Happy Independence Day

To all my fellow Americans of these United States, may you have a happy and safe Independence Day.

If you're allowed to shoot fireworks in your neck of the bone-dry country (we are, though the prairie could burst into flame from a flash of anger), please don't be stupid.  It could make you sad.



And possibly disfigured.  (No, I didn't take a picture of a disfigured breakfast.  Ew.)

I did, however, shoot a creepy angle of Happy Breakfast...



...using my hard-fought freedom for sober and noble purposes only.

Progeny

Remember this pumpkin we adopted from the Louisburg Cider Mill last fall?




Well, it lived with us inside the house until well after Christmas.  At last it began softening, and we had to escort it to our open-air compost pile in which the pumpkin dissolved like all biodegradable matter should.

Months passed.

Later this spring, a bush of some sort appeared in the compost heap, and I took a picture of it with my camera phone.  I asked my gardener friends what the heck this could be.

"Pumpkin vines, maybe," one of them suggested.  And, behold, a duh moment thundered over yours truly.  I had completely forgotten about the pumpkin we'd left there.

Now, I've never grown pumpkins before because, honestly, I'm not a pumpkin fan.  Not to eat, not to carve.  The pumpkin these vines descended from was just the second one I've taken home during my adulthood.  I didn't do anything with it or to it but set it in my living room as fall decoration, au naturale.

Even so, I was ever so excited when the volunteer vines began blooming.







Since I took these photos, about three weeks ago, we've had a hail storm.  The leaves on the pumpkin vines survived intact, more or less, but the vines themselves have spread out more.  I don't know if this is just the nature of pumpkin vines or if the storm forced the sprawl.  In either case, we're keeping our eyes on them.  No tiny pumpkins have appeared yet, but I'll post the news here if they do.

Using up the sweets stash

In the last post I said I'd "soon" show you what I did with my leftover graham cracker crumbs, from when I made the Easter cheesecake.  Well, by "soon," I guess I meant within in the month,  and that's almost instantaneous in geologic time, which is how we live around here.

So we left our hero with about three cups of crumb crust mixture (graham cracker crumbs, butter, and sugar) and a big puzzle about what to do with it.  With some of it, she drizzled the leftover chocolate candy melts and had a little Me Time in front of the noon-hour news.  

The rest could make a great topping for ice cream, no doubt, but she wanted something more…something substantial.  Something that would use up a few other sweet ingredients that had been lying in wait throughout the kitchen.  

And something quick.  And easy.  And photogenic, right?

Well, two out of three ain't bad.  But that crumbly mess is so good!  A quick search of the Taste of Home recipe site turned up the S'mores Crumb Bars concoction.  Three of its five ingredients I had mixed up already in the leftover crumbs.  The last two were in my cupboards.

First came half the crumb mixture, compacted into the bottom of the pan as if you're about to lay bricks on top.

Then the chocolate chips and the tiny marshmallows.  I had partial bags of semisweet chips and milk chocolate chunks.  My marshmallows had lived too long next to the toaster oven in the bread box and had melded together.  I just pulled them apart again.  Sticky fingers are fun.

Then came the second layer of crumbs, pressed down again.  Spatula marks are evidence of effort.

The pan spent ten minutes at 375-degrees F in the toaster oven.  The top crust browned a little more than would be acceptable in restaurants, but we're alright with it here.

A tastier picture:

I'm pretty sure I didn't match the ingredient measurements exactly on anything in the recipe.  Probably more butter would have cemented the crumbs more thoroughly.  Nevertheless, the pan of bars turned out delicious.  I mean, good grief, how wrong can you go with graham crackers, chocolate, and marshmallows?  Especially since the traditional method of cooking requires the marshmallows to be set on fire?

The Cheesecake

On my latest wedding anniversary, a few well wishers on Facebook reminisced about the kind of cake we'd had at the reception.  We served cheesecakes I had made over the week prior to the big day.  I had never undertaken a baking project like that before (or since), and I didn't save any money by doing it myself.  Except, maybe, I would've shelled out twice as much to delegate such a scrumptious cake to a pro...a scrumptious cake I almost didn't get to enjoy.  You see, the venue's event planner attempted to hurry us to the next reception custom at the moment we dared to sit down to have a piece.  I know, right?  The baker-bride gets her cake tax, so, dearie, sustenance comes before slinging a garter.  Every time.



The cake that inspired one of our wedding party to go back for fourths (ushering is hungry work, too, after all) is called Captivation Cheesecake, a recipe from a Wilton book I borrowed from my sister-in-law.  I think the title is A Treasury of Wilton Wedding Cakes, Updated Edition, but my memory isn't crystal clear on that anymore.  (Sister-in-law--you know who you are--am I right on this?)

And I mention all this because I attempted to recreate the cake the other day.  Just one cake, I mean, not the entire construction project.  Even so, gentle reader, all did not go smoothly.  After seventeen years, I'd forgotten a couple of tips from the baking marathon of yore. 

The reason why I decided to make another wedding cheesecake is because THOMY suggested I bring one to our church's Easter potluck brunch.  We're invited to bring something from which we may have been fasting during Lent or some special treat in which we don't indulge very often.  Based on the Facebook comments about our anniversary, THOMY thought it would be awesome to share the joy of wedding cheesecake.

I couldn't deny anyone such awesomeness, that would be uncharitable.  So I dragged out the ole Wedding Cheesecake Pan and Mixing Bowls I used back then.



As well as the hand mixer. 



This was my mom's from the 1970s.  I got a newer one as a wedding gift, but it's motor burnt out in less than a year.  This one just keeps  going, I think in defiance of its avocado green casing.

Now, the first thing I forgot regarding this recipe is that it makes a LOT of graham cracker crumbs for the crust.  Too much for one cake, even though the recipe claims everything listed is for one 9" cake or two 6" cakes. 



When I first made this recipe, I simply used the excess in more cake crusts since I needed roughly a gazillion cakes.  Now I was stuck with about three cups more than I needed.  What to do?  What to do?*

Next I forgot that one should melt candy chips in the microwave before the very point the bottom gets burnt and breaks the bowl.



This development was a real bummer.  I panicked for a full half minute, trying to figure out how I was going to get myself to the grocery store for more candy melts when my car was blocked by a contractor repairing our driveway that day. 

But no!  An Easter miracle met me right there in the kitchen.  I had just enough white chocolate chips left in the bag to add to the unburnt stuff.  So I melted them, very carefully.  Disaster averted. 

Also, I'd forgotten how heavy a glass mixing bowl is when filled with batter that sloshes and slicks the edges of the bowl.  Pouring the glop into the pan without dropping the whole thing and flipping the pan onto the floor felt like an Olympic event for a few harrowing seconds.  I guess I'm not as young as I used to be when I first hefted a full mixing bowl to make Wedding Cheesecake.

In the end, however, I managed to reproduce my original results. 



And the cake was well received at brunch.  I even had a taste of THOMY's slice, and we got to take some home which is way more than we managed to do all those years ago.  And that is as it should have been, as long as I got my tax.  Not that I wasn't thinking about myself on Easter Sunday.

*What I did with the excess crumbs shall be revealed in a later post.  Soon.

You are here

Yes, you are at the Scrapdash blog.  Yep, it looks...different.  Gone with the dark red to make way for freshness and light because I am sick today and am, therefore, bored.

As of this post, I still need to work out a better blog header than bare-bones letters. Unfortunately, my savvy days of working with graphic programs are mostly behind me; I haven't played with such a creature in years. So, you may see my left-justified "Scrapdash" at the top for awhile. Or, maybe I'll crank out something else by tonight.

 If I'm not asleep.