Cheesecake and Standing O's--A Week of Insanity

It's finally over...and I'm not sure it's hit me yet. Where the Bee Sucks, or Christopher Marlowe is Dead was one of the best experiences of my life. It's so strange to see the words that I wrote on paper--words that I labored over, fretted about, changed, rhymed, and manipulated--were really brought to life in front of an audience. And not only were they brought to life, but they were brought to life convincingly--my actors did such an absolutely incredible job, and I couldn't have asked for a better director or stage manager. I can't stop gushing. I'll post a link to photographs as soon as I have them uploaded to my computer.

Now on to the reason for this post being here so early in the morning: The April Daring Bakers challenge. I have no idea how I managed to muster up the time or the energy to complete it, but here goes:

Cheesecake Pops.

I was a little apprehensive about making these, mainly because the recipe called for five 8 oz packages of cream cheese--and in today's economic climate, well...and then there was also the water bath and the incredibly long cook time (especially since I usually had about 1 hour or less between each of my comings and goings in the past month). But somehow, I managed.

These cheesecake pops are made by preparing an actual cheesecake and then scooping out 2 oz balls, putting them on lollipop sticks, and then dipping them in tempered chocolate and various toppings (which were left to our respective discretions). I went with a plain cheesecake (no fancy flavorings) and graham cracker and sprinkle toppings.

The cheesecake was a little bit difficult to make, and, like many of the other DBers, I had a very long bake time. For some reason, the middle of the cake took forever to bake, while the sides browned nicely. I had a little extra batter left over because I only have a 9" cake pan, so I poured the remaining batter into my mini muffin pan and baked it in an impromptu water bath made from one of my cookie sheets. Those minis cooked perfectly. Duly noted for next time.

While I'm sure the cheesecake pops are great for gifts or party favors, I didn't even get a chance to stand them up and make them look all pretty--they were eaten straight out of the refrigerator by my roommates and friends. Apparently, they taste incredible.

The only real problem I had with them was getting them not to melt and fall off of the lollipop sticks. Here in Florida, it's too darn humid to keep them out of the fridge for more than a couple of minutes. Fortunately, they didn't last long enough to melt.

Daring Bakers: Cheesecake Pops





Oh...and I baked my cast and crew a cake, using the amazing cake decorating book from Tartlette as inspiration:

Where Have All the Honeybees Gone Cake
(Yellow Cake with Strawberry Whipped Cream filling, Butter Cream Frosting, and Marshmallow Fondant)





I miss the theatre already.

Oh! and one last thing: I was published in the Mangrove Literary Review here at UF. It's just a poem, but I'm still excited that someone thought it was good enough to publish.

What a week!

Kay

Cookies in the Sun!

Hello hello! I do apologize for the lack of updates. I've been baking like a fiend, but I have barely had a second to post about said baking due to the crazy that is life before tech week. My play opens one week from today, and tech begins on Friday, so I'm basically selling my soul to the theatre until then.

HOWEVER.

I did want to share a piece of wonderful news: Kay's Cookies is in today's edition of the Gainesville Sun! You can click HERE to read the article.

This has been a very good week.

Kay

PS I have some crazy cookies in the works, so hopefully I'll be able to try them out in the very very near future!

Cookies and Amazing-ness

First and foremost, before I do or say anything else, I need to send a HUGE thank you to Tartlette for being so absolutely wonderful. I opened up my mail this afternoon and sitting there was a cake decorating book, which I am SO excited to use. Have I mentioned lately how amazing this foodie blogger community is? Because I am meeting so many lovely, wonderful, supportive people. Thank you thank you thank you!

Secondly, my chocolate graham cracker strawberry cream pie cupcakes were featured in this week's cupcake collection at All Things Cupcake, which was a really pleasant surprise.

Now, onto the cookies:

Two days ago, I realized that I had a bag of Ghirardelli white chocolate chips in my refrigerator. I didn't just want to do any old thing with them, so I went to Publix in search of something special. I ended up with a bunch of blueberries and a box of Lipton's Blueberry and Pomegranate White Tea. Thus were born the Blue and White Tea Cookies. For some reason, the blueberry ended up making them incredibly moist, and I also ended up using a little too much baking soda (a fact to be remedied in the next batch), so they're a little chewy. But the reception for them has still been quite good. One of my friends got his hands on them after rehearsal and couldn't stop eating them. "They're like muffin cookies!" he exclaimed.

Blue and White Tea Cookies




I have to admit something: I think I'm obsessed with baking with chocolate. I love it. I don't know why. But yesterday's experiment was an experiment in chocolate madness. I'm actually dedicating these to Shannon, who is playing the lead role in my play (which opens in 22 days!!!). We were having a conversation the other day about our favorite desserts (because, when I'm not baking, I'm talking about baking), and she mentioned that she had a terrible weakness for brownie batter. I agreed, but confessed a fear that eating any sort of eggy batter might be grounds for salmonella.

So I decided to fix the problem.

I decided on Brownie Batter Cookies. This cookie is a variation of my basic sugar cookie, saturated in cocoa powder. Where's the brownie batter, you ask? I decided to make an eggless brownie batter, minus the baking soda and salt. I filled my cupcake decorator with the batter and fitted it with a Bismarck tip so I could fill the warn cookies with the gooey brownie mix. Heaven in a cookie? You bet your rear end it's heaven.

Brownie Batter Cookies


So that's that. I'm gonna go bury my nose in my new cake decorating book! I can't wait to give it a try!

Kay