Sweet Indulgence

One of the residents mentioned yesterday that their last day is today. So for a nice send-off, I decided to bring in something sweet. Originally I planned on making something myself, but after drinks at Mohawk, I decided I wasn't in the mood for baking and went to sleep early instead.

Picked this up at Bella Napoli, along with a couple loaves of the crispy torpedoes and cinnamon twists. I don't remember what this is called... seven sons? It was with some other coffee cakes in the case. Basically it's cinnamon rolls with pecans and some haphazard glazing. $5.95.

A bit on the dry side, and the pecans were soft. But my co-workers enjoyed it. The resident sadly did not have any - was stuck in the OR working away.

The torpedoes M and I ate for lunch, paired with a Spanish cheese assortment and pickled things. I wasn't in the mood to bake last night, was in the mood to prepare a lunch this morning. Just coffee and casual reading thankyouverymuch.

Mozzarella Croissant Rolls

Here is a baking fail - wanted to make an easy snack, and what could be easier than prepared dough and string cheese? Two tubes of croissant dough and a bag of mozzarella string cheese later, I had a project.

I originally planned on cutting it into pieces the length of the cheese and roll them up. But this dough would not comply. So I just cut the dough along the perforated lines and tried my best to cover up all the dough. Baked at the listed time on the tube for 20ish minutes. While that was baking I heated up the marinara poured myself a glass of wine. 

I made this for M, but I did have one. Should have brushed the tops with butter and garlic. And I think next time I'll make the dough from scratch.

Under the Copper Tree Presents: Recipe Calculator Manager Thing v1.0

Hi.

So R's been busy with some things.. work, classes, baking... mostly baking. And so to help her out with her recipes, (keeping them organized, calculating weights, approximating costs, etc.,) I've come up with a nifty Excel spreadsheet. It allows her to enter any recipe in more or less any measure, recalculates and converts to US and metric units, scales for batch size, and semi-automatically calculates costs, ("semi" meaning you still may need to enter in a few price details if it's not already included in the list I have set up). This is still far from perfect, but it works for our needs, even if we still have to fudge some information around.

I've tried to make this as easy to use as possible, but I'm pretty sure it's still going to give some folks a headache. Being such, I've locked the worksheets to prevent any accidental additions, deletions, or general tomfoolery. If you'd like to unlock and add your own customized additions, just send an email to underthecoppertree@gmail.com and we'll gladly oblige. Also, this is a macro-enabled worksheet that uses Visual Basic scripting, so you'll need to enable content and macros to be able to easily add recipes. I promise there's no malicious software or coding that's included, and I won't be able to peer through your webcam and see what's happening in the privacy of your living room.. (P.S. Dan, put a shirt on.)

Fields that you can select you can edit. This includes the 'Recipe Name', 'Ingredients', measurements (except for calculated measurements), instruction areas, batch size, yield, and 'Ingredient List'. If an ingredient is added that is found in the 'Ingredient List', pricing information is automatically calculated and scaled to the amount called for in the recipe. Price of ingredient used will automatically appear to the left of the name, and the total cost of the recipe will be updated. If an ingredient is not found in the 'Ingredient List', you can enter or update the information as required. Names must match exactly (ie. "egg" is not equal to "eggs"), though you can create multiple entries to account for this. Cost will be calculated using the calculated measurements, so it won't matter if you buy N oz of a certain ingredient but need X cups -- it will give you a price regardless. Since '#' is not a quantifiable unit of measure, a value for '#' will need to be entered in the 'Ingredient List' to calculate cost per item.

To add a recipe, simply click the Add button. This will copy your recipe to a new worksheet, named via the 'Recipe Name' field. Be careful though, this new recipe will be shown in the newly focused window. You will need to click on the "Add New Recipe" tab again, (which will still be populated with the recipe you just added), and hit the Reset button to clear the fields and ready the worksheet for another new recipe. .. Like I said, this is a work in progress.

Anyway, if you'd like to try it out you can download it from here. I'd love your input, questions, comments, suggestions, large sums of money, etc. Leave a comment or email underthecoppertree@gmail.com.

Post Nap Surprise

“Oh… you’re up.”

Not really the thing to say when you are suddenly woken up by a lunging pup. I can’t really hold it against her… she’s a cutie.

While I was having a much needed snooze fest, M took it upon himself to clean up the kitchen and try his hand at baked goods. It’s not from scratch, but I really can’t hold that against him.

“It’s not really good,” he started to say as I walked into the kitchen. He then went on to explain all the reasons why these muffins were a failure – sticking to the wrappers, not sure if the directions were followed correctly, and well… the stuff was old. A few months past the “use by” date. Not that an expiration date as ever stopped me before. And besides, the kitchen smelled really good.

The muffin did stick to the wrapper, but it was still pretty warm. Taste wise, it was pretty bland. Maybe on the verge of banana bread like. But with no banana, so that’s a bit of a stretch. The topping was a weird powdery mess, but it looked nice enough. Hard as a rock and possibly tooth chipping.

So what box mix was responsible?

I don’t even remember buying it, but I’m sure it was on sale and figured I’d give it a try. It would be better if you doctor the mix and forgo the topping it comes with. You can do better.