me know what you think of it. I will probably be testing out more mug cake recipes in future posts too.

Allons-y!

(Star Trek) Carrot Cupcakes

Hello there! My name is Amy, and this is my new food blog. First, a warning: I really can't cook. I mean, not yet. I do however love to bake. I hope that this blog will chronicle my learning process for both (or as it may be, lack thereof...)

Now, before you say "Where are the photos of food?!" here's a little teaser:

Carrot cupcakes! I suspect that it's fitting that I kind of messed them up a tad... the cupcake tin I used was much too small, and alas! The cakes are overflowing! Still, they are delicious.

So wait- let's back up a bit. 

You already know my name, but here's a little more about me. Feel free to skip ahead to the next photo if I'm rambling too much- I tend to do that. Occupational hazard of being an English major, I suppose. (And yes, I'm aware that I just typed a phrase rather than a fully formulated sentence. Deal with it.) 

I also recently added the FGSS (Feminist, Gender & Sexuality Studies) major. (And yet I'm baking? Yes. Feminists can bake. They can also kick ass and quote Gayle Rubin.) I'm also fully aware that according to most people, these two disciplines are dead-ends when it comes to careers. And again, I say: deal with it.

Part of the reason I started this blog is because I've realized that sometimes it's nice to indulge in activities purely based on one's pleasure, rather than what success one may find at the end of the road. As you can tell from my monstrous cupcakes, I'm not exactly a prize-winning baker, and until last year, Ramen noodles were the height of my culinary expertise.

In any case, a blog seemed like a good way to reinforce that lesson. If I have a blog, I thought, then I'll have a ready excuse to make things! (And then eat things. Best part, in my humble opinion.)

Anyway, there's this little film coming out soon about oh, some starship and a guy named Captain Kirk and his bromantically involved First Officer Vulcan, Spock? Yes, Star Trek! No way, you've heard of it too?

I decided to make plomeek muffins in celebration of this momentous occasion. 

These are not those muffins. (I will attempt those at a future date.)

I discovered very quickly, hollering down to my mother downstairs (oh yeah, forgot to mention that I'm 20, in an Ivy League university and yet, still living at home. Go figure, with my majors), that our fridge contains neither celery nor carrot juice. Mom: "Carrot juice isn't a thing." Me: "Pretty much." No juicers to be found in this household.

Instead, I nabbed her index card stack of recipes and found to my delight that I had remembered incorrectly: the carrot cake recipe was not in Chinese for a change! Hooray! I can read it! 

Anyways, I'll cut to the chase. I have provided the measurements for the cake recipe, which usually fits well in a 9x13 inch casserole dish. You may want to adjust accordingly if you're making cupcakes, unlike me, because I'm mathematically disinclined and thought I could get away with adding a little more than 2/3 batter per cupcake. That was illogical.

INGREDIENTS 

4 eggs
1/2 cup oil
2 cups sugar
3 cups AP flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
3 cups grated carrots (loosely packed)
(1/2 cup nuts- optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. If you're going to take a long time preparing the batter and grating the carrots (and with me being the novice that I am, it took me a long time), you can wait a bit before preheating.

If making a cake, grease a 9x13 inch cake/casserole dish. If not, do whatever you need to do to prepare cupcake pans/mini loaf pans, etc.

Mix eggs and sugar in a large bowl.

Then add oil to eggs and sugar, and stir.

In another bowl, combine the rest of the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon).

Add the dry ingredients into the large bowl in which you've mixed the wet ingredients. TIP: Add the dry ingredients 1 cup at a time, or even 1/2 a cup at a time. The flour is less likely to fly about and puff in your face this way. (I've learned the hard way, believe me.)

Add in your grated carrots.

Distribute your batter evenly into a cake pan or muffin/cupcake pan/tins. The batter should not exceed 2/3 of the height of your cupcakes, or they will overflow like mine did. (The ones of the leftmost tin are too full, but the ones in the larger-sized tin were just right.)

Cake: bake for ~1 hour. Cupcakes: I put mine in for ~30 minutes. To check if they're ready to come out, stick a toothpick in the center of the cake/cupcake; if it comes out cleanly, they are done!

Let cool. (Look at that tiny non-deformed cupcake in the top right corner of the small tin! A lone voice of sanity amidst a sea of madness.)

I decided to decorate mine for Star Trek using powdered sugar and a paper cutout Starfleet badge, but these taste great without anything extra. Cream cheese frosting would also go well with these!

And that is all for now. Let me know what you think, about these cupcakes and/or about the blog so far! (Do you like the photos accompanying the steps, or would you prefer all the instructions in one place without pictures in-between?)

LLAP!