Happy Easter!

And so the Easter Bunny climbed down our chimneys and left gutted pumpkins full of candy and fireworks under the tree. The end.

But really, a Happy Easter to everyone!

In other news, the day before (yesterday, or otherwise known as "Saturday") was my guy's and I's first anniversary. Woohoo! Of course we're poor right now so it was pizza in a cute little joint east of here, and afterwards we rented a rom-com that didn't make either of us vomit. AAAND I got to show off said boyfriend to my huge flippin' extended family earlier that afternoon at a big get-together way outside the city. We both survived, pretty much unscathed.

Today for Easter my guy and I puttered around downtown Milwaukee for some hi-jinks down by the lakefront. Then I made him drive until we found a little hole-in-the-wall Mediterranean bakery. There I got us a little combo package of baklava and other sweets. There were these little honey filled donuts that we tried. Kyle was so excited when he saw them, less excited when he tasted them. Apparently his taste buds are less adventurous than mine, and after two bites I had the whole container all to myself. Unfortunately, I don't recall the name of those little donuts. But I noticed a hint of rosewater in with the honey, which inspired my newest cookie creation.

First Cake!

Layer cake with butter-cream frosting and fondant a successful test run. I've made cakes in the past, but I'm really calling this my first cake, as it has all the bells and whistles my prior cakes sorely lacked. Now I'm cake obsessed and I feel compelled to spend hundreds of dollars on all the little cake making/decorating accessories you find on the Wilton website. But no, I must be thrifty! I'm going to poor-girl it and see if I can hunt down cheap alternatives to a lot of the tools on the website. Of course, I'll share them with y'all. :)

Happy Cake

Getting creative as my pantry empties more and more...

Still haven't hit the store, but when company comes over, I want to be able to offer a little something sweet. Even if it's just my brother coming over to bum around with Kyle playing Modern Warfare 2. Really, I'll use any excuse to bake.

So I consult with my pantry, take stock of my supplies. And guess what, it's cupcake time! I used up the rest of my sugar and cocoa powder on this recipe, so now I really have no choice but to get my grocery shopping on.

Isn't it so sweeeet?

Give a girl a cookie, she's happy for a day. Teach a girl to bake cookies...

So the ol' larder's running low. Low on butter, low on AP flour, low on brown sugar. Who has two thumbs and refuses to let that stop her from making cookies? This girl.

I only had 1 stick and a couple tablespoons of butter left, and no self respecting cookie recipe uses that little butter without any other fat in it (like peanut butter cookies). So I thought to myself, what is butter really. A ratio of delicious fat and water. So I figure, a few tablespoons of shortening and some good ol' liquor for the water aspect and we're cooking with Crisco, baby. Literally. The shortening lends to making the cookie more tender as well. And then there's the flour. I was down to my last cup so I had to use cake flour to reach the quota. Due to the lower protein content of cake flour, this also resulted in a fluffier, tender-er cookie. Yay for improvising! I'm sure this recipe would turn out fine with 2 1/4 C of regular AP and 2 sticks of butter, but why mess with a good thing?

The Divine Redemption of the Cursed Cookie

Dum dum DUUUUM *dramatic music*

So I'll be honest, painstakingly cutting out individual cookie shapes is not something I always enjoy doing, especially when the dough is cursed. So what to do with a ball of leftover linzer dough and a bowl of homemade strawberry jam? That's right, boys and girls, it's crumble time.

During my shopping therapy session, I found some ground cardamom and glorious looking pears. I've never cooked with cardamom, so this seemed like a good first application for it.

I may be playing up the awesomeness of this dessert, but I should note that one of my favorite things is streusel topping. You know, that crumbly, cinnamony, oaty, buttery stuff that sometimes comes on top of apple pie. Oooh yeah. On with the recipe! By the way if you don't have, or don't want to make the linzer cookie dough from the prior post, store-bought pie dough (or a tube of sugar cookie dough) will work just as well.

The Cursed Cookie

So in the end, I put a lot more effort into these cookies than should ever be necessary for any cookie ever. I basically fail-boated my way to the results.

It started out well enough, I tried making my own strawberry jam, and set a pot of strawberry puree on a burner. There was a bowl I had used to wash the berries on another burner. Guess which burner I turned on. Sigh. I freaked out and poured water on it, it broke in four pieces right away. Science!

More like Dr. Failure

Not a total failure, they tasted yummy, but certainly not Dr. Pepper-tasmic.

So cooking down Dr. Pepper to try to get a concentrated syrup is possible (if you add enough sugar), but the flavor dissipates with the steam. You're basically left with a syrup that tastes vaguely like flat Dr. Pepper. I will try a soda cookie recipe again, but with flavoring extract or syrup or something instead.

I was too lazy to get a picture of these guys before they were gobbled up. I'm going to make a more concerted effort to post pics of my fails in addition to my successes on this here little blog.

For my next cookie, I'll probably go a little more traditional. On impulse I bought some strawberries the other day. Now I'm not really a fresh strawberry eater, but I like them when cooked/baked into things. We'll see what I come up with, or if it's even a cookie.

On another note, I will be making my sister-in-law's birthday cake this year. I'm going to try to go all out with this one, experiment with fondant and the like. We'll see what I come up with. Definitely time to experiment with firm-textured cakes!

If anyone even ever looks at this blog, you'll get to see the results early May. :)