Red . . . maybe more pink

I tried my hand at Red Velvet Cupcakes this past Tuesday evening and while I was rather unimpressed by the results, my cast thought they were delightful - even better than the German Chocolate ones I had made previously - doubtful - but that is what they claimed. I was so underwhelmed that I didn't even take pictures but I figure I will share the recipe with you any way just in case you want to try this Southern United States delicacy. Mine weren't very red but more of a salmon pink kind of color. The frosting was fantastic - probably the best part of the whole situation - so fantastic that I think I would make it to frost the Cinnamon Rolls I made.
In other news the play is progressing quite well. A week from tonight we will have an audience which means on Sunday we move up to our stage/set and begin "tech." We have been having a really good time in rehearsals, at times laughing so hard my sides hurt. There is such great experience in the room I find myself hanging on every word when they start to tell stories. Our Director Warner Shook has directed world premiers of some pretty famous plays - Angels In America and The Kentucky Cycle - to name a few and one of our actors: Matthew Arkin has experienced a world in TV and Film that not many have. Matt often tells stories about being on set when his father (Alan Arkin) was filming or working on projects - he remembers once sitting on Audrey Hepburn's lap while holding an ice pack to her shin because she banged it on something while rehearsing or the other day he told us about the time he and his brother were exploring a sound stage that was this big moon scape and only years later as an adult realized it was part of the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. I just sit and try to absorb as much as possible. The rest of our cast is wonderful too - John Kapelos, Nike Doukas, and Brett Ryback all have their own stories as well. We finished yesterdays rehearsal at the Westin Bar (A fancy hotel right next to the theatre that features a bar in the entrance) for a drink to finish out our day.
I am counting down the days until company starts arriving too. A good friend from college arrives on Monday and will be around for almost a week and then after that my DAD gets to come visit and then after that my MOM will be here AND then I will very much be on the down hill side of my time at SCR. It is crazy how time flies. But first the recipe for Red Velvet Cupcakes:

RED VELVET CUPCAKES


Ingredients

• For the cupcakes:
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cubed and softened
• 1 3/4 cups sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup (2 oz) red food coloring (I was a little short of this which is probably why mine were more pink than red)
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 cups cake flour (I used the internet to find a substitute because I did not have cake flour on hand)
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1 Tbsp white vinegar
• For the frosting:
• 8 oz cream cheese (I left mine on the counter while I mixed up the cupcakes to soften it a bit)
• 5 Tbsp butter, softened
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar (I used 1 1/12 cups of powdered sugar for a lighter frosting)

Instructions

1. *To make the cupcakes:
2. Preheat oven to 350. Line muffin tin with baking liners or grease and flour the muffing cups.
3. Cream butter and sugar on medium-high for two minutes. Mix in one egg at a time, beating after each addition.
4. Turn mixer off and add food coloring and cocoa powder to bowl. Turn on low until just incorporated and then beat on medium for 4 minutes.
5. Sift together the flours, salt, and baking soda and set aside. Stir buttermilk and vanilla together. Add dry ingredients to the bowl in three batches, alternately with the buttermilk in two batches, starting and ending with the dry ingredients. Beat on medium until just combined. Add sour cream and vinegar and beat on low until combined.
6. Fill muffin cups 3/4 full and bake for 25-35 minutes until the cupcakes test done with a toothpick. Let cool in the pan for 5 minutes and then cool completely on a rack.
7. *To make the frosting:
8. Cream cream cheese, butter, and vanilla on med-high speed. Sift the powdered sugar after measuring.
9. Add the powdered sugar to the bowl in batches, beating on low until just combined and then beating on high until desired consistency is reached.
10. For a stiffer icing, add more powdered sugar.

Buttermilk Cinnamon Rolls

I have never made Cinnamon Rolls from scratch - there is something so easy and satisfying about popping open a can provided by Pillsbury, laying the rolls out on a baking sheet and then frosting them with the gooey sugary frosting that conveniently comes in the can - PLUS you could lick the lid of the frosting. In this particular instance I was still trying to use up the Buttermilk and our director had mentioned he like sweet breads, like cinnamon bread so I thought these might go over well and did they ever. The following is a not super easy but also not terribly complicated recipe for 

Buttermilk Cinnamon Rolls

INGREDIENTS:

1 Tbs Active Dry Yeast or 2 packages of Active Dry Yeast

1/4 Cup Warm Water

1 1/2 Cups Buttermilk

1/2 Cup Vegetable Oil

4 1/2 Cups All-Purpose Flour

1 tsp Salt

1/2 tsp Baking Soda

1/2 cup Butter, melted

1 1/4 cups Brown Sugar

1 1/2 tsps. Ground Cinnamon

DIRECTIONS:

 1. In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes. In a small saucepan, heat the buttermilk until warm to the touch.

2. Pour the buttermilk and oil into the yeast mixture; mix well. Combine the flour, salt and baking soda. Stir the flour mixture into the liquid 1 cup at a time, until a soft dough forms. Turn dough out onto a lightly (my dough was pretty sticky so I was very generous with flouring my surface) floured surface and knead 20 times. Cover and let rest for 15 minutes. In a small bowl, stir together the butter, brown sugar and cinnamon.

3. On a lightly floured surface, roll dough out into a large rectangle. Spread the brown sugar and butter mixture over the dough, roll up into a log and pinch the seam to seal. Slice into 1 inch pieces and place cut side up in a lightly greased 10x15 baking pan(mine fit nicely in a 9x13 cake pan). Cover and let rise 30 minutes or cover and refrigerate overnight (I covered and refrigerated overnight). If baking immediately, preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).

4. Take out of refrigerator and let rise for an additional hour to hour and a half. Bake in preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes, until golden brown. Let stand for 2 to 3 minutes before serving.

I then made a cinnamon butter that you could put on the rolls as an option instead of frosting them. The recipe for this came from Martha Stewart but I tweaked it because I couldn't get it to turn into anything worth eating. My recipe is as follows

CINNAMON HONEY BUTTER

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 1/4 cup confectioners' sugar
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
• 2-3 tablespoons honey
• 2-3 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 
  
• DIRECTIONS:
• In a medium bowl, beat confectioners' sugar, unsalted butter, honey, and ground cinnamon until smooth, 4 to 5 minutes. Should be a thicker consistency - the second day I heated the frosting to soften it and it turned into a nice glaze.
• 
  
• 

Plum Tart

This was so easy to make and tasted so delicious!

A Simple Plum Tart

INGREDIENTS:

pie crust or 1 ready-to-use refrigerated pie crust (1/2 of 14.1-oz. pkg.)

1

oz. (1/2 of 8-oz. pkg.) PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, softened

4

plums (3/4 lb.), sliced (I ended up using about 4 and a half plums)

3

cup granulated sugar (used less than half of this because I prefer sour to sweet)

1/4

Tbsp. flour

2

    1    tsp. cinnamon (I used closer to 2 tsp.)

DIRECTIONS:

HEAT oven to 450ºF.

LINE 10-inch pie plate with pie crust. Carefully spread cream cheese into 6-inch circle on center of crust.

TOSS plums with granulated sugar and flour; place over cream cheese. Gently fold edge of crust about 2 inches over plums, leaving center uncovered; sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.

BAKE 25 min. or until crust is golden brown and fruit juices are bubbly. 

SERVE warm out of the oven with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

*Having made this recipe I think I will probably omit the cream cheese the next time I make this. I have to admit the cream cheese tasted a little odd when paired with  the ice cream. 

Thanks to the Buttermilk . . .

I spent a lot of Monday, my day off, baking and doing "around the house" type of activities. I did manage to squeeze in an hour at the pool once the sun finally decided to show its face. Mondays have turned into cooking/baking days because when I'm in rehearsals it is nice to come home at 7:30 in the evening and have something I can heat up and eat when I walk in the door. Yesterdays mission was to find recipes to use up Buttermilk. Why is it you can only purchase the one size of buttermilk? It seems like most recipes only call for a cup or less of it so you end up with almost a full carton sitting in your refrigerator getting old and taking up space. Maybe the buttermilk makers should invest in some smaller cartons. As a result of having way to much buttermilk on my hands from the baking of cupcakes last week I started looking for recipes online to use up the left over buttermilk - I've been trying really hard to not let things go moldy down here in California and so far I've only lost 2 tomatoes (separate incidents), a peach and an avocado. While on my search for potential recipes I happened across this blog/site - Pink of Perfection: A Thrifty Girls Guide to the Good Life - that has a whole list of potential tasty buttermilk creations. AND I AM the PERFECT example of a "thrifty girl" (thanks mom!). I went through the list a few times but got off track when I realized I also had a few other things in my cupboard that needed to be used. Surprisingly a quick google search lead me to a recipe for Avocado Bread - I know! Right! Avocado Bread - sounds crazy but it actually turned out pretty yummy. The recipe is fairly simple AND uses buttermilk.

EASY AVOCADO BREAD

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 50 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour

Makes one loaf

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup sugar

1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 large egg

1/2 cup mashed avocado (1 medium avocado)

1/2 cup buttermilk

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Generously grease a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan. 

Combine the flour, sugar, soda, baking powder and salt in a large mixing bowl. Whisk to blend thoroughly. 

In a separate bowl, beat together the egg and avocado. Stir in the buttermilk. Add to the dry ingredients and blend well.

Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour or until a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean. (I covered mine with tinfoil once the top started to get brown so it wouldn't burn and then uncovered for the last 5 minutes of baking.)

It reminds me of banana bread but not as sweet with a hint of something - if you didn't know it was avocado bread it would probably be hard to guess what the secret ingredient was. I prefer mine warmed - like it came out of the oven with a little bit of butter. I really expected it to be more green, like it were baked in the Emerald City but that just wasn't so.

I also baked a plum tart (who knew plums made good tarts?) and tonight finished off the buttermilk with some homemade cinnamon rolls - they will baked in the morning so I'll let you know how they turn out.

Delicious!

Over the past week or so I've had the opportunity to try out some new recipes. I started the week off baking to celebrate a birthday of one of the members of the cast of my current play. The stage manager, director and I decided we were more of a chocolate kind of cast so I made these:

Known as German Chocolate Cupcakes these babies are AMAZING! Simply Delicious. Just ask the cast of "The Prince of Atlantis." After tasting I got a lot of "these are so good," "wows!" and one of even said "There are no words . . ." so if you'd like try your hand at such tastiness, the recipe originally found here (along with a few other recipes I'd like to try) is as follows:

Chocolate Cake:

1 box Devil’s Food Cake Mix

3 eggs

½ cup oil

1 teaspoon vanilla extract (plus what spills over the edge)

¾ cup buttermilk

1 cup sour cream (if there was a secret ingredient, this might be it)

German Chocolate Frosting:

1 cup evaporated milk

1 cup sugar

3 egg yolks, lightly beaten

1/2 cup butter (melted)

1 ½ teaspoon vanilla extract (plus what spills over the edge)

1 ½ cup flaked coconut

Chocolate Buttercream:

4 ounces cream cheese

½ cup butter

2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa

3 cups powdered sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 tablespoon milk or cream (if needed - I added an additional 1 tablespoon)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line two muffin tins with 24 cupcake liners.

2. In a large bowl, gently whisk until combined oil, eggs and vanilla extract.

3. Mix in about 1/3 of the cake mix and stir until combined.

4. Add Buttermilk and stir until combined.

5. Add another third of the cake mix.

6. Add sour cream, then final third of cake mix.

7. Fill cupcake liners ¾ full and bake for 18-22 minutes or until an inserted knife comes out clean. Let cupcakes cool completely before frosting.

8. German Chocolate Frosting: On medium heat in a sauce pan, constantly stir evaporated milk, sugar, egg yolks and butter until thickened. (Basically, until it boils plus 2 or 3 minutes.) Stir in vanilla extract and coconut. Let cool. (I cooled mine overnight in the refrigerator and made the Buttercream the next morning) 

9. Chocolate Buttercream: Beat cream cheese and butter for 4 minutes. Add cocoa, powdered sugar and vanilla extract. Let beat for 3 minutes. If it is too thick, add milk (which I did). If it is too thin, add powdered sugar. Or if it is not dark enough, add more cocoa (I did this too because I wanted a real chocolatey flavor).

10. Pipe Chocolate Buttercream around the edge of the cupcakes to create a well, and fill with cooled German Chocolate Frosting.

SHARE & ENJOY!

Staples Center Experience

Wednesday evening I was lucky enough to get to go to the Timberwolves vs. Lakers NBA game. My roommate was able to get us some pretty nice tickets from a friend of hers who even threw in two passes to the Lexus Lounge - a fancy "members only" type lounge that you have to have tickets to get into.

Arriving at the Staples Center - we got lucky and found a parking spot less than 2 blocks away ($15 but I didn't have to buy anything else that night so I figured I could manage)

Our tickets - If you look really close you can see the VIP status on the lower right corner of the game ticket

Walking to our seats - the stadium was packed, all the way up to the nose bleed seats - the ones that are stacked so much on top of each other that if you slipped you'd probably fall all the way down to the court.

The view from Premier Seating Section 6 Row 3 seat 12

RICKY RUBBBBIOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! (the announcer just didn't do it justice - I was wishing I had the Minnesota announcers on radio feed or something)

Half time - we headed to the lounge

This place was pretty nice. We walked in and were greeted by some winery that was doing a wine tasting so we each had a glass of wine - I actually finished my glass, a rarity if you know anything about me and my affinity for the finer grapes - and then moved on to the dessert tables. There were mini cheesecakes, tarts, a candy bar with all kinds of m&m's, skittles, gummy bears etc., an ice cream bar, a coffee cart, all kinds of hors-devours (why is that word so hard to spell?)

It was pretty great. We hung out on the patio for a few minutes which is where the above picture was taken and then headed back into the game.

I was super unimpressed by the L.A. fan base, more than half had left by the middle of the 3rd quarter and at that point MN was still well with in recovering distance. It was certainly interesting being one of the few MN supporters - there was a guy in the row behind us who also cheered green and blue and we certainly had a good time holding our own against the Laker fans. It was probably good that MN lost, I'm not sure I would have walked out alive if they had won. LA fans are sore losers even when they are winning. It was super fun to see a game live. The whole experience reminded me of a circus. The Laker Girls danced about 8 times in 8 different outfits they tried to give money away at least 2 times, maybe 3 and there was some sort of video game race car race happening on the big screen at one point. Kind of makes me think of the spectacle shows you might have seen at the Colosseum in Rome. When the game finished we didn't have much trouble getting back to our car because a majority of the people around had already left. I had so much fun I'd like to go again, not sure that will happen with my show schedule but if the opportunity arose I definitely wouldn't say no.

GO TIMBERWOLVES!!!

Timberwolves in L.A.

A preview of my upcoming post . . .