Chicago Chocolate Tour

(i.e. the perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon downtown)

Last fall, Katie M. and I picked up some groupons for Chicago Chocolate Tours.  She had bought one extra and nicely offered it to Ruthie, who thought it would make a good story for her newest writing gig, food blogging for CBS Chicago.  So we spent about 3 hours on Sunday being led around the Magnificent Mile / Gold Coast area, tasting some amazing and interesting chocolates.

the piano praline chocolate was music to my taste buds

The first stop was at Teuscher Chocolates, in the 900 N. Michigan mall, where we were treated to champagne truffles which are as good as you would imagine.  After a taste at each place we were given a few minutes to make purchases, if we wished.  I couldn't help but buy a "piano praline" at Teuscher, which did please my palate, but I doubt I'd buy another one at around $4 a piece!

            We also stopped in at More Cupcakes, which has a food truck which I've seen in my neighborhood.  Next time I happen upon it I will have to stop and buy something because they were soooo good.
            My other favorite spot was Sarah's Pastries and Candies, where they let us sample two treats: the delights and the crunchy peanut butter bars.  I had to buy a few of the peanut butter bars to enjoy in the privacy of my own home.  I still have one waiting for me; perhaps when I'm done writing this . . . .
            Anyway, it was a lovely use of a Sunday afternoon, enhanced by our sundresses, I must say.

three happily chocolated ladies

Brownie Update

This post is a wee bit tardy, but I wanted to let you know how successful my Guinness brownies turned out last weekend.  All that is left of them at this point is the sweet memories.  And once I frosted them with some Bailey's frosting, all of that craziness from the oven was forgotten.

The recipe is one I found at this lovely lady's blog.  There was a lot of chocolate involved, and even though I had to get out a double boiler, it wasn't nearly as much trouble as I had expected.  And well worth any trouble I did go to.
The frosting recipe is one I tweaked from a recipe for Car Bomb Cupcakes, which, let's face it, was the same thing I ended up making, but in more portable brownie form.  It's basically a variation on the classic Buttercream Frosting recipe off of the Domino's Confectioner's Sugar box.  I'm putting it here with my variations (mainly: more liquid, less sugar - it was becoming very stiff)

Bailey's Frosting:
1/2 cup butter (again, it called for unsalted, but I say hey, if you're going to add salt later, why bother with bland butter?) at room temp please
~3 cups confectioner's sugar
1 pinch salt (yes, even with salted butter, I still add some more salt)
3 Tablespoon's Bailey's Irish Cream
1 Tablespoon milk


I always like to start with the butter and about 1 cup of sugar, and cream those together in the mixer on medium speed or so.  Then add liquids and rest of sugar in stages, tasting as you go (tasting often always yields best results, both for the frosting and your disposition).  Remember, unlike baking, where it's a science and you have to put it in the oven before you know how it'll turn out, frosting is like soup: what you taste is what you get.  So trust your eyes and tastebuds: if it's too dry, add more liquid, if it's too wet, add more sugar.  Basically the only amount I stick to is the butter, the rest are negotiable!

I decorated the whole pan with some green candy melt.  I had big plans for making it plaid, but it just turned into a criss-cross pattern.  Not as lovely as I would have liked, but once they were cut up into 2"X2" pieces, nobody seemed to care.
Overall, I give them a C for pub crawl transportability (still better than a cupcake) but an A for flavor.  Plus, it always impresses friends when you can whip a good snack out of your mom-sized purse.

It's Alive!

What's going on in my oven right now?  I am currently baking a batch of Guinness brownies, for St. Patty's festivities tomorrow (more on that later, depending on how they turn out) but I just checked on them and here's what I found happening:

a large, unsightly mound in my brownies?!
Judging by the batter, they are going to taste fabulous, but seriously.  What is happening?  Is it just the yeast?  I've made beer bread before, which of course rises in the middle, so maybe it's just something I've never noticed before.  But scary.

UPDATE: 5 minutes later.  I have just taken it out of the oven and the big bulge has now cracked on top and steam is pouring out.  It looks like a creepy old swamp man blowing smoke.  eek!  Will definitely frost these brownies.

Inedible Cupcakes and Incredibly Edible Chocolates

Last night I went down to the South Loop to take a chocolate-making class at Canady Le Chocolatiere.

I had bought a Groupon to take this class sometime last fall with two friends.  One of them used it right away (and I haven't forgiven her for it) but my other friend, Sarah, kindly waited to use it with me.  I was glad to have her there because there was a lot of info to absorb and a second set of ears was quite helpful.  I never knew how serious chocolate making is, although it shouldn't have surprised me!
           But the class was a great success and I have a lovely box of filled chocolates made by myself and the other students to enjoy over the next few days, depending on how long I can make myself wait to open it.  If I show some real restraint I may even save it to share with a friend.

           I had planned to send some of those chocolates off to a few friends who have birthdays in the next week, but my selfishness has gotten the better of me, so instead I woke up this morning and made them some turtles out of the mixed nuts and old hershey bars.  Well, they look cute anyway :-)
           Tomorrow afternoon I am going to my first ever baby shower (for parents who are my own generation anyway).   My friends Brian and Anaïs, who got married last April (you may recall, I made them a quilt for their wedding) moved out to Las Vegas for work in the fall, so I haven't seen them since September.  I didn't even know Anaïs was pregnant when she left, so it will be very exciting to see her tomorrow.

          I am a very bad guest at weddings and showers because I don't like to buy things from the gift registry.  I would much rather make them something, which often turns out to be not as pretty as I had pictured in my mind.  This project was no different!  I made some "cupcakes" out of receiving blankets and onesies, inspired by this post I found online.  Not being a big coffee drinker, my coffee-maker is teeny tiny, so my coffee filters were not the full-sized ones I needed for this project, so I made do with some parchment paper and scallop-edged scissors.

           I found this sweet guy, Mumble Billie Bear, at Anthropologie last week.  I brought him home, put him on my dining table, and then he started helping me with my homework.  I thought for a while that maybe I shouldn't give him away.  He looked at me with his kind of sad eyes like he wasn't sure I should give him away either, but after we picked out a fitting ribbon to tie around his neck, he looks more excited for the party.  I think that Baby Girl Caccamo will love her new, very soft bear.  Hopefully I will get to visit him sometime.

Decidedly Domestic Sunday

            Thanks to it being a not-very-sunny Sunday, I woke up this morning and didn't feel like getting out of bed at all.  Instead, I stayed in bed reading for a while and finished the first few chapters of my next book club book, Jeffrey Steingarten's The Man Who Ate Everything.  The first chapter was all about figuring out the perfect bread recipe, and as the morning wore on I found myself craving some fresh-baked carbohydrates.

              Luckily I have all the necessary bread-baking ingredients on hand at all times, so I was able to whip up a few loaves without much effort (thanks to my kitchen-aid mixer) and in no time (minus the few hours it had to rise - see above) I was snacking on my hot, whole wheat bread (see right).  For dinner, I will supplement it with some chicken soup that I made on Tuesday (sans recipe - for the first time).

I also had plenty of time to work on my quilt this afternoon.  I spent a few hours piecing together another 1/3 of it (see my cabin-fever post from the blizzard a few weeks ago).  I have 2 baby showers coming up in March and for about 5 minutes I thought I might put some baby quilts together, so I was trying to clear off the quilt wall so that I could lay them out, but I have decided that would probably be crazy of me (although that hasn't always stopped me in the past).  Instead, I just slowed down and enjoyed my sewing for the afternoon, even though I broke a sewing needle half-way through.  Anyway, it's really coming together.

Cupcake Bowl, 2011

This past Sunday was the Superbowl across the country, and the third annual Cupcake Bowl at my house.  Friends brought cupcakes from their kitchens (and one professional bakery) all over the city (well, mostly north side) to share and enjoy while watching the big game.
            This year, I made lemon coconut cupcakes, which were modeled after the scrumptious cupcake I had from my visit to Sprinkles last month.  I have to admit I've had a stomach-ache ever since, so I haven't gotten a chance to try every cupcake yet, so I'm not going to mention names or flavors until I can be a better, more thorough judge :-)

            My old friend Jenny, who you, dear readers, have not heard much from lately, came back from her home in Utah with a belated birthday gift for our friend Katy, a set of Lincoln Log party favors. Katy kindly shared a set with me and they quickly became the hit of the party (at least amongst the girls spending the whole evening in the kitchen).
            Mind you, there were boys at this party as well, but they were more interested in the game, and betting on everything imaginable, than cupcakes and party favors, so I will leave you with this evidence of all the females present.  It's a pretty good looking group, I think.

Saturday afternoon cookies

In a few hours, I'm headed down to Old Town for an afternoon of Trivia with my Colgate Chicago Alumni group.  Since I rarely like to go to a party empty handed, and I haven't had much of an opportunity to bake recently, I decided to bake some cookies to bring with me.  Actually, I have baked so rarely recently that I didn't even realize I had only 1/2 stick of butter in the refrigerator, with no back-up in the freezer.  Unprecedented!

So the cookies I chose for this afternoon are potato chip cookies, from an old issue of Real Simple Magazine.  You may remember that I made these cookies last Halloween for the kids in my building.  I found them to be crumbly, so today I tweaked the recipe a bit and am pretty happy with the results so far.  They're still a bit crumbly, so I may try some more egg next time, but for now, here's the new recipe:

1 cup butter at room temp.  (the original recipe calls for unsalted, but I'm a salty gal . . . )
1/2 cup granulated sugar (extra, if you want to dust the cookies with it)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 egg
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
3/4 cup potato chips, crushed (extra, if you want to dust the cookies with it)
1/2 cup pecans, chopped

Heat oven to 375.  Cream the butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer on high speed.  Then add vanilla on medium speed.  Add the egg, flour and cinnamon.  Beat on low/medium speed until incorporated, then fold in potato chips and pecans.  Form into 1 inch balls, then dip in either sugar or more potato chips (today I used potato chips, because I'm taking them to a bar, so I want them to be saltier than sweet).  Place on parchment 2 inches apart and press with a flat-bottomed glass.  Bake until the edges are a little golden brown, 13-14 minutes, depending on your baking sheets.  Let cool on sheets for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire racks.  Yield: about 3 dozen.

Thanks to Real Simple for the original recipe, which I have loved enough to want to try to make it better :-)

Perils of Cupcakes

On Tuesday night, my foodie partner-in-crime Ruthie and I had a real treat.  We met for dinner at the Soupbox on Chicago Ave.  I've eaten at the Lakeview location many times, and of course this was just as good, with a few more tables.
Then we made our chilly way over to Sprinkles, where they were having a small party, I guess you could call it, to introduce a new cupcake flavor: German Chocolate (officially available today).  Now I'm not a German Chocolate fan in general, but I have to say this was a very. good. cupcake.

            What made it even better, and what Ruthie and I hadn't known before showing up, was that everyone on "the list" would get to take home a box of 4 cupcakes (one German Chocolate, and 3 others, of our choice).  Clockwise from the top left, my cupcake choices were: Milk Chocolate/choc. frosting (simple I know), Lemon Coconut (really good!), Vanilla/choc. frosting (even simpler, I know), and finally German Chocolate.  Here's what I realized, 3 days later, having finished all the cupcakes:
The best thing about being single is: if you get a box of free cupcakes, you don't have to share them with anyone.
The worst thing about being single is: if you get a box of free cupcakes, you'll eat them all yourself.
Oh, sweet gluttony.

Gingerbread Houses, of a sort

I've been meaning to blog for a while, and believe me I've had lots of interesting things to write about, but I've been too busy to write!  Worse things could happen, I know.
             Anyway, what I'll write about in this quick post is about a quick little thank-you gift I made the other day for my Architecture History professor, who is writing some grad school recommendations for me.  In the very spirit of our class, I made my traditional gingerbread cookies with buttercream frosting, which I've been giving as holiday gifts since grade school, with a bit of an architectural twist.
            A few weeks ago I bought house cookie-cutters - to cut walls and a roof for a gingerbread house.  I haven't made a 3-D house yet, but I used them this week to make some facades.

I made a gingerbread Frank Lloyd Wright Home (minus the studio):

A gingerbread Farnsworth House, by Mies Van Der Rohe:

and a gingerbread AT&T Building (now the Sony Center), by Philip Johnson:

I hope that the cookies look this good when he opens the box, but I highly doubt they will since they got jostled some on the train ride downtown, which, by the way, was on the CTA holiday express.  I wish I had had my camera with me (I got this pic from the internet) for that magical train ride (ehhhh) but I will have the visual memory forever.

Cupcake mania on a Sunday afternoon

A while ago my friend Brittany and I signed up to take a cupcake decorating class this weekend.  If I had known I would be having a physics test the following day (which I should be studying for right now instead of writing this post!) I may not have planned it.  Nevertheless, the 2 hour class was a sweet study break.
            The class was run by Give me Some Sugar, taught by a lady who seems to split her time between a couple different bakeries, giving classes, and offering private classes in people's homes (she'll even clean up your kitchen afterward).

            We started by making cake balls, which are just balls of crumbled cake mixed (by our own hands) with some buttercream frosting, then chilled in the fridge for about a half hour.  Here's Brittany, getting her hands right in there and mixing things up.

            We got to dip them in multi-colored candy melts, and could even put them on lollipop sticks to make them look like lollipops.  This was my first cake-ball experience and I was not bowled over, but I could be talked into giving them a second try.  Even though most of mine didn't look as cute as I wanted them to, they tasted just fine.

            We each had 6 cupcakes to decorate however we wanted.  There were 3 little girls in the class who went pretty crazy with the frosting and sprinkles especially.  I wish I had gotten a picture of some of those cupcakes.  Brittany's and mine were a little more subdued.  I was taking my sweet time with some of them, and was actually the last person to finish frosting my cakes.

            I experimented with a basket-weave, which I had never tried before.

            Brittany and I each made a plaid cupcake (mine is on the right).
            We also got to try out some fondant, which Brittany and I agreed doesn't taste that good, but I'm definitely going to decorate with it again, and hopefully soon!

             The best (or worst) part of the whole class was that we each got to take home our cupcakes and cake-balls, so I've got about a week of desserts in my fridge.  Unless someone wants to come over and help me eat them!

Halloween on Racine Avenue

Now, I live in a city, so trick-or-treating isn't as usual around here.  Besides, I'm not usually home when trick-or-treaters would be coming by, so last year I put together little bags of candy for the 5 kids in my building.

             This year I'm going to treat their parents as well (and maybe the kids not so much).  I'm going to give each apartment a little bag of the pumpkin fudge (kids probably won't like it) and some potato-chip and pecan cookies I made, frosted lovingly with maple frosting.  Mmmmmmmm.
            The cookies are made from a recipe I found in Real Simple a few years ago.  They're very yummy but also very crumbly.  If I ever want to make shapes with them again I'm going to experiment with using some egg to hopefully bind them together (any experimental bakers out there are welcome to make suggestions!)

           I've also put up a few decorations in my place - some black paper bugs on the windows (thanks Martha!).  I thought nobody would notice, but friends have confirmed they did notice them, even  though my place is on the 3rd floor.  I have a little funkin I carved in my family room - no big deal.  I also have a Halloween wreath on my front door, which gets a little better each year.  This year I supplemented it with a few of those window bugs.  And thanks to one of my neighbors (I don't know which one) I have some candy in my wreath as well.  Score!

            I'll leave you with one last Halloween cookie - he's a little messy, but he's my favorite.  A little Dracula, with blood on his hands, and on his fangs.

Sunday Pumpkin Party

After I got home from drawing class today, my friend Katie came over for some help (read: use of my sewing machine) putting together her Halloween costume.  She was making a red polka dot skirt for a Minnie Mouse costume and it's looking like it'll be a good costume.  I can't wait to see some pictures next weekend.

            After we were done sewing, we decided to do some baking.  I had a can of pumpkin puree left from last year and we figured we would make some pumpkin apple bread.  While that was in the oven for an hour, we got a little antsy and started a batch of pumpkin walnut fudge as well.  After some long discussion as to what the "soft ball stage" entails, we got it all figured out and ended up with a nice batch of fudge.

            I haven't cut into it yet, but everything from the testing spoon was wonderful.

Hi! Monkey! continued

I'm getting ready for a long day of St. Patty's-ing tomorrow.  As we have for the past few years, we're heading down to our friend Jon's apartment, which overlooks the Chicago River, to catch a glimpse of the river being dyed green.  It's a great yearly affair, with bagels and beer.

I am contributing a snack this year of Lucky Charms treats.  I basically followed a regular Rice Krispy treat recipe, added some green food dye to the melted marshmallows before adding the cereal, then used Lucky Charms instead of Krispies (obviously).  I followed a normal recipe, but I wish I had found these lovely step-by-step set of instructions before I made my treat!
I should look for my pipe cleaners, because Hi Monkey also has a nice, easy St. Patty's day craft.