So I finally got around to finishing another recipe from the book.  I’ve baked a large number of cakes in my time, the amount of flour/eggs and milk I’ve used could probably sustain an entire village for 12 years (not 11 and not 13….12!!  Don’t ask me how I know this I just do.)  However in my cake baking craziness I’ve never before made a pound cake! 

Like how weird is that!!!  What kind of self-respecting baker waits 24 years before producing her first delicious orange infused pound cake????? 

Well don’t worry this disgusting faux-pas has been righted.   Behold I give you the saviour of my credibility:

Lets bake this shall we!  First grate a ridiculous amount of orange peel, 1/3 cup

  It looks like my grater is smiling in the second picture, I guess it was happy to be used once again.  Also it should be noted that it is VERY hard to remove used and dried on orange peel from a smiling grater.

After you’ve grated the life out of a whack load of oranges, cream butter and sugar together till nice an combined.  Then beat in eggs one at a time, then throw in the orange peel and the rest of the ingredients….. like flour and what not.  Then mix!!!  

Place the batter in two greased and floured loaf pans. Smooth it on out……sssssmmmmmmmoooooooottttttttthhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!

Then throw the whole sha-bang in an oven and bake it just right. 

Once the cakes are done baking let them cool for 5 min, while their cooling heat up some orange juice and sugar to make a lovely orange glaze.  Pour the glaze liberally over the cakes.  This step is KEY!!  You may think your over glazing the cake but your not!! I would even advise that you place the cakes on a plate then pour on the glaze, so that the bottom of the cake can soak up the glaze that pools at the bottom!!!  This orange glaze while soak into the cake a provide the most amazing coating…..I sooooooo serious here, DO NOT UNDERGLAZE (I under glazed  don’t be like me)

I opted to not add the “second” icing, the white icing seen in the book, if you glazed properly that alone should be enough to produce a sweet-but-not-to-sweet orange infused pound cake.

I wish I could explain how amazing this crumb is.  Moist yet dense with the glaze creating a layer of chewy(not the right word) moist, crunchy, soft, orangey fabulousness at the top!!!  

MAKE THIS CAKE !!!!  You won’t be sorry……..unless you under glaze……or hate oranges…then you’ll be sorry. But everyone else make this!!!

Continue to read the reciepe

(more…)

Next up on this fabulous cooking adventure we have Buffalo Chicken wings with a Blue Cheese dip, which from here on in will be referred to as the Stinky Smelly Schmeese dip (3S-d for short).    Are you ready to cook???  

No. 

Fine I’ll wait.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .   Ready now??? 

Ya!!!   AWESOME!  Lets begin.

 

Here’s what you’ll need:  16 chicken wings, 1 stick butter, 1 tsp cayenne pepper, Franks Hot Sauce or Tabasco Sauce, salt, 1.5 cups blue cheese (any kind), mayonnaise, sour cream, milk, Worcestershire sauce and celery for garnish.

First things first, take the chicken wings and cut it into 3 peices.   Here we have cut #1

And here we see cut # 2

Each wing should produce 3 pieces.  Piece #1 and 2 are what we’ll use for this reciepe.  The small, nerdy looking piece of raw chicken appendage can be thrown away. Unless of course you have a weird sense of culinary justice, then you can freeze all those useless pieces for some later use, whatever that use may be. 

Take your large pile of usefull chicken pieces and give them a nice thorough rinse.

Place all the washed chicken on a baking sheet and place it off to the side.

While the chicken is sitting around gossiping we’re going to make the hotish sauce to cook them with.   First place 1 stick of butter in a sauce pan and turn up the heat.

When the butter is melted, add 1 teaspoon (or more if you like your food hot) of cayenne pepper.  

Next add 4 tsp of Frank’s Hot Sauce or Tabasco.  Again if you prefer things more on the burning hot side then add more hot sauce.    Also add 1 tsp of salt – - because no receipe is complete without salt.

Side note:  Notice how my butter mixed is boiling?  Well that’s BAD.  Try not to get your butter mixture to hot, just melting and liquidy.  I had trouble with the consitancy of the sauce and I think it effected the finished product in a very negative way.

Brush 1/2 of the butter mixture over the chicken pieces. 

Um yummy – - salmonilla

I find this picture absolutely revolting.  Everytime I see it my stomach starts to get queasy.   So I thought, heck  I might as well share the queasyness!!   Don’t ya just love it!!

 *cough cough*  Okay, back to cooking.  Place these lovely little salmonilla carriers into your oven (or broiler if you have such things), and broil them 3-inchs below the heat for 8 minutes.   Then take them out, flip them over, brush the rest of the butter mixture over them and place back in the oven for 4 minute or untill done !!

Meanwhile, take your disgusting smelling cheese and crumble it up in a bowl.  Add your mayonnaise and sour cream and milk.

Next toss in some Worcestershire sauce.

Sprinkle in your salt and pepper.   Here is when I took a step back and wondered how in the world this tosseled pile of gross looking/smelling ingredients was possibly going to make an even remotely good tasting dip.   Then I shook my head, grabbed my blender and continued on . . . after all I have a goal in sight, to bake/cook every recipe in this lovely cookbook. (Even the ones that don’t smell so good)

At first I thought I could simply use my trusty hand-held mixer, but as you can see the results as well as the process were less then satisfying.

So I threw it all in this great little blender and mutilated it  untill it conformed to the texture I wanted.    Don’t mess with me you blob of stinky smelly schmeese!!!

Ahh, perfect.

When the chicken is good and cooked, take them out of the oven and transfer to a rack.  See all that yummy fatty, butter drippings at the bottom of pan??  That’s the reason we place these bad boys on a rack, to let as much of that potential heart attack drip off the chicken before we consume them.

 

Once most of the oil has driped off and the chicken has cooled, place them on a serving plater.  Then take the wings, dip and celery over to your parents house, or a friends, or co-workers, or a complete strangers.  Or you can eat them all by your self, but hey where’s the fun in that?

I choose my parents place.  When I arrived I found my neice was there for the day, and she insisted that we use the chicken plates because we were eating chicken.  Her theory sounded a little errie to me but who am I to argue with a 7 year old.

On whatever plate you decide to use, place some chicken wings, a blob of 3s-d, and some celery.  

Here goes nothing!   **Bite. . chew. . swallow. . **

I liked the chicken wings, although as I mentioned earlier, the taste would definitley have been better if I had gotten the sauce consistancy correct. 

I’m still VERY undecided on the 3s-d.  I have never like blue cheese dressings, or blue cheese anything, the flavor is a little too moldy for my taste.  However my Dad really like it, so much so that he kept the leftovers to use as chip dip.    

Why don’t you all go out and whip up a batch of these wings and dip and let me know what you think.