Making Stuff is Hard-The Pizza Stone

I know what you are thinking.  Wow I am an amazing chef to get that pizza in the shape of a triangle.  How neat. 

No, not neat. 

I finally attempted to use the pizza stone my mom bought for me.  What I did not realize was just how hard it is to transfer your pizza onto the stone once the stone is already in the oven (heating up).  I do not have one of those paddle things so I literally sat/stared/attempted to move my pizza dough (which was round and very pretty) onto the stone in the oven for about 20 minutes.  I almost cried.  Once I finally got it on, it was in this sort of triangular blob with sauce and cheese falling off the sides instead of the beautiful round pizza I had before I moved it.

It still tasted ok though.  (I mean who doesn't like the taste of fresh melted mozzarella?  Plus pizza is definitely one of my top 3 favorite foods.)

Have you ever used a pizza stone?

PS-Mo, this was not the craft fail attempt of your bday present.  I had many fails this weekend.

Making Stuff is Hard-Vegan Cupcakes

And for another installment of how baking is hard.....

This weekend my mother-in-law and sister in-law were in town and staying with us.  Well my MIL is a vegan and her birthday was a couple weeks ago so I decided to make her some vegan cupcakes.  My mom recently bought me the Southern Living Big Book of Cupcakes and there was a vegan recipe in there so I decided to give it a try.
The cupcake part turned out well, actually much better than I expected.
Then we got to the icing.  That is when the above mishap occurred.  This icing involved something called vegan shortening.  Vegan shortening looks kind of gross and does not blend at all.  I paused the mixer for a few minutes and left the bowl on the counter and as you can see, it fell on the floor and on me.  Good times.

So then I pulled out the big guns for my second attempt..........
Mr. Green Kitchenaid Mixer.

I was finally able to get something that resembled icing.

I think my finished product ended up looking pretty good.  I added some blackberries.

They tasted decent.  I could tell the difference from normal cupcakes but B's mom seemed to really enjoy them.  And they are all gone now so I think that's a good sign.

Here is the recipe if you are interested....

1 tbsp cider vinegar

1 1/2 cups vanilla soymilk
2 cups all purpose soft wheat flour
1 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup canola oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract
paper baking cups
vegetable cooking spray

Vegan frosting
8 tbsp vegan butter or shortening
1 tsp salt
1/3 cup vanilla soymilk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 16oz package powdered sugar

For the cakes....mix the vinegar and soymilk together and let it sit for five minutes.  Then mix the flour and next four (all the dry) ingredients in a separate bowl.  Add the oil and extracts to the soymilk mixture and then mix that into the flour mixture.  Bake in a mini cupcake pan at 350 for about 12 minutes.

For the icing....mix the first four ingredients until combined (the hardest part) and then add in the sugar until you get icing. 

Best daughter-in-law ever?

Have you ever done any vegan baking?

Or attempted to make your mother-in-law like you by making her cupcakes?

Cake Balls-Part 1: The Failures

How it all started..........
Secret email chain between Me, Curly T, and Beezus5 in regards to Shanzie's Birthday party......
ME: should we make/buy cupakes or a cake or something for saturday night for shanzies bday partay?  what does she like?  will the bar allow that?
T: hey...sorry, for the delay in response...I didn't have to work today.  Yes...I think she would definitely appreciate that....and I would think that the bar would be fine with it since we are bringing like 20 people into their business (but B5 might know the establishment better).
B5:  The Bar would be fine with that. #1 i'm in with the waitresses, #2 i had some cake balls there a few nights ago for another dude's bday.
ME:  ooh maybe we can make cake balls.  i have wanted to try them
T:  my co-worker brought in cake balls for Valentine's day and they were delicious!!!
ME:  yeah i see them on food blogs all the time.  lets do it.  I THINK IT'S PRETTY EASY.  you just bake a box cake and crumble it up and mix it with icing and dip it in something.  we can add some sprinkles to make it birthdayish.  i'll look it up.

Of course I was the one who had to say "i think it's pretty easy."  In my head I should have known it wasn't going to work out as I planned (just like those Martha Stewart glasses).  So after a few more email chains we decided that B5 and I would pre-bake some cakes and take them over to T's house on Saturday morning.  She would get the stuff to decorate them and then we would make something amazingly beautiful, just like these.......

Picture from cakepops.com (much prettier pops than ours)

So anyways, my first big fail happened when I was making the cake.  The directions on the box said to add 1/3 cup of oil.  Apparently I thought it said to add 1 and 1/3 cups of oil.  Ooops.  I didn't realize this until the cake had been baking for like 45 minutes and it was still liquidy.  It finally baked and I decided since we were crumbling it up it would be fine. 

No, not really.   I should have known.  I mean the balls were pretty soggy even after I froze them.  The first one I tried to make ended up like this.....as did the next few. 

We finally got a few of them to stay on the sticks but an hour later we realized that they were actually leaking oil (yeah there was that much oil in them).  GROSS.  So we threw away all the pink cake.  Fortunately I did make a chocolate cake with the correct amount of oil and B5 made a yellow cake to use

Our next big mishap occurred when B5 threw one of the recently coated melted chocolate balls under T's kitchen table.  Ok she didn't really throw it.  She just dropped it.  I just stood there frozen and yelling while T and B5 actually figured out how to get the (hardening) chocolate off the carpet.  (I also took pictures. I'm sooo helpful in a crisis.)  Good times.

by the way, they got the chocolate up with clorex wipes, I think

So in conclusion, when you make cake balls don't add 4 times the amount of oil the cake recipe calls for and try not to drop the balls on the ground.  See what we had to go through, Shanzie.

Did we end up with any successful cake balls?  You will find out tomorrow in the riveting conclusion, 'Cake Balls-Part 2'. 

Making Stuff is.......Dangerous

Making stuff is fun...

...but sometimes also dangerous.

(don't worry no dogs or humans were hurt, just poor old Red Hand)

Making Stuff is Hard....Ebelskivers

The first thing that is hard about making Ebelskivers is pronouncing that word.  I have no idea how to pronounce it.  So let's just go ahead and call them stuffed pancakes, because that is what Ebelskivers are.

On Fristmas Morning (a fake holiday I made to celebrate with my husband back when we used to spend Christmas apart, see Fakesgiving) I decided to do something special and bring out my Stuffed Pancake pan that I got as a wedding gift.  I had only used it once so I decided it was time for round two.  I found this awesome sounding recipe for caramel and apple stuffed pancakes topped with ice cream.  Now, I know eating ice cream for breakfast is probably not that healthy but hey, it was Fristmas.

The recipe sounded easy enough.  I mean you just make caramel out of sugar.  How hard can that be?  Well after the fourth attempt and a burned finger I was about the throw in the towel on the whole stuffed pancake thing.  But I finally made something that resembled caramel so I went with it.  I'm pretty sure it was actually just burnt sugar.  Either way I managed to finish the pancakes.  They tasted kind of weird so I just added extra ice cream to cover up the odd tasting caramel and semi burnt pancakes.  Oh well.  I gave myself an A- for effort.  Next time (in like a year) I will buy pre-made caramel sauce because I think this could actually be really good.

Things started looking up again when we finally got Hobie to wear his cool new hat.

He hated it.  But I did it for his own good.  I mean it was really cold outside.

OK, so have you ever tried to make stuffed pancakes?
Have you ever had breakfast that included ice cream?
Do you know how to make caramel?  (clearly I could use some tips)

My Christmas Present to Myself...The Christmas Themed Apron (used to make Christmas themed movie/party snacks)

Sewing is hard.  Well it's hard for me.  I'm not super patient.  And sewing patterns are confusing.  When I can't figure out what something means (even after googling it) sometimes I get scary and yell or curse for no reason.  I'm sorry B and Hobie.  Thanks for trying to encourage me not to quit even if I was mean to you at the time, I do appreciate it.  I baked you some cookies yesterday to make up for it.

BUT NOW I CAN CROSS OFF #5 ON MY 30 FOR 30 LIST!!!!!!!!!!

After working on it most of the day on Saturday, I completed my Christmas-themed apron.  It has some major flaws and I cannot sew in a straight line to save my soul (although my sewing teacher did give me some tips-I probably need to sign up for that 2nd class).  I definitely should have used red thread instead of black so all my flaws didn't show as much, but oh well.  It still looks pretty good from far away and most people probably won't even notice the issues it has unless they are looking for them.

So I have decided that I will pull out this apron every year at Christmas and see how much my sewing skills have improved (hopefully).  Now I have to plan my outfit for the Holiday social I'm hosting on Wednesday around this apron.  (I've got to get as much use out of it as I can before Christmas is over.)

Making Stuff Is Hard....

If you pay attention to details, you may notice that I have a new tab at the top of this page....Making Stuff Is Hard.  Here I will be sharing some of my biggest craft and baking failures.  Please feel free to email me any failures (with pictures) you have and I will add them to my list.  Crafting and cooking are not all fun, all the time, guys.  I thought it was time I admit to that.  Sometimes laying around on the couch watching reruns of Gilmore Girls is way funner than making stuff.

Do you have any craft or cooking failures to share with me?