It is 11:04pm, I have been up and cooking since 7am. Last night I passed on making the brioche for the UPS man mainly because the dough had quite a sour nose to it, and I wasn't sure it would be good enough for company. So, this morning I decided to make Peanut Butter Tandy Cake most recently seen on Sweets by Sarah. I also had a very similar recipe in the Old Jerusalem Church cookbook from my grandmother, but Sarah has it all typed out and on the internet already ;) I made a few changes, the first being making it in a standard half-sheet pan (12x18) rather than the 17x10 pan she recommended. I also recognized the cake as a hot milk cake, and mixed it accordingly. Namely, beating the eggs with the sugar until it ribbons, adding the flour and baking soda to that, and then adding the hot milk with the melted butter slowly. It came together beautifully and baked up nice and brown on top and perfectly spongy. After the cake part, I stopped measuring the rest :) So I just put on peanut butter until the cake was covered, and melted about a bag and a half of milk chocolate chips. The chocolate was set and ready for cutting by 11am. Not bad, and probably made possible by the fact that I lined the sheet pan with foil before baking... then after baking, I pulled the foil and cake out and put it in a fresh, cold half-sheet pan :)
I made a big box of squares for the UPS dude, and enclosed a baggie full of napkins and individually wrapped Purell wipes, since they are a bit messy with the chocolate and peanut butter. I also decided to send a gallon ziploc bag of squares to my mom since I was sending her a book anyway today. Then I thought well, I've not been nice to the mail lady recently, so I made up a bag, and taped on another bag of napkins and purell wipes to that to put out in the mailbox. Thankfully that took up most of the batch and we have about a dozen small squares for ourselves, yay!
And yes, the UPS man was not happy with the 3x 73lb boxes, but he was delighted with the box of treats. One of the reasons I bake is to make other people happy, and I think I did that for at least two folks today :)
That was the triumph of the cooking day. I also butchered a whole eye of round, ground it up, and made a good portion of it into meatballs. Big, honking meatballs. I figured I'd bake them, and then cover them in barbecue sauce, and bake some more. Sounds great, but I didn't cook off enough vinegar from the barbecue sauce, and the meatballs were strangling. I ended up throwing them out *sigh*. I hate wasting food, but I hate eating bad food even more. I had also made the Hard Rock Cafe copy cat recipe for twisted mac and cheese... with a few modifications. That came out okay, and it turned into the main dish.
After cleaning some stuff out of the fridge, the bin of brioche dough sent vibes of guilt out to me. Bake meeeeee, bake meeeeee, it called. I decided that I would try to make the dough into some sort of cinnamon roll -- that should be a good counterpoint to the potential super sour in the dough. The dough was really easy to work with. I was able to pat it out into a rectangle, which I always have problems with on conventional dough. As I was mixing up some melted butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon, I saw a bag of ground pecans on the counter... so in then went to the filling. Patted the filling out on the dough, rolled it up, and sliced it up. The remainder of the dough made two 9x9 pans with 9 rolls each. I baked them at 375 for about 23 minutes. Then I made a normal glaze for one pan, and an orange glaze for the other. They turned out quite well -- there doesn't seem to be any overly sour or gameyness to any of it.
Will I try the brioche recipe from Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day again? Maybe. It was a good dough, and very easy to work with, but I have a hard time getting past 3 sticks of butter and 8 eggs.... even if it is making the equivalent of 3 to 4 loaves. I'm looking forward to trying other doughs from the book. I think it will be especially helpful when we have company -- the ability to churn out a whole bunch of fresh hot bread with little to no effort is definitely a bonus.
In other news, I actually got birthday and valentine's day cards, and managed to get my mom's out in the mail today! I also got the coolest gift for Mom (and I hope she doesn't read this). Struggling with finding a gift for Mom is a yearly tradition. If I ask her what she wants, she says nothing. If I send her money, she won't spend it on herself. I was thinking about something she'd like but wouldn't necessarily get herself. I decided that she might enjoy a CSA share for the spring/summer. Researching it online showed that there weren't any CSAs that delivered anywhere close to where she is, so I quickly envisioned this gift being something she'd resent every week rather than enjoying. But while I was researching this, I saw that one of the farms actually does home garden consulting. The farmer will come out to your site, look it over and help you plan out a garden that works with your particular site and soil and light. I emailed him right away, and got a response within 30 minutes... at like 9pm. This is a very good sign to me :) He and I emailed back and forth, and this morning I sent him a check for 5 hours of garden consulting with Mom. I GOT MOM AN ON-CALL FARMER! That is just so awesome, I wish I had an on-call farmer :) The second part of the gift is buying a similar block of time from her favorite handy man to get the raised beds put in once she gets the farmer's recommendations.
The rest of the evening was spent cleaning, and doing all the dishes from today's madness. I'm happy to report the microwave is clean, the sink is scoured and sparkling, the dishes are done, and the stove is wiped down. I think I have earned a good night's sleep :)
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