Fizzy Raisin Hooch Yeast. You know you want to look.

I am up to some bread hijinks.  That's what passes for excitement for me right now.  Bread.  Hijinks.  For Science. 

So I've been watching some youtubes about baking.  I'll tell you,  Readers, you get some fancy ideas when you go on a late night youtube trip that begins with stupid Michele Bachmann montages; carrying through to Jon Stewart arguing with Glenn Beck; then onward-ho to evolution arguments and talented dogs with a finish, obviously on bread recipes (with a little of this and a little of that thrown in for good viewing measure).  Youtube is a strange animal.  It placates me and puts me into a hypnotic, vapid state; for youtube hath charms to soothe a savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.  Or something.

In any case, one youtube video resulted in me making THIS:

Raisin Experiment Day 1

Day 2.  OMG. 

This, everyone,  is future natural bread yeast- from raisins.  RAISINS.  Shut up, you guys. Let's all just accept that I know it looks like a jar of something digested and that raisins are gross to begin with.  That is beside the point here.  Anyhow, I didn't know it would get that sick looking.  The point is that they are raisins and they've begun to float; which is apparently a crucial sign of success in the process of turning raisins into bread yeast according to the lady on youtube (who doesn't speak English but whatevs).

I am so excited that the raisins are floating.  Aren't you? 

And you know, you guys, if this works, I'll never have to pay $3 for a year's worth of store-bought yeast again!!  The savings!  Plus it's a little bit sciency and I am about 8000% sure it will result in some remarkably ugly bread.  Until then, I have to wait for the raisins to fizz which I guess takes 7-10 days.  Then just 7 more days of letting it ferment into raisin hooch yeast.  Let the good times roll.  

So anyway, that isn't all, you guys.  I am ALSO trying out a new bread recipe (also found via a weird youtube/google blend), which you may be stunned to find out, calls for neither oil nor sugar.  If you are some kind of kitchen genius with mad bread skillz like me, you will understand why this is baffling.  Firstly, I've never made bread without these 2 ingredients and Secondly (and mostly), why would anyone make anything without oil and/or sugar?  Like seriously.   I am finding out.  So far it IS raising and it does look like Michael Moore which, in the world of bread dough, is good I guess.

Actual photo. 

I don't know why I need to photoshop celebrities onto my bread, you guys.   It is not something that has been diagnosed yet.   You just enjoy it and stop asking questions.  

I Made This Evil Today.

It's a four layer vanilla cake with lemon butter-cream and home made coconut rum custard filling, topped with toasted coconut for my Mom's birthday.  I was sad that there were no raspberry preserves for it.  Be jealous.

In other news, while going through my Mom's cupboard, I found a 13 year old can of coconut milk.  It expired in 1998, before my first child was born. I thought about opening it, just to see what 13 year old coconut milk looks/smells like, but I think that's how Dawn of the Dead started.

Or something.  IDK.

Don't you challenge ME about cinnamon buns.

Oh. So you don't believe I'm making cinnamon buns right now, eh Steffaneveryone Facebook? Eh? You don't believe me? Hmm? Do you? No. You don't. Oh facebook, you are a fool because I AM. I'm making them. Well I've started. I have an hour and a half to kill until the dough is ready so.... here I am proving it on the internet instead of cleaning the bookshelf.

Normally, I might have crapped out and turned my bread dough into a regular loaf of bread, but since my ladylike integrity has been put to the test, well now I have to follow through. It's my great gran's recipe/word of mouth-ipe, save for the convenience of the bread machine to do all the thinking. The REST is her way. After the dough is done, I mean. But the dough is her recipe too, you guys, it just happens to be bread-machineable. Hurray Great Grandma Sammy! You forward thinker. In case you missed, or are incapable of scrolling down 4 or 5 blogs, this is her:

"I'm making cinnamon buns, fools"

So HA! Lookie: The dough is on it's way:

Yep. This adventure has started. I'm all the way in now. I've even shown you my Grandmother & my lard. *oh my*!

But alas, I've done all I can do for now. Cinnamon buns involve quite a lot of waiting. Photographic Update coming in 1 hour 45 mins.

In the mean time, here is a story: Once when I was about 9, I tried to put together a mostly decomposed cow skeleton with my cousin, Billy. The idea being that if we rearranged it and made it look like an alien, we could convince a scientist to give us quite a substantial amount of money to study it. It was like a Looong snake-cow alien. We wished that the OTHER dead cow would have decomposed faster so that we could have used its bones, too. Killjoy. It would have been almost fool proof.

Oh what a fool that scientist would be! But he wouldn't discover his grave error until we were long gone in our ferraris. BwahahahahAAAA!! No scientists came along to the pasture, though. Opportunity-MISSED.

Here we are on our way to Disneyland. We look distracted because we were busy thinking of ways to extort the owners of this mini merry go round. Notice my intimidating outlaw neck bandana and Billy practicing his Mr Burns-hand. Brains & Brawn. PS.. somehow, my hair magically turned a natural shade of platinum blonde between then and now... *cough*


Stay tuned...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Later that day.....PART 2Tada! So the dough finished up its magic- time to take it out and try to remember how to make cinnamon buns.

Here's a tip: don't leave your dough alone for even a SECOND. You know, you turn around once and BAM. It has a sexy slave. Hassle.

So I set aside the princess and rolled out the dough, added all the secret ingredients and rolled it up, like so:

Patting it out. Sorry dough. Funtime is over.



Cutting it into 12 even parts is where my math skills really come in handy. Thanks, Mr Shoultz.... for FAILING me so that I have complete meltdowns every time I think about scary, scary numbers. *bitter glare*


arrange arrange arrange

Now I have to wait for it to rise for like 45 min. This is why I don't make them often. It's an all day kind of commitment.

More to come. Let us have a spot of tea while we wait, shall we, internet?

So, Miss Honytrinkle, I DO hope you brought those scumptious home made pickles to the tea party! And you, Mr Furthermore? Are you going to play us a tea-time tune on your harpsichord? What a lark! Have you finished taking inventory of your rare sweater collection, Mrs Beenile? Any luck with those ideas you were pitching, Mr Himmler?.... Oh I KNOW, he can be so bossy. Yeah, I totally saw those pants *snicker*. Does he think he looks emo or something with that moustache?? WHAT? Oh Himmler... Oh NO HE DIN'T!


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Part 3- They're done! Yay!


They have risen. Hallelujah.


All done.


Flip 'em over and they are sticky, freaking awesomeness- because I ALWAYS double the sticky stuff and never ever put in raisins. Any other way is a total waste of time.


So THERE, Internet. Now I can have a shower. Yay!

OOOoooOOH!
I'm a leetle Teapot
Short und Shtout!
Das ist Mein Handle
Das ist Mein Shpout
Ven I get all shteamed up
He-ah me SHOUT:
ZE VERY FIRST ESSENTIAL FOR SUCCESS IS A PERPETUALLY CONSTANT UND REGULAH EMPLOYMENT OF VIOLENCE!!!
Toot toot!
*moustache waggle*

I know. Hell.

Just in case you want to die of awesome, do this:

Make this violently chocolate pudding/cake/mess. It's like chocolate volcano. The cake part rises up out of the thick pudding-saucy stuff like magic.

Looks hideous, yes?

Heat your oven to 350 degrees.

Combine these things in a bowl:
1 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
3 tbsp cocoa (dark dutch process cocoa if you have it, otherwise regular baking cocoa is fine, but definitely not AS awesome)
1/2 cup of milk with 2 tbsp butter or margerine melted into it. Use butter. Just do it.

Mix it until it's a sticky glob and spread it into a greased 8x8 pan

THEN combine in a diffent bowl:
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup cocoa (again, use dutch process cocoa if at all possible for maximum chocolate mind blowing)

Sprinkle it on top of the other mixture. Just sprinkle it, don't mix it in.

THEN pour 2 cups of boiling hot water over the whole thing, don't mix anything, and stuff it in the oven for 35 minutes. Serve immediately with some kind of ice cream or whipped cream or just milk poured on it. Die of awesome. It contains about 39872342385656622019283 calories per serving.

Poor man's Starbucks- WITH RAINBOW SPRINKLES.

.
Yeah. I can't afford to have Starbucks' giant lattes for all of my daily meals. But here's a trick for you broke and/or lazy people who don't wanna go allLLlllLll the way to whichever of the thirty-two Starbucks Franchises that are 8 feet away from any of your given doorways..


Here's what you need:

• A Starbucks instant Bold Italian coffee packet thingy (I know, you all have a love-hate thing with this stuff. I love)
• 8 oz boiling water
• A sprinkle or two of actual pumpkin pie spice. The spice, not the $78,646,872.67 syrup from Starbucks. You can get it at the grocery for like a dollar and it will last until you die.
  
• A can-o-whipped cream.
• Rainbow Sprinkles. Because you have to one up Starbucks if you're gonna fake it. They NEVER give you rainbow sprinkles.
• However much sugar & cream/milk/whatever you usually like.

Then you mix them all. Except the whipped cream. You spray that on top of the coffee and then directly into your mouth. Then you eat the whipped cream from the coffee and spray more onto it. Repeat.

**dramatization**

It is remarkably similar to a pumpkin spice latte. I'm such a shiester! Also, you could totally put booze in this. I've always thought that pumpkin spice lattes were missing wild turkey. It's very Thanksgiving-y. And they just always give you those funny looks when you whip a mickey of whiskey out of your diaper bag right in the Chapters Starbucks, then ask you to leave. Ha Ha just kidding. It's easier at home, is what I'm saying.

SEE?? I save you people money. And what thanks do I get? huh? NONE. Unless you thank me, then I'll get me some thanks alright.

Also, look to your right and up a little to find my NEW poor advice column!! Great idea, eh? I know... K... pressing questions are onnnn their way... any second... desperate readers will click there...... ---->

Facilitating your weight gain.

You're welcome. So I snagged this recipe for 5 minute chocolate cake. Made in a cup... for one person. It's like some sort of... cup... or... mugcake™.

I thought, "Eh, what the hell. Worst case scenario, it'll be a star in my ugly bread category if it's horrible and grotesque.", then I thought about how fun it was at the grocery store when I'd hauled my kids in, grocery shopped, got to the check out and realized I had no wallet and had to go home to get it. Then I thought about the bird crap on my vehicle. Then I remembered that funny .gif of David Hasselhoff's hypnotic speedo. Then I remembered about the cake.

(Try and move past this hypnotic animation and finish reading my blog entry. Also, if you happen to be hypnotized now, vote for me- and send money.)

"Okay, Self, lets make this sucker." I said out loud.

So I did... say it... and make it. And it was awesome. More plum puddingy textured but extra chocolate-induced coma-ish and less disgustinger than plum pudding (more delicious is what I'm saying). I suggest using some white chocolate chips for extra fanciness.

So the bottom line is that this recipe is evil and of the devil because any idiot (read: idiot=me) can make it- and make it often.

So here's the recipe:

Chocolate mugcake for lazy people who want good cake right the &%$# now:

4 tablespoons flour
4 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons cocoa

1 egg

3 tablespoons milk

3 tablespoons oil

3 tablespoons chocolate chips

a small splash of vanilla extract

1 large coffee mug

Add dry ingredients to a big microwave safe (that's advice for you extra idiotic idiots) mug. Mix the crap out of them with a fork. Pour in the rest of the stuff and mix mix mix, making sure you get all the dry ingredients mixed out of the bottom. Add vanilla and mix some more.

Stick it in the microwave and cook it on high for 3 minutes. Watch it with glee as the cake rises over the top of the cup. Worry and fret that it's going to boil all over, then squeal with delight when it doesn't, it just poufs all up like a soufflé. Feel disappointed when the steam escapes at the end of cooking time and the cake deflates a little. Dump it on a plate if you're feeling fancy. Observe that many of the chocolate chips migrated toward the bottom and take note so that if you ever have to share it in the future, you can ensure that you get the bottom part. Put ice cream on it. Eat it. Repeat it.