The difference a year makes...

A year ago I was an unfulfilled housewife.  Being at home was a burden not a blessing.  I longed to do more, for people to know I was smart and be fulfilled in some way.  So I got a job.  But almost immediately I realized that it wasn't very fulfilling.  I didn't feel challenged or rewarded in my new position.  The hours were so different from my husband's work schedule that eventually, we only saw each for a couple of hours in the evening.  Even then it was only to eat together and then to go to bed.  Slowly, we stopped reading the Bible together at night.  We stopped taking weekend trips.  I stopped running.  I barely slept.  I was exhausted and I missed my husband.  Then my sweet hubby came home with a marriage seminar DVD by Chip Ingram.  By the end of it, I realized my job hadn't fulfilled me and it never would.  This was not my dream.  Worse, if I kept going at this pace, I was liable to ruin my marriage.  I realized that many women would love to be able to stay at home. I realized staying at home and supporting my husband might go against all the new age feminism that surrounds us today, but for us it could be right.  Jobs end, family lasts forever.  So I quit.  

But I knew with my personality, I couldn't just sit around all day.  I'd need to be challenged and have tasks for myself.  Which led me to starting a big organic vegetable garden.  Then I beefed up my cake making.  All in addition to keeping house, making all our meals, and DIY home decor projects.  Oh, and my new hobby of knitting.  I have to say, it feels amazing so far!  I'm still busy beyond belief, but we finally have time to do date nights, go to the lake and the family cabin, and, gratefully, sleep! So, I'll be blogging more. I'm going to have posts from my adventures in gardening, new recipes and cooking techniques, and some general life trials and errors.  Get ready world! I'm back, and saucier than ever!

Updates and Wooden Letter Crafts

It's been a busy month.  I say that, but then when I look back I think I haven't been busy enough.  Most notably, I haven't written much on here.  I thought it time to update everyone on how life has been going lately.  Or rather, how lost I still am and how much my oven has been burning with all the desserts that I've been baking.

We almost have everything unpacked from the big move.  The first thing I unpacked, naturally, was the baking utensils.  It's truly sad how much of the cabinets I'm occupying with stuff dedicated only to cakes.  We still have some trinkets and personal touches that need a home, but otherwise we have begun to make this our home.  It feels enormous; much bigger than necessary for two people.  I suppose that will change one day and then it might actually be too small.

I quit the lab finally.  Right before the move.  It was an intense decision with many rationalizations affecting the course.  Most of them were due to inapporopriate actions or words spoken to me; everything else was just, may I say, icing on the cake.  I really had no other choice in the end.  Regardless, I cried.  A lot.  There's still turmoil in how to handle other aspects of that decision.  When it really gets to me, I make sugar cookies.  Again, a lot.

I still have no direction on what to do next. Which path will lead to the most happiness?  What will help others more?  What is it that God wants me to do?  How will I know?  Decifering my destiny is like trying to figure out if a cheesecake is done without opening the oven door.  It's a guessing game really.

A rather depressing one at times.  However, there are lots of possiblities and that makes me smile.  I've also had extra time to do those crafty projects I've always been jealous of others being able to complete.  One of those I'd like to share with you.

I love the new craze using wooden letters as wall decor.  Lots of people are doing them in baby rooms.  Like this one done by Kendra Townsely McGaugh.  She sells these by the way.  Contact me if you need info.

Adorable, right?  They can be on the expensive side if you have lots of letters to do.  About 10 bucks a letter if you get the big wood ones.  I managed to catch Hobby Lobby on a sale day though and I found some already painted and made of particle wood.  Less work for me and lighter and easier to hang on the wall.

Grabbing my hot glue gun, my 50% off ribbon and letters, plus some touch up paint, I got to work.

I cut the ribbon all about 7 inches long while heating up the glue gun.  Then I just dolloped a bit of glue on the back of each letter and attched the ribbon.  On the bigger letters, like the "W", it would have been helpful to have 8 inches of ribbon to insure that all the letters had the same size of ribbon overhang.  Oh well.

When my husband came home he put a little nail in the wall and I stood back telling him the appropriate spacing.  It was that easy! 

Want to make yours more unique?  Grab some scrapbook paper, decoupage glue, and acrylic paint and go to town!  It's a really neat way to add interest to your walls without putting aonther picture on the wall.

I'll show you the cute rosettes and hair pins I made later.  Really adorable!

Double Oven Baking {Answered Prayers}

This post only has to do with baking in a round about way, but I still wanted to share.  And keep checking back, I'm make some pink anemones for an upcoming bridal shower cake tonight.



Last year my husband and I decided to start checking out homes to purchase.  We wanted a little bigger place with room to expand.  Anyone who has shopped for homes before can tell you how exhausting the task can be.  The joy of looking through photos of beautiful homes can be time consuming and daunting, particularly if, like most of Americans, you are on a budget.  We really wanted to live within our means, careful not to stretch ourselves too thin so we could still afford important necessities, like flour and sugar electricity. 

So after careful searching we found the PERFECT house.  A Georgia colonial style home with two big front porches on 10 acres, half it that forrest and the other a field enclosed by trees, and a creek running on the backside of the land.  It even had a mighty oak with a wooden swing in the front yard.  It was breathtaking.  We could have the garden we'd always wanted and chickens too!  (I may not seem it, but I'm a country girl.)  So we put a bid on it.  Nothing.  It was a foreclosure and our agent wasn't familiar with the process.  Eventually we gave up.  Turns out it was a blessing because of things going on with my husband's job, his paychecks were a bit irregular.  Of course, at the time it seemed like a curse.  Why God?!  It's perfect!  Don't You want us to have it?!  "No, I have other plans for you."  But, of course I have a hard time hearing Him.  (I mean look at me!  I still don't know what to do for a career!)

Then in January we found another house.  Not as perfect, but much closer to my husband's workplace and little closer to our budget.  It was almost a "cookie cutter house" to me though.  My husband felt this was the house God was leading us to, but I was unsure.  We decided to pray.  I said, to my husband and God, if I'm going to do the city limit house, it's gotta be amazing; it has to have a double oven.  The only way I'm giving up my chickens is if I can bake twice as much, twice as fast.  And this house didn't have one.  Didn't matter anyway because it sold.  But the builder for the neighborhood said, "I can do the same house on the street behind this one."  Okay...and a double oven?  "Yep."  Wow.  So we took it as a sign.  (We prayed for a bit too.)

In two weeks, we should be homeowners, God willing.  All I can do is fantasize about what it will be like to have TWO ovens.  TWO!  I can do twice as many sugar cookies at once!  Eight loaves of chocolate babka!
Sixty macarons!  A whole wedding cake!  You get the picture.  I'm so excited and yet still fearful it won't come true.

I've been challenged lately to have faith in God's promises, even if I can't see them materializing.  Case in point: what I'm going to do career wise.  But the house is materializing.  I can see it.  It's almost finished.  There are walls, rooms, and flooring (most of it anyway).  And just a few months ago, it was just talk.  The point is, God provides, not always when you want Him to and obviously, not always the way you ask, but He provides.  So, if I begin to lose some of the huge faith depsoits I normally shell out for everyone as I go through the struggle of a new career please help me to remember this post.

Mother's Day Ideas: Homemade, Vegan, Gluten free

Ah Mother's Day.  Mom's everywhere are look forward to this day each year to get breakfast in bed, chores done without asking, diamond jewlrey, and everyone getting along.  Wait.  I'm not a mom (yet), but I don't think any Mother's Day I've participated in has ever looked like a Norman Rockwell painting.  Does yours? 

Alright then, Mom might want a gold and emerald necklace, but realistically she's gonna get one made of macarooni.  But everytime you did that as a kid she loved it, didn't she?  So with the the economy tight, our wallets tight, and our gas tanks running on empty what are we gonna do?  That's right!  Macarooni necklace! Only, let's take that and make her something else, more, uh, enjoyable.  Here's a list of really awesome ideas:

Make her some sugar cookies.  Even if your decorating skills are lacking, they'll still taste amazing.  Especially if you try the chocolate sugar cookies here.  Spell her name out in them like below.  Then arrange the cookies into a cookie bouquet!  Neat huh?

Bake a loaf of chocolate babka.  This is really great for grandmas.  The word babka means grandmother in the original language.  (Directly it means old woman, but it's used as a term of endearment for grandmas.)  It's hands down the best sweet bread I have ever had.  Mom's not into chocolate?  Make cinnamon sugar filling instead.  This Jewish bread is traditionally served at Passover, but it's good for breafast any day.  Heck, it's just good.  Mom will be greatly impressed by the time and effort you put into making homemade bread.  It's my most requested item at Christmas time.

Make her some French Macarons.  Bonus, they're gluten free.  This is one of the things my mom is getting as she suffers from fibromyalgia and gluten free diets can assist in reducing the inflamation causing the pain.  These are trickier and take some helpful hints, which I will be happy to post shortly.  They have chewy centers and practically melt in your mouth as you eat them.








My mommy and me several years ago.


Make her a cd of all her favorite oldies that she used to jam out to you will when you were a kid.  My mom and I used to have pretend concerts to Heart albums.  I cherish those happy memories.










Create a card from cardstock to tell her how much she means to you.  It's really not difficult and you'll spend less than five bucks doing it if you already have some of the supplies on hand.  So what if it's less than gorgeous. Remember, honey, that macarooni necklace was no work of art either.

(Cards not yet made.  So behind this week!)

Whip up a batch of those scones I posted and package them with some yummy teas in a cute little basket with a decorative mug.  How cute would that be?  And, it's vegan!  It could easily be shipped and overnighted too.  Just saying.

Get her her favorite lotion from Bath and Body Works.  Then buy some flowers at the local farmer's market and arrange them in a vase yourself.  I did this last year for all the moms in my life and it was well recieved.  Wildflowers and daises are the easiest to arrange if you are worried about skill level.  Just snip the ends off and plop them into a vase with water in it.  Dress the vase up with her favorite color ribbon to make it stand out.  Tada! 










Cook her favorite meal.  She did it for you for years now it's your turn to show her you learned a thing or two since back in the day.  She'll appreciate not having to cook her own Mother's Day dinner, I promise.

The possibilites are endless.  Happy Mother's Day to everyone out there.  Make the best of the mom God gave you.  Hope it's a delicious day!

Good Friday

When I originally started this blog, just about a month ago, I intended it to be a place I would share not only desserts, but also tid bits of my life.  Interestingly, in the last month I have become more distant in sharing my feelings and thoughts with those around me.  In many cases, justifiably so.  But I'm going to try to be more open anyway.

As the name insinuates, Lost and Searching for Dessert, I'm in search for some answers.  Mostly, I've been searching lately for answers on what I should be when I grow up.  I thought I knew.  About a year ago I thought I had it all figured out.  Even as recently as January, I had it all figured out.  After all, I'm 28 years old.  I've been going to school for years.  I'd chosen a prestigious career.  A career that would give me notoriety, respect, and leave me an expert in my field.  I would have the privilege of naming my discoveries and authoring several, hopefully many, papers in my field of science.  It would be a career full of pride and self-love.  Something most of us want.

However, this career has always been my back up plan.  It's not really what I had longed to do.  Originally, I had wanted to be a doctor, a cardiologist or a neonatologist.  Unfortunately, a series of poor decisions on my part and treacherous conditions presented to me made that dream impossible.  So, being a Christian, I prayed about what to do.  I asked the door I should walk through to open.  The road to this career was the only thing that opened.  Naturally, I jumped at it.  I loved it at first for so many reasons. 

Like a mirage of a lush oasis, those reasons have revealed themselves to be nothing more than parched sandy dunes.  My creative desires, my passion for medical science, have both be tugging on my heart strings.  While I've been evaluating what to do I've revealed some of my thoughts of both sides of the argument to friends and family.  The responses have been shocking, depressing, and out right disrespectful.

Several friends have told me exactly what to do, apparently thinking to know me better than myself.  That's been painful because it has shown me how little they actually know of me and my passions.  Obviously, I haven't done a good job of truly representing myself.  Furthermore, my lifestyle changes have gone completely unnoticed by some of these individuals.  I keep finding throughout my personality changes in life that my past just won't die.  "You hate (insert research, baking, working, hospitals, people, etc. here).  So you should be (insert scientist, business woman, baker, stay at home mom, physician assistant, nurse practitioner, etc. here)."  Worse than that are the people that tell me I'm a fool for even contemplating following my dreams.  I'm throwing away my future, my degree, my life.  I'm blinded by faith.  I'm an idiot.  I obviously am not an expert in my field and I don't know what science is, they've said.  When I've offered to explain or show my evidences, I'm cut off.  The slander begins all over.  The lack of respect begins all over.

This weekend has been especially difficult and depressing.  It's hard to see the light in all this darkness.  I'm destraught about doing what I feel God is telling me to do, what He is not telling me to do, and about making a choice without my pride getting in the way.  And as I sat in church this weekend feeling sorry for myself and more confused than ever, I heard a women say, "You have to go through the sorrow, pain and despair of Good Friday before you can experience the joy of the Resurrection."  Wow.  Maybe this is my Good Friday?  It gave me hope.  That combined with some delicate vanilla cake and sugar cookies, gave that blip of bliss to help me soldier on one more week.

Lemon, Vanilla, and Chocolate Sugar Cookies

Vanilla Vertical Cake with Red and Aqua Hydrangea Flowers

Hungary for Mousse...bars

I meant to write so much more last week, but life got in the way.  This last week has been rough.  Meetings.  Discrimination.  Decisions.  Will I have the courage to stand up to it?  What's right is rarely popular.  I have never been a popular person as it is so it shouldn't be foreign to me.  But fear ripples through my viens, weakening my resolve.  I believe you must give credit where credit is due and not doing so would be plagerism--at least when it comes to writing papers.  Oh that I might have the cunning of a lioness and the voice of her roaring, golden maned mate.  I pray to do what is right.

I needed something to distract me and clear the soot from my soul.  So I baked.  I've long desired to try these Hungarian Mousse Bars from Epicurious.com.  Before you say it's too much work, just know they're divine.  Plus, you have me giving you tips!

I used Silpat rather than wax paper.  In hindsight, I'd rather have used the paper.  The delicate cakes are difficult to remove the heavy Silpat from.  If you mess up like I did, just mash it back down in the empty spots.  I also didn't have apricot jelly so I subed black raspberry.  Good decision.

One pan was Silpat, the other was this.  Both work equally well.

Jam layer in back, ganache layer in front.

 It's important to make sure you have STIFF peaks everytime the recipe says for stability.



Stiff peaks on the egg whites.



Stiff peaks on the whipped cream.

    
 

Several reviews stated that the mousse didn't set properly.  I had no problems.  I set the mousse bowl inside a bowl full of ice as suggested, however, I sprinkled a generous amount salt on the ice.  It acts as a cataylst for the reaction.  When I felt it was on th slow side still, I popped it in the fridge for about 5-10 minutes.  (My husband claimed this really did nothing.)

Set mousse.

Mousse spread across cake and jam layer.

Personally, I don't feel geletin is necessary for the whipped cream layer either.

They were very delicate when assembled so we (hubby helped) flipped them onto the bottom of another pan and pealed the wax paper off that way.  If you want them to look like the picture on Epicurious, you need to either use smaller pans or cut the cake layers in half and stack them on each other first, then proceed with the rest of assembly.

Melts in your mouth, not in your hand.  Well, a bit on your fingers.

Everyone who ate them, loved them.  I hope you do too! 

Alfajores--Cookies from Across the Globe {How-To}

Alfajores, delicious little sandwhich cookies.

Many moons ago, I stumbled upon a blog with decedant desserts that began my obsession with French pastries.  Flagrantedelicia has a blog with pictures to boot that will make you fall in love with desserts from all over the world.  Her (and practically every other dessert blog) with make you green with envy with frame worthy photos posted all over.  It's a lovely place to visit when you are gloomy or so full of joy that you simply must share a dessert to express yourself.

Lately, I've been a mixture of the two.  The weather here has been cold and rainy and just plain depressing.  Like a record blizzard on the tiny abode known as my heart, the decisions ahead of me weigh heavily.  If the sun doesn't come out soon and melt the white blankets, the roof might cave in.  And who wants to go out in the cold?  I mean, besides crazy Northerners.  I'm a Southerner through and through.  Cold weather, snow--it's an excuse to stay in, snuggle, and relish in your depression.  Then, within hours, I remember the thousands of blessings I have.  How dare I hide under my down comforter and green velvet duvet?  I have a job, the most perfect husband God ever made (for me), and a little talent that allows me to share blips of happiness with tons of people known as dessert.  With that thought, I can hear rhythmic pattters of melting snow outside the window.  It's time to make cookies. 

Let's see if there is a reason to pawn 50 something cookies on someone...

This week at the lab, our department has been hosting several canidates for a new professor position.  We do our best to swoon the individuals with how lovely our university is, how cool our town is, and how interesting our research is.  It's quite facinating really.  Putting so many socially awkward individuals in the same room is really a hoot.  Don't take it as an insult.  It's just how many scientifically minded individuals are.  Give us a break!  We spend hours, days, decades completely focused on our work.  Trying to convince everyone in our perspective communities how important our research is.  So, after getting an email from the department about a free lunch to meet with one of the canidates for the grad students, I offered to make cookies. 

Honestly, I don't think anyone cares if I make cookies because most of us are "watching our diets", but if I keep them at home, I'll devore them all.  They really are a unique treat.  Now that I've forced you to read a page's worth of unnecessry insight into my messy head.  Here you go. 

Alfajores are a Spanish or Latin American treat.  As I said, I first saw them on this blog.  Aren't her pictures and posts exquisite?  Two crispy cookie biscuits sandwiching dulce de leche or caramel filling then covered in chocolate.  Yes, please!  I knew then I had to attempt them sometime.  I scoured various recipes across the web (they're aren't many) and blended them all together to get my own.  Some people have said these cookies are involved and too difficult.  Personally, they are easier than decorated sugar cookies.  I also included even the ugly pictures of them because I think it's important to know that no one is perfect, not every cookie is perfect, and it's a learning process.  It's easy to forget that when you look at other food blogs.

Dulce de Leche Filling
Ingredients:
1-2 cans of (fat-free) sweetened condensed milk

Directions:
Heat oven to 425 degrees F
Pour contents of the cans into a deep pie plate, cake pan, or casserole dish.  Cover with aluminum foil, crinkled high on the sides/top of the plate.  Place inside a large broiler pan and pour hot water into it until it reaches half of the pie plate sides.  Aluminum foil should not be touching the water.  Place in oven.  Cook for 80 minutes, checking for and adding more water to the larger pan as needed about every 20 minutes.  Cook for the full 80 minutes or until there is a lovely golden brown color in the dulce de leche.

OR you can boil the whole can in simmering water for 2 hours, unopened.  YOU CANNOT LET THE WATER IN EITHER SCENARIO EVAPORATE COMPLETELY!  The result is yucky, burned milk.

Can be made a couple days ahead if necessary and kept refridgerated. 

Alfajor Cookie
Ingredients:
1 cup of wheat flour
1 cup of all purpose bleached flour (or white)
1 cup of cornstarch
1 teaspoon of baking powder

1 cup of butter
2/3 cup of sugar (I'm going to try it later with just a smidge less sugar to see if that works too)
1 egg and 2 egg yolks
1/2 teaspoon of lemon extract or lemon zest
1 Tablespoon of vanilla extract

Directions:
Cream butter and sugar until fluffy.  Meanwile, sift all dry ingredients together.  When butter mixture is fluffly, add eggs, yolks, and flavorings one at a time, fully incorporating into mixture before adding the next ingredient.  Next, slowly add the flour mixture into butter mixture.  Mix well.

Take two pieces of wax paper and lay on your counter.  Place half of the dough onto each piece and cover with another piece of wax paper.  Roll out the dough and refridgerate until firm, about an hour, or longer if you like.  This saves a mess on the counter, reduces your contact with the dough and is just easier.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Then take a small round cookie cutter, about 1.5inches across and cut out cookies and place on either parchment covered cookie sheets or silpat covered cookie sheets.  Re-roll the unused dough between the wax paper and refridgerate or flash freeze each time.  The dough should be firm at all times.  If it isn't, stick the cookie sheet in the fridge/freezer until it is.  It keeps the cookies looking perfect.

Bake in preheated oven for 8-10 minutes, just as the edges begin to brown. The bottoms look like the pic on the right.  Under cooking makes a VERY delicate cookie.  But still tasty.

Let them cool at least 5 minutes on the sheet then move to a cookie rack until fully cooled.  Then add dollops of filling to two similarly sized cookies and lightly press.

I then refrigerated them again because as the filling warms the cookies slide on one another.  Then I melted some white chocolate or semisweet chocolate over a double broiler on the stove and dipped the cookies in them.  My chocolate was not tempered to save time and effort.  I tried to cover them competely in chocolate but the result was an ugly cookie as seen lelow and at the bottom.  I'll try finding a better way to do it so they look perfect.the ones with lots of filling over flowing I surrounded in sweet flaked coconut.  Others I just dusted powdered sugar on, which is also customary.  I even tried some fancy pictures like the other blogs, but since I have such a simple camera...





The ugly ones.  I was FORCED to eat them.  :)




I'm happy to say they were devored.  Even the grad students from across the globe loved them.  Success!
I'm making more for church now!

Dangerous Love Affair

Ohh first blog!  What to write?  I want to give insight into who I am, what this blog will be about.  I want it to be a truthful representation of me.  I want people to actually read it!  But considering no one is currently "following" me, I suppose I'll have to settle for just getting my thoughts out of croweded, disorganized space known as my brain.  Like the kitchen of your new apartment, stacked tall with carboard boxes, I hope to create order from chaos, by carefully unpacking each thought and giving it a home. 

The situation is thus, I'm at a a crossroad of what to do with my life.  I have been working diligently to be a scientist for a few years now, but I'm not so sure I should be.  The reasons are extensive, personal, and won't be shared just yet.  I also love medical science.  As a child, I wanted to be a doctor, but circumstances, or rather poor choices on my part, led me away from this.  The passion for medical work is still strong within me though. 

And then, there's dessert.  Oh decedant dessert.  Layers of moist, delicate chocolate cake sandwiched between melt-in-your-mouth dark chocolate mousse, and topped with rich, sinful ganache.  How can you NOT LOVE that?  Unless you are a chocolate hater and then there is always buttery sugar cookies in cute little spring shapes.  It's art.  All dessert is edible art.  Love that!  I think the paragraphs below best describe my personal battle.

I’m torn between two loves.  A dangerous love affair.  I know the sensible thing to do is ignore the hunger of the starving wolf, but clearly, as is evidenced by the soaking ink on this sheet, the animal within will not die easily.  I put on my coat, my gloves and proceed with sensible things.  Reliable science.  Step by step instructions.  Ideas already formed into facts, not freely changed.   I caged the wolf.  I locked him away in my head and he lied there, quiet, for years almost.  As most loyal pets, he did not want to displease his owner.  So he never scratched at the door and he rarely begged for food.  I suppose in hindsight, I should have killed him.  It would, in fact, be the humane thing to do.  Put him to sleep.  So he would feel no pain and I would feel no more guilt of neglect.  But I didn’t.  I couldn’t.  I was more selfish than I care to admit. 

Now look.  That moonstruck beast has managed to claw his way out of those bars.  Left cornered by a hunger-crazed creature that was liable to tear my heart out, I did the only thing any one could do, so I thought.  I fed it ‘til he could eat no more.  Terrible, terrible choice.  Anyone who’s known a deranged ex will tell you that.  Regretfully, once you feed those strays they keep coming back for more.  Now, I’m finding my self between two loves.  Two lovers.  I feel completely divided, incapable of choosing either.  To leave the warmth and comfort of this one is to go to uncertainty and passion in the other.  Truthfully, neither is anchored, which is quite typical of me.  At any moment either love could catch the wind and set sail to the hazy, red tinged horizon or the ominous, brooding clouds of steel. 

Sensibility versus a wolf seems hardly a fight at all.  It’s a mammal versus a loaded gun.   A round of lead pumped into a dog surely exterminates life.  Supposing, that is, you actually loaded the gun, that you aimed precisely, and that you have the brazenness to pull the trigger on love.  Who out there with a soul and with the Lord as their shepherd can say they are willing to kill anything, particularly love?

So I stand in a labyrinth, completely torn about which way to turn.  I pray that God tells me the direction to take, but I hear nothing but whispers in the wind that cannot be made out.  All the while I stand, for years even, rivers of tears down my face, taking two steps to the right and four steps to the left, back and forth.  I never thought I’d be that girl.  The girl who left the one to pine after the other, a girl whose appetite cannot be satiated.  All because I’m torn between two loves--caught either way, in a dangerous love affair.

Suffice it to say, I'm lost, and searching for dessert.