It's Pi Day, Pi Day, Gotta get down on Pi Day

Happy Pi Day.  I thought I'd share my dinner. I made a pizza pi.  It's a little brown for most people, but since it was just for me, and I prefer my cheese to be extra brown, I made it extra brown.  Just in case you want to see the raw deal, I took a photo of that too. 

When I was a kid, a friend of mine and I tried to memorize pi to as many digits as we could.  We would quiz each other often about it, but I think we only got to about 30 before that got old.  Today, I only know about 6 without looking (it's not fair to quiz myself today, because I looked up pi to a million digits earlier today).  

In the spirit of my youth, I always celebrate pi day in some way.  Last year I just sported my pi shirt.  I think I was too busy to cook.  This year, I made pizza pi and bought a slice of pi pie.  Yum!

I would have to eat quite few of these to make up the circumference or diameter of a circle.  The pizza is homemade, so at least it's somewhat healthy.  The pie was store bought because I only need one slice.  Having a whole pie around is just more reason for my circumference to grow!

Computer Viruses and Real Viruses Spread by Chocolate

My computer hard drive crashed last week. I was going to write about some home made Christmas gifts I've made in the past and what I'm planning on doing this year, but I have been so busy messing with my computer that I never got around to writing about it.  I did get all my Christmas gifts done since I haven't had to mess with email or blogging, so I'll post some photos as soon as my new hard drive comes in.

For my "professional blog," I recently wrote about restaurants in my area that are serving on Thanksgiving day.  It's a popular topic because a lot of people don't want to cook for the holidays.  I wandered upon Golden Corral's buffet and they are bragging about having a "Chocolate Wonderfall" (which is a chocolate fountain).  According to a friend, they've been advertising the heck out of it on TV too.  I've never seen the ad, but I believe him.

Am I the only one disgusted by this?

I have a chocolate fountain. I've used it at a few parties and brought it a dessert function once with some friends at school. I'm not really against chocolate fountains and they can actually be quite healthful.  A serving of chocolate covered fruit is better for you than a big old piece of chocolate cake or a cream puff. 

I have been to a Golden Corral once.  I'm not really a fan of buffets.  For one thing, I don't eat that much and I don't eat meat, so I never eat my "money's worth."  The more disgusting issue with buffet service is that I always think of who went to pee and didn't wash their hands before serving themselves,  or who just picked their nose.  I'm constantly scanning for someone putting out fresh food or a station that isn't self-serve.  Most of the time, hands don't touch the actual food.  That's good.   I just bring hand sanitizer and wash  my hands after touching the utensils. 

I know I'm paranoid, but virus shedding kids (admit it, kids are viral vectors this time of year) and their probably equally sick parents serving themselves is bad enough.  I can't imagine what kind of viral load that chocolate fountain has at the end of the night (hopefully they clean it everyday).  I can see kids taking a bite and dipping their berry in again, even though it says you're not supposed to.  Maybe licking their finger multiple times and putting it back in.  Worse case: putting their mouth under it.  Kids don't know any better, but yuck.

I've never seen the actual fountain, so maybe it's back far enough so kids can't get to it and you'd have to scoop out a bowl for your kids.  It looks like you'd have to dip it with a long skewer, so maybe you couldn't put your head under it or lick your finger and put it under the flow.  I don't see how they could prevent double dipping.    The thought of it doesn't make me want to visit Golden Corral...ever.  It actually made me gag just thinking about it.

Sharing viruses.   What a lovely way to spend a lovely holiday in the middle of cold and flu season.

Dual Tone Spooky Cakes: Quick Halloween Idea

This bundt cake looks a little a ghost.

I used to make rainbow cupcakes when I was a kid, similar to these.  We would get bowls of cake mix and dye them colors and make a big mess, but they'd turn out cute anyway.  I was reminded of this the other day when I surfing the web and saw a black and orange cake.  The author made black cakeballs and put them in the middle of a cake pan.  She then covered the balls with batter and baked it.  It made very neat circles in her cake.  Mine are more random, but I think they look sort of oozy and spooky.

This is a simple half/half dual tone cupcake

For these, I separate my cake batter and dye each part a different a color, but you could use separate cake batters too.  In the cupcake, I dyed one half of a vanilla cake batter orange and the other half black.  For the bundt cake, I used one of those "12 cupcake" devil's food mixes for the black, and a whole white cake mix separated in half.  I dyed one half green and the other half orange.  The cupcakes require a little finer hand.  You spoon one color into your cupcake pan, then put the next color down.  You can swirl them if you want.  If you use a piping bag, you can get intricate layers by piping a small amount in the middle of your paper cups and piping the same amount of the next color on top of that layer and repeating (that works well with rainbow cupcakes).

The cake is a lot easier, even if you want to make intricate layers, but it's the same concept.  You can do as many layers as you want, or just make one black spot in the middle, etc.  This would be a fun activity for kids.  The rainbow ones are awesome for Easter.

The icing for the cupcakes was just a can of icing dyed orange.  For the bundt, a regular icing wouldn't be drippy enough.  I made a glaze and dyed it in two colors.  Here's the recipe for the glaze.

Check out that owl platter. Isn't it adorable? I love Halloween.

Bundt Glaze:
4 ounces softened cream cheese
1 to 2 tablespoons milk
2 cups powdered sugar

1. Blend all the ingredients together in a food processor, mixer or blender.  I normally start out with 1 tablespoon of milk and add to my desired consistency.
2. If the glaze is too thin, add more sugar.  If it's too thick, add more milk.

Once you blend it, you can separate it, dye it your colors and drip it on in whatever pattern you want.  You have to wait until your cake is cooled or it will all melt off and not look pretty at all.

Broken Glass and Chocolate Pumpkin Cupcakes

Bloody glass cupcakes

One of my guilty pleasures is Martha Stewart's living.  I don't think I've ever done one of her arts and crafts or even made a recipe straight out of there, but I love to look at it anyway.  Her Halloween edition has always been one of my faves.  This year, I saw her broken glass cupcakes and had to emulate it.

Similar to Martha's

I can't find them on her website.  Her website is notoriously hard to navigate.  The article in the magazine (the Halloween edition with "Mothra" on the cover) just had a photo of the cupcakes, and not even a how-to.  I went to the website to find out how she made her sugar glass, but no such luck.  I swear, you can search for the exact recipe title on her website and not find something.  She is pimping a new book on holiday crafts and baking, so maybe it's in there.  Who knows.  This is why I rarely visit the website or make anything she has in her books.  I did a Google image search for Martha Stewart broken glass cupcakes, and the ones pictured to the right look the most like them.  The shards of glass were clear and the "blood" was coming out of the cupcakes.  They're ok, but they don't look gruesome enough for me.

Sugar glass is easy to make, and lots of fun (but it can be dangerous), so I went to town.  Sugar glass is basically just a hard candy, spread out.  Since it's supposed to look jagged and broken for this, it's super easy. I have a low-cal version of a cupcake recipe too, but we'll do to the sugar glass first.   You can make sugar glass just as many ways as you can make sugar candy, so no recipe is incorrect.

Sugar Glass 
3 cups sugar
1 cup water
1 cup clear corn syrup
Red food coloring

You can tell my sugar wasn't heated smoothly,
but dirty glass works for this.

1. Before you start, get everything together.  Sugar glass comes together pretty quickly and once you start pouring, it's over in a second.  If you're making broken glass, get a baking sheet ready (either spray it with some cooking spray or rub it down with some oil or butter).  If you're going to do something more elaborate like a mold or form, get the materials you need ready.  For my prep, I also got the food coloring and a paint brush.  You'll need to spray a spatula and some spoons with some cooking spray too, to help you smooth out the glass.
2. Combine all the ingredients except food coloring (unless you want solid red glass) in a sauce pan and cook on medium heat until the mixture reaches 300 degrees on a candy thermometer.  If you heat the liquid too fast, the sugar won't be as clear but it's not that big of a deal in this prep.
3. Poor the liquid on the prepared surface and quickly spread out. This is the dangerous part.  Remember this sugar is 300 degrees! Don't touch it.  Use your tools to spread it out, but work quickly.
4. While the sugar is still a little wet, splash or paint the red coloring on to resemble blood drops. You should have the "glass" spread out and painted within a few minutes.
5. Let cool.
6. Crack into shards (this is the fun part).
7. Decorate as you wish.

Easy Vegan Cupcakes
Let's talk about doctoring up a cake mix.  For these, I used a whole can of pumpkin in a chocolate cake mix instead of the oil, water and eggs. So, you just take the dry cake mix, mix in the pumpkin and bake.  People love it, and it's an easy way to make a cake mix vegan.  Just make sure your cake mix is vegan.  Most are. Store bought icings are mostly vegan too, but read the label.  Let's be honest, these mixes and icings aren't animal or vegetable foodstuffs.  They're mostly fakey fakey processed ingredients and oils. But enjoying them every now and again won't kill you, just don't eat the whole dozen yourself.  

I think I stole the pumpkin idea from Hungry Girl (I saw it on a talk show), but it tastes better to me than a regular cake mix anyway.  It only works well with chocolate cake mixes.  You can barely taste the pumpkin in a chocolate cake mix.  Pumpkin and chocolate go well together anyway.  If you use pumpkin in a white cake mix, you'll have pumpkin cake.  It's good too, but people can tell it's pumpkin.  In chocolate, I normally get, "This tastes like something, but what is it?" 

According to Hungry Girl one cupcake made this way has 181 calories, 3.5g fat, 37g carbs (eep), 2g fiber and 2g protein.  I just think they taste better that way (they seem to be richer).  

You can make a homemade cake and icing and decorate it too, but I'm going to be honest again here.  If I'm going to make a cupcake for kids or people who I know will care more about the decoration and icing than the cake, I'm not going to go to all the effort of making the cake taste like the best cake ever.  It's like the time I slaved over a stove for hours making homemade pasta sauce one week, got rave reviews.  A few weeks later, I didn't have time so I brought in Prego ... also got the rave reviews.  Seriously, most people don't care, and if the cake is a box cake, I'm less likely to eat it all.

I'll have some healthy food next week, and maybe some unhealthy ones too. I'm thinking about making more Halloween treats.  I have several Halloween events to go to, and sometimes I like to bring snacks.  We'll see.

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls: Fall Faves

Unhealthy, but delicious

 It's fall, so I'm probably going to get a little unhealthy here.  I've been personally trying to avoid carbs and sugar, but those are required baking for friends around this time of the year.  With the holidays season coming up and my favorite goofy holiday, Halloween, it's hard to avoid carbs and unhealthy things.  At least if you do the baking yourself, from scratch, you're less likely to eat too much (that's what I tell myself anyway).

There was a pumpkin recipe contest at a local festival this past week, so I threw in my hat with some delicious pumpkin cinnamon rolls.

Here's a tip about cinnamon rolls.  They are almost always softer right out of the oven.  The main reason is the sugar in the cinnamon filling.  Sugar is hygroscopic, so it sucks moisture out of the dough.  My favorite way to combat that is just covering them in more butter and sugar (icing), or popping them in a microwave for 10-15 seconds.  Yum!  If you're looking for a lower calorie way to combat hard rolls, just use plain cinnamon and butter for the filling.  The rolls will still be good, but less sweet.

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls
Dough
1 cup pumpkin puree
2/3 cups milk
2 tablespoons butter
1 egg
1 package yeast
2-3 cups flour
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1/2 tsp salt

Filling
1 stick melted butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup white sugar
2 tsp cinnamon (sometimes I use more, I like cinnamon)

Cream Cheese Icing
4 ounces cream cheese
1 stick of melted butter
1 tsp vanilla
2-3 cups powdered sugar
1-3 tablespoons milk

Carmel Glaze
2 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon milk
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup powdered sugar
Pinch of salt

The dough

1. Prehat over to 350 degrees.
2. Heat pumpkin, milk, salt and butter on stove until all are warm and butter is melted. It should be warm to the touch, but not hot (lukewarm)
3. Add pumpkin mixture, yeast, egg, pumpkin pie spice and 2 cups of flour to mixer bowl.  You can use a stand mixer or bread machine or just do it the old fashioned way.  I use a stand mixer.  Adjust flour until you get a dough that is smooth and somewhat sticky.  Knead that dough for about 6 minutes (with a dough hook or bread machine, this is easy).
4. Cover dough and let rest until it doubles in size (about 1 hour).  Prepare filling while you wait.
5. To prepare filling, just mix the melted butter and sugar together in a bowl and mix well.
6. After dough has rested, roll out into a 15 by 10 inch rectangle. 
7. Spoon or brush filling on the rectangle.

   

   Roll the dough (this is for smaller rolls)

8. Roll the rectangle up tightly.  If you prefer more, smaller cinnamon rolls, roll along the 15 inch end.  If you prefer larger, thicker cinnamon rolls, roll on the 10 inch end.  Along the 15 inch should make 12 rolls.
9. Cut the cinnamon rolls, the width depends on your tastes.  I normally make mine 3 fingers wide.  Use a serrated knife for best results (some people use dental floss or string, but being careful and not exerting too much pressure with a serrated knife works).
10. Place either on a baking sheet or Pyrex dish.  Some people like to bake their cinnamon rolls so they touch (like in a Pyrex dish).  Personally, I like mine to be separate and round.  I normally bake them on a baking sheet and spread them apart while they rise and when they bake.
11. Let the rolls rise for 1 hour, until doubled.  At this point, you can also put them in the fridge and let them rise overnight.



Roll size.

12. I sometimes brush the tops of cinnamon rolls with egg yolk, but I don't always. It makes the top shiny.  If you're planning to use a lot of icing, this is a wasted step, but sometimes I just want a drizzle.  For the pumpkin ones, I skipped this step.
13. Bake for 20-30 minutes, or until the center of the cinnamon roll reaches 190 degrees and the tops are golden brown.
14. While they cook, you can make the icing. I used two icings (one is just an accent drizzle).
15. Cream cheese icing: mix cream cheese, butter, vanilla, lemon, milk and 2 cups powdered sugar in a food processor and mix until creamy.  You can add more milk if it's too thick and more sugar if it's too thin.  I like my icing drippy.
16. Caramel drizzle icing: Heat butter, sugar, milk, vanilla and powdered sugar on stove.  Cook for about 8 minutes, until the sauce is a caramel like consistency (about 235 degrees or so).

    

    These rolls are touching, obviously.  They don't form perfect circles.

17. When cinnamon rolls are finished baking, let them cool a little bit before icing.  They should still be warm when you ice them.  I poured the cream cheese icing all over first, then drizzled with the caramel.
18. Enjoy (just not too much, these are very unhealthy).

 

These rolls form more perfect circles

Nutrition Facts for Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls (It's bad)

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Amount Per Serving (makes 12)

Calories:  486

Total fat: 22 g

Protein: 5.4 g

Total carbohydrate:  73 g

• Dietary Fiber: 1.4 g
• Sugar: 47 g

On the other hand, a Cinnabon is 730 calories and 114 grams of carbs.  Those Pillsbury canned cinnamon rolls are much better.  They are 145 calories and 23 grams of carb.  A McDonalds cinnamon roll is 340 calories and 52 grams of carbs.  

You could cut the calories considerably by limiting the icing.  With no icing, it's just 304 calories, 18 grams of fat, 32 grams of carbs (7.5 sugar and 1.4 grams of fiber).  Since it's still not healthy, where's the fun in that?