Refreshing Blackberry Mojitos

The days of summer are still getting longer, and the weather outside is slowly warming up. Every time I look, my container garden surprises me with more sprouts and seedling. The temperatures here are set to be around 20C and mostly sunny every day - pretty nice weather, I'd say! Yesterday just seemed like the perfect day for a refreshing beverage - we got home from after-dinner shopping and I knew exactly what I was going to make with my pretty new Apple Mint plant: Mojitos. And just yesterday morning, I saw this recipe from Just Putzing Around the Kitchen on Pinterest. Have I mentioned how much I love Pinterest? No? Well its a lot. Anyway, getting back to the beverages... I had some blackberries in my fridge. I often buy blackberries when we go to Costco, especially if they're a really good price. I don't know why. I don't particularly love fresh blackberries... I find the white part in the middle to be bitter and pithy, and the fruits themselves to be not particularly juicy or flavourful, especially when compared to my favourite raspberry. These mojitos were a fantastic use of those blackberries! A little bit sweet, a little bit tart, and a little bit of sad because they used up the rest of our delicious Flor de Cana grand reserve (7 year). That's something else I can't help buying... if we're in our favourite liquor mart, and there is liquor that is above the quality we normally purchase (which is usually middle-shelf to begin with, as we're kind of liquor snobs). Liquor is quite a bit more expensive here than it is in the US, so when we come across an interesting or upper-shelf bottle of liquor for a non-exorbitant price (usually at our local SOLO liquor) we snap it up. And its usually great, like this Flor de Cana rum was. Anyway, its all gone now (sadface) leaving me without any rum and thus no way to make more of these delicious mojitos! On the plus side, that means an exciting trip to SOLO tonight - I wonder what interesting things they'll have for us today? Blackberry Mojitos

Pet Peeves and C4 Results

Anyone else out there have pet peeves related to their hobbies? One of my friends is irritated by people that scrapbook better than she does. Does that count? I don't know. I know I have lots of pet peeves when it comes to baking.

1. Calling something "homemade" when its made from a boxed cake/cookie/brownie/muffin mix with slight alterations to the added ingredients. I get it, purchased mixes are made at home, but that is totally not the same thing as homemade!

2. The obsession with calorie-wise or low-fat baked goods. If I am making a cake, you bet your ass I'm going to be using butter. The only exception to this is things that are also considered breakfast foods (muffins, I'm looking at you). It is totally acceptable to have a low-fat muffin... as long as it still tastes yummy, and not like cardboard.

3. Light butter. Seriously. What the heck is this? HButter should only ever contain a maximum of 2 ingredients: cream, salt, in that order. The list of ingredients in "light" butter should be terrifying to anyone trying to eat healthfully, and if you're really trying to be health-conscious you should limit your butter intake anyway, and find a recipe that doesn't require it. Not that I would ever suggest anyone to restrict anything as delicious as butter...

Speaking of butter, I sent through 5.5 lbs of it during the course of my C4 study. That doesn't sound like a lot, but it made close to 600 cookies. Some were small, some were not so small. All were edible, but some were more delicious than others. The average rating out of 10 was 6.24 (Min 4.5, Max 7.7). The winner? This recipe from the NY Times. Its a pain in the butt to make though, and requires at least 24, and preferably 48, hours for the dough to rest before baking. The second place recipe is less finicky, and scored very well. Funny enough, its my go-to recipe for chocolate chip cookies, so I think in the future I will just stick with it!

Microwave Popcorn, without the bag!

Last year for Christmas, I made everyone I knew caramel corn, peppermint bark, and homemade nuts and bolts. The caramel corn recipe that I used called for bags of microwave popcorn, which I thought was ridiculous. Not only is microwave popcorn expensive, but imagine all the extra chemicals and calories that are totally unnecessary! After a quick google, I discovered that it was easy to microwave your own popcorn, but I needed at least 10 quarts of popcorn, so I wasn't about to do it one lunch-bag at a time. After a bit of trial and error, I discovered that using a large, glass or ceramic mixing bowl, and a microwave plate cover (which I got from the dollar store) worked perfectly! It works best with a bowl large enough for the microwave cover to fit completely inside, so its resting on the bottom of the bowl (at least to start). I initially tried a plate over the top of the bowl, but I found that the popcorn popped better when it was more closely enclosed. Plus, the plate was too heavy to be pushed up by the popcorn.

Anyway, at the family gift exchange last year, I got a home popcorn kit. It had a bottle of popping corn, some seasonings, and a microwave popper! Its basically a melanine bowl with a loose-fitting plastic lid (sound familiar?). I decided to try it out this year, and what I found is that it doesn't pop popcorn any better than my initial set up. So, I suggest if you want to make microwave popcorn for yourself, without the added chemicals, etc. Just buy a $1 microwave cover and use the heavy, microwave-safe mixing bowls you already have!

C4 Week 1

Softening butter is difficult when you don't have a working furnace and it is -5C outside. Thankfully we have a fireplace and access to free firewood! Oh, and having the oven on for several hours doesn't hurt either.

Today marks the start of my C4 study. I have 14 recipes, each of which has been assigned a number 1-14 so that I could use Random.org to randomly select which recipes are baked each week.. I am baking two recipes per week, from now until December 21. I sent out e-mails to my friends, family, and skating teammates and currently have 16 respondents plus myself (I'm eliminating myself from analysis because I will have bias because I know which cookies are which). Final results won't be available until the New Year because my sister is taking samples of each recipe to two of her former roommates in Germany (I am going to freeze the cookies for them, so each cookie should still test the same because they will have all been frozen).

I am also keeping a detailed research journal, in true scientific fashion. I am also taking photos of the cookies in dough form and after they have been baked.

The original list of recipes I had was 21 strong, but some of the recipes were not different enough for me; I actually did an ingredient ratio comparison to pick recipes that differed the most. Over the next 7 weeks I will be testing:

Ad Hoc Chocolate Chip Cookies
Anna Olsen's Chocolate Chip Cookies
The Best Cookies
Big Fat Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
Brown Sugar Chocolate Chip Cookies
Chocolate & Zucchini's Chocolate Chip Cookies
Chocolate Chunk and Vanilla Bean Cookies
Giant Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
Hummingbird Bakery's Chocolate Chip Cookies
New York Time's Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe
Pudding Cookies
Skinny Chocolate Chip Cookies
Smitten Kitchen's Favourite Chocolate Chip Cookies
Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

I'm really looking forward to it, are you?

Uh-oh...

I just volunteered to make a cake for my Aunt's 50th birthday.

For which relatives whom I rarely see are coming from half-way across the country.

And I have no idea how many people will actually be there.

Or what day the party actually is (I know its a day next weekend).

What have I gotten myself into!?

C4 Methodology

For those of you not in the know, C4 is the abbreviation I've started using for the Chocolate Chip Cookie Comparison Study.

The renovations on my new place have taken a lot longer than was originally calculated, but isn't that always the way? As a result, I won't be able to start my study until next week at the very earliest, but it will probably be sometime after Thanksgiving which is October 10 here in Canada, when the harvest is almost over.

In preparation for that exciting day when the first batch of cookies come out of the oven warm and gooey, I've come up with a few items that I should share, based on the methodology. I might actually write up a technical report of some type (because I am so super cool like that), and ask my boss the Vice Dean of Research to read it over, just to see the look on his face.

Excitement

I've been really excited lately.

Not about any one thing in particular, but about a lot of things.

I'm excited to move in to my new condo once the bathroom (and painting) is finished. I'm excited to have my very own kitchen.

I'm excited about the trip to Las Vegas we're taking. We leave on Wednesday! I can't wait to buy new gadgets and utensils and cookwear to stock my new kitchen. I'm especially anxious to get to the Williams-Sonoma outlet in the Prim Outlet Mall. Last time I was there, I bought a gorgeous large royal blue serving bowl by Emile Henry - for $5 (regular retail $62!).

I'm excited to cook meals for myself and Patrick. I'm excited for Meatless Mondays! Don't get me wrong, I love bacon and steak just as much as the next small-town girl, but after nearly a year of eating nothing but meat-and-potatoes kind of meals, it will be nice to at least have the option of something lighter. Something more exotic, and with less heavy cream... (Seriously, I have never seen anyone go through heavy cream like Patrick's grandmother. I'm pretty sure she goes through more than a gallon a month, and that's not including the stuff she whips to put on dessert a couple times a week!)

I'm excited to start skating after the long summer break, and I'm excited to start bowling with Patrick and our couple friends. It's something we can do together to spend time together without being stuck at home or spending lots of money. And, maybe we'll make new friends too, since Patrick's only ever bowled in youth leagues until this year.

Lots of exciting things are happening, I just hope life continues on this way for a while, with lots for me to look forward to!

- Ginger

P.S. The cookie comparison study will be starting once we are back from Vegas, probably in early October. Any locals (Edmonton and Area) that are interested should leave me a comment!