Browned Butter, why do you taste so good?

I made Martha Stewart's Brown Sugar Pound Cakes.... the recipe was pretty easy, no shortage of eggs and butter as usual. They baked into perfect little mounds and smelled delicious. When I was making the frosting... that's a whole different story!

It started with browning butter. If you've never browned butter (like me) be forewarned! I put it on the stove, stick in the pan, the recipe said medium flames. I was busy so I opted for a rather low medium. I walk off, expecting it to take the recommended 10 minutes, la la la laundry... then J says um... I think I smell something burning. OMG!!!! I rush to the stove to find smoke billowing up from my little pan. Eek! What to do... I look at it, it's a black liquid and it's on the verge of setting off my loud, annoying smoke detectors! I take it off the stove, kill the burner and it starts "sizzling" which means it's hitting the hot parts of the pan and I get it to the sink, turn on the water, water meets butter, butter jumps ship! It sprays EVERYWHERE. No joke, I was covered, my counter tops, the floor, the sink, you name it! I have little burn marks to prove it. What's the moral of my story? Some people burn water, I burn butter.

After what feels like my millionth frosting disaster, I washed the pan, put another stick of butter in it, cleaned and cleaned while it melted and watched that puppy like a hawk! I am so so so glad that I did. This is the most amazing frosting I have ever tasted. No joke, this is my absolute, all time favorite cupcake now. My mouth is watering just typing about it! ugh! I took it to work for more rave reviews. If you haven't had browned butter, go to your kitchen, go now... and send me one!

Recipe from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes

MS S'Mores Cupcakes

These really do taste like S'Mores! The cupcake part is very graham crackerish and then the chocolate topped with Marshmallow that I clearly did not whip long enough was delicious. They were devoured at the office and now people want to know when they can expect my next baking adventure.

MS Strawberry Cupcakes with Swiss Meringue Buttercream Disaster

When you see the picture of the beautiful strawberry cupcake on this page, you can't help but want to taste it. I have been wanting to make these cupcakes since I bought this cookbook and today was the day. Here is the end of the cupcake process (where I'm still happy and you can see my butter and eggs patiently waiting at room temperature to become yummy frosting):


And here is where I start to doubt if I really have any baking abilities at all.... It all started with a recipe for Swiss Meringue Buttercream. If you've never tried this frosting and are thinking how the heck do you get meringe and buttercream together in one frosting, welcome to the party. Devoutly following the recipe with the sole substitution of margarine for butter, which is very common in my kitchen, I heat up the sugar and egg whites, whip my egg whites and they look beautiful and glossy and perfect... then the disaster comes. I'm supposed to add 3 sticks of butter (oh yes, I said 3, look out Paula Deen) in tablespoon sized chunks, slowly. No problem! Until of course I turn my delicious meringue into curdled milk. So I'm totally lost, thinking this is horrible and I ruined the frosting. I promptly toss it out and attempt it again the next day.

Which proves to be disastrous also. This time, I went for the "real" thing: butter. Same beautiful meringue, same curdled milk. At this point, I'm seeking help. I read another recipe which clearly says... don't worry if you think you made curdled milk, keep whipping and it will smooth out. Wrong... I continued on for forever. Maybe 15 - 20 minutes and got a much more consistent strawberry color, no smooth delicious frosting. What did I do wrong?!?! I tasted the curdled mess (hehe that sounds worse than it was) and it was indeed yummy. I refrigerated it, added it to my cupcakes because boys have no clue if it looks pretty or not and took them to the fire station. I hear they were devoured. I thought they tasted great, looked terrible. I'll be trying this frosting again, third time's a charm.

Homemade Marshmallows

The beauty of discovering you can make things you thought were only available packaged at the grocery store... this is one of those moments. I'm browsing an old issue of Gourmet when I discover people actually MAKE marshmallows. Sure they have to come from somewhere, but seriously.... so do sausages and you won't find me digging out a recipe for those. I was immediately perplexed and decided I had to try it out. Besides, I'm not a big marshmallow fan but I thought that the delicious flavor of something freshly made would win me over. Turns out I have all the ingredients and it looks ridiculously simple. Recipe is available here at the Epicurious site. In fact, they have a few versions in case you want to spike your marshmallows or you want to go with the coconut version which I seriously debated.

I opted for plain as you can see:

Special trick #1: Boil low, definitely not at a medium-high. It takes a bit longer but it's so worth it.

Special Trick #2: These babies are easy!!! I didn't use any potato starch, just powdered sugar. After they sat in their air tight container for a few days, they formed powdered sugar teams and decided to stick to their buddies. hehe... ok, little powdered sugar balls stuck to the marshmallows. Not so bad, I like powdered sugar.


The true trick is that they're hard to cut. I dipped my knife in powdered sugar between slice and it seemed to help but it wasn't that difficult. What do you do with 2 1/2 boxes of homemade marshmallows? You make Rocky Road of course....

Roasted Acorn Squash

Seriously, if you don't roast your own squash, it's time to fire up the oven and try it! We love roasted squash, we're not picky, we like all squash equally (so far) and I haven't met a squash that didn't turn out delicious after it was roasted. So...

Oven - 400 degrees - check
Knife - check
Cutting board - check
Non-stick spray - check
Squash of your choosing - check


Take a squash, cut it in half, scoop out the seeds (and roast them after rinsing and drying for a delicious treat too) then all you have to do is break out your vegetable oil spray (you know the one that serves to grease all your pans). Spray both sides of your lovely squash, toss them on a cookie sheet, into the oven and let them sit in their sauna while they turn into the tender sweet potato tasting vegetables they are. You can sprinkle them with a little salt and pepper if you like. I add a tablespoon of butter about 15 minutes before they're done so they soak it up and the butter browns and it's oh so delicious. Time? What time? I realize this is very un-baker like of me, but it takes about 45 minutes and it totally depends on what squash you have in there. Pierce it with a fork or a knife. If it's tender (like baked potatoes) it's ready. Enjoy.

What you see here is an acorn squash. We also like butternut, spaghetti.... etc.