The mind of an almost 9 nine year old

J. would like to play travel baseball this summer. He tells me its important on his trajectory to becoming a MLB player. He also informed me that only one other MLB player wears glasses. Therefore, he'd like to know what his other options are besides contact lenses. Given that contacts seem creepy to him, my explanation of Lasik wasn't appealing either. I asked him to think about the number of MLB players compared to the number of kids who play baseball. He agreed that it isn't time to give up on a backup career plan just yet.

Daring Bakers: Caramel

(An open letter to my sister)

Dear Liz,

I know that Jared's birthday is coming up in a few weeks. You always make that caramel cake that he loves, but it's time for a new recipe. No more gummy caramel frosting that is sometimes a bit too granular. This month, the Daring Bakers have been experimenting with caramel.

I made the Caramel Cake with Caramelized Butter Frosting by Shuna Fish Lydon (http://blogs.kqed.org/bayareabites/2006/12/24/caramel-cake-the-recipe/). This month's challenge was hosted by http://culinarycuriosity.blogspot.com/, with Alex of http://blondieandbrownie.blogspot.com/, Jenny of (http://forayintofood.blogspot.com/) and Natalie (http://glutenagogo.blogspot.com/). I also made the Golden Vanilla Bean caramels from Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich, Artisan Press, Copyright 2007, ISBN: 978-1579652111

The cake was wonderful. Moist, great crumb and a really nice depth of caramel flavor. I added some orange peel to the frosting recipe to change up the taste just a little bit. I drizzled the cake with some of the caramel sauce that I made from the caramels.

Now those vanilla bean caramels. 2/3s of the pan is sitting in a hard rock on my kitchen counter. They were tough to cut, despite cooking only to the softer caramel stage. By serving them, I felt like I was asking my friends to plan for future dental work. The caramels had great flavor, and I think that they'll melt down nicely with some butter and cream into a caramel ice cream syrup. If you've been nice instead of naughty, you'll get a jar for Christmas :)

Later,
Whit

TWD: Thanksgiving Twofer Pie

I'll call this a looks terrible, tastes great experience. I used Dorie's crust recipe, which my husband really enjoyed last time I made it. After a partial bake, my crust, which had more than covered the edege of the pie pan had shrunk down well below the lip. I added my fillings, expecting them to rest in layers, (similar to the chocolate pudding cake, where you pour the hot water on top of the brownie base and it forms a pudding on the bottom). The layers tended to blend together-- leaving me with an almost mocha colored pie filling.

But it did taste good... slightly crunchy pecans, without the cloyingly sweet filling that often marks pecan pie. And the fabulous pumpkin custard was as good as always.

TWD: Yin and Yang

I can't claim that my rice pudding sculpting abilities are well honed. It also seems that after 4 years of cooking on my current stove, I don't really understand how to regulate it's heat. MY pudding, while tasty, took close to two hours to cook down. I'd turn the heat up to get a simmer, and lower it as it simmered to briskly. Each time I turned my back for a moment, the whole pot boiled over the stove. In the end, both flavors were delicious, although not worth the extended simmer and lengthy stove cleaning that followed!

TWD: The slacker edition

I had ideas of making this. In fact, Baking... sat open on my counter all week long. I bought some regular rise yeast. But as I trolled the P&Q, I'm just not too sad that this one didn't happen. Next week, for certain.

TWD: Results and Rugulach

The first polls are closing... pull the dough disks from the fridge.

melted jam ...New Hampshire

the first round complete and rolled... Pennsylvania

into the oven...Alabama, Wisconsin

cooled and ready to photograph... Ohio

Which will take longer --- eating the rugulach or awaiting the projections?

Halloween and Election Day

There's a real sense of excitement about the election among the neighborhood kids. They've voted in school, and they've seen the yard signs. A. and I took the kids to vote with us this morning -- in line by 6:15am, out the door at 7:10 as voters #10 and #11. J. wants to stay up to watch the returns tonight.

I did my share of campaigning this weekend with the jack o'lantern. It was awfully validating when parents of trick-or-treaters broke out their cell phones to photograph the results.

Now, how do I dispose of this?