Sugar Cookies and Fudge

Valentine's Day isn't celebrated here in Brazil, but my husband and I thought we'd give some Valentine cookies and fudge to some of our friends and fellow ex-pats. I also thought it would be fun to have my son (age two and a bit) help with decorating a cookie or two for himself and a friend. I don't have a go-to sugar cookie recipe, so I was excited to find this one from Alton Brown. I usually trust his recipes, and his show is pretty awesome, so I gave it a whirl.

Let me just say this: sugar cookies are a pain. Refrigerate. Roll out, but don't overwork. Curse under your breath as you have clearly overworked the dough after not being able to roll it out because it was too refrigerated. All that, and I have yet to find a dough that tastes good (which didn't stop me from eating it). Sigh.

These turned out fine and were made downright awesome by the addition of my mom's buttercream frosting (beat a stick of butter, add about 1/4 bag powdered sugar, 1-2 T. milk, 1 t. or so vanilla. Beat. Add more powdered sugar, about another 1/4 of the bag, until you reach desired consistency. Add a little more milk if your frosting gets too stiff). I used red and a smidge of blue food coloring to make a nice pink frosting for our heart cookies. I used pink/white, chocolate, and star-shaped sprinkles, and my husband and I went to town decorating. My son insisted on placing each star by poking his finger into the frosting. We had fun, but sugar cookies will only happen once or twice a year.

By comparison, the fudge was ridiculously easy. I used the sweetened condensed milk version that doesn't require a candy thermometer or any real difficulty whatsoever. It was good, but a little firm for my taste. I'd like to try real fudge sometime too. My copy of The Joy of Cooking has one that seems doable. The fudge could have been adapted to have nuts inside or pretzels on top. You could also marble in some sweetened condensed milk before the fudge sets to give some visual interest. Seasonal sprinkles would be fun too.

Our friends enjoyed the cookies and fudge (and the Star Wars valentines we included), and we had a nice time decorating and spending time together. However, I'd like to try a softer fudge and only give cookies whose dough doesn't require refrigeration.

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Brazilian Recipes: Torta

Torta is delicious. It reminds me a little bit of a shepherd's pie, but with a bready layer instead of mashed potatoes. I found this recipe on the excellent blog, Eating Like a Brazilian and decided to give it a whirl shortly after moving to São Paulo. Happily, it doesn't require any particularly Brazilian ingredients, so my friends in the US should have no problems adapting it.

I followed the recipe pretty much as written the first time around. The more I've made it (another 4 or 5 times), the more I've played around with it. Leave out the green olives. Always. I really don't understand the Brazilian obsession with them. The blogger recommends thoroughly cooking the meat so there's very little juice left in the pan; I disagree. Because this is going in the oven too, I'd leave the meat a little underdone so it's not overdone when you serve. I'd also leave some of the juices (you could still drain off some of the fat if you want) so you have a more gravy-ish filling.

I threw in lots of green peppers, onions, and carrots this time around.

Mmmmm. Meat.

Shredded carrots are great (and a fantastic way to sneak in some more vegetables) in the meat filling. Corn from the US would be great, but Brazilian canned corn is tough and kind of gross. The mayo in the breading is wholly unnecessary, as is about half the oil. Definitely add the Parmesan cheese to the breading. You will not be sorry. Also, the whipped egg white isn't totally necessary, but your torta will look far more appetizing if you spread it over the top; it gives it a nice brown crustiness.

Before baking

After baking. So good.

 I like the mozzarella, but I'd love to try a more flavorful cheese sometime too. Extra sharp cheddar would be awesome, as would Swiss.

Variations:

• Add veggies to your filling: green or red peppers, mushrooms, hearts of palm (called palmitos here), shredded sweet potatoes, onions, or anything else that will hold up during baking
• Add brown gravy either to the filling or on top to serve
• Try different cheeses or even a mixture of various shredded cheeses. If you change the sliced cheese to cheddar, your torta will be a little more like a hamburger, especially if you add ketchup or mustard to serve.
• Your spices can change the whole meal. Try seasoning with basil, oregano, and a little rosemary and then serve with a spaghetti sauce for an Italian torta. Or use cumin and chili powder for a taco torta. Curry might be interesting too.
• Add some pepperoni for flavor and top with pizza sauce to serve
• Who says you have to use beef? Try it with chicken or sausage.

The world is your oyster here. What else could you do with this recipe?

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Marble Cake with Satin Icing

I follow Martha Stewart's boards, and sometimes they are really awesome. I saw her Chocolate-Vanilla Marble Cakes and decided to try it. It uses a homemade yellow cake batter, which was pretty good. I do not have cake flour on hand ever, so I used this substitute from Joy the Baker. You then divide the batter in half, and to one half add (already combined) 6 T. hot water and 1/2 c. cocoa powder and stir. This also tasted good.

Problems arose when I used my loaf pans. I have two largish Pyrex pans, and the recipe calls for four small (possibly metal) ones. I did the swirling far too many times and ended up with an interior of the cake that was less marbled than I wanted. If I had only used larger dollops fewer times, the effect would likely have been better. Because my pans were larger, I baked longer, which made sense. I only wish I had started checking my cakes a little sooner, as they were a little dry for my taste.

My husband and I had some friends over for dinner, and I had planned to serve this as dessert and thought it could use some sort of glaze or icing. I settled on this one from AllRecipes.com. It was thicker than I imagined and would be better on a Bundt cake as shown. I was hoping for a thinner glaze, but the taste was good. It also seemed to go a little grainy after I added the vanilla at the end.

My other beef with this cake was that it didn't stay good for very long. Those friends I mentioned brought dessert, so mine stayed on the counter. I was very good and didn't eat it, but when we went to serve it for dessert three days later, it was no longer edible. The taste was off...kind of...fermenty.

Bottom line:
I wouldn't mind trying it again, but maybe with a boxed yellow cake mix with the chocolate mixture added. The home-made batter and cake flour substitute was more than I really wanted to do that afternoon. I'd also choose a different glaze and start checking the cakes around 45 minutes, not an hour.

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What I Do Here

I try really hard to keep my Pinterest boards realistic. I currently live in São Paulo, Brazil, and there are just a lot of items I can't get here. Craft stores as we know them in the US don't exist, and neither does sour cream. Cream cheese is quite expensive, and don't even get me started on Cream of Whatever condensed soups. I live in a nice but old apartment, and putting nails in the cinder-block walls is out of the question, so most of the decorating ideas my friends pin are not going to happen while we live here. I know I'd spend way too much time on Pinterest if I pinned everything I liked just because I liked it, so I try to keep my pins restricted to things I actually think I could do, given my own circumstances.

I'm also the kind of person who likes to keep track of what she's done and how it turned out. This is why I love Goodreads.

So this blog is my attempt to account for what I've done, what changes I made or would make, whether I'd attempt it again or recommend it to my friends, etc. I plan on writing about projects, crafts, recipes, movies, and the other ideas I see pop on on my friends' boards. I'm not super crafty, even when I have access to American craft stores, so you're getting the perspective of a total amateur. I like to see this as a strength; if I can do it, anyone can.

Feel free to follow my boards, comment on what you see, and share the love.