S’mores Cupcakes

I don’t know about everyone else, but these are the facts of my life. Once I moved out of the house, my parents got all sorts of cool toys. I’m not saying that I was a deprived child (other than my sad cable tv-less existence), I had plenty of things to fill my childhood days with fun. I played the flute and my parents bought me a fancy flute with open keys. I still have it and think about trying to play it once and a while. I was a baton twirler and went to competitions all over the country. My trophies are still in residence at the Wilde parent household. My brother and I spent summers camping out in the backyard and riding our bikes along the creek.

Look at that chocolate ooze!

What I’m talking about are the cool toys that would have made our childhood even more carefree. It started slowly, with the John Deere. Johnnie showed up when I was in College and he was my dad’s new best friend. They would ride around the lawn in the summer and plow clean canyons in the snow in the winter. What Johnnie didn’t know, was that he was taking someone’s place. He was replacing my brother and I, Johnnie didn’t complain when he had to plow two feet of snow from a very long drive-way. Dad just had to feed Johnnie some gasoline and away he went to chew up the snow or grass.

Then came the boat, the hot tub, the air conditioning. The current toy that I’m totally jealous of is a fire pit. I think that is what I was thinking of when I threw together this recipe. Spring is coming soon, I can feel it trying to sneak up on winter, and spring is when the fire pit comes out. My dad gathers the firewood, the dog breaks up sticks to make kindling and my mom gets the marshmallows. Sounds like a great evening and I don’t think my apartment building would go for one in my unit.

Orange Challah French Toast

The first time I ever worked with yeast, I decided I was going to make a braided challah. Talk about ambitious. It was in my fourth year of grad school, I had just moved into a new apartment and I was in the mood to cook. My roommate owned a breadmaker and she churned out loaves of bread with minimal effort. The apartment always smelled wonderful and she had warm bread to go with dinner. I thought that if a machine can make bread, then it can’t be that hard. Let’s say I was just a little naïve.

Back at this point in my culinary career I was the proud owner of about ten cookbooks. Leafing through the nearly pristine pages of my Bread Bible, I fell upon a picture of a braided challah. It was gorgeous. Golden, shiny and delicious looking. The instructions also seemed doable, some time to knead, a few rise periods and an egg wash before baking. I could definitely do this.

I just forgot to take a few things into account. First, I had no idea what I was doing. Okay, I guess that isn’t a very good first. Let’s start again… First, my kneading technique consisted of rolling the dough around on the counter, gently nudging it and poking it. This was after I added about one additional cup of flour, the dough just would not pull away from the countertop! Second, I had no idea how to tell when it was kneaded enough, I just went with what the book said, ten minutes. Third, it was winter. Wintertime in Wisconsin is a rather chilly time and our apartment was equally chilly. Gentle breezes also permeated the windows and doors, keeping my dough cool and preventing the proper rise. In the end I wound up with a braided challah. It was edible, but not the light and airy challah I was used to in New York.



My braid went a little crazy in the middle there...

Now, ten minutes of gentle nudging and poking most likely wasn’t enough to develop the gluten necessary for this bread. Lesson learned. Also, bread needs a little warmer environment than I had provided. These days I like to do laundry at the same time as I make bread, it heats up the apartment. Finally, I know to slowly add liquid ingredients, rather than try to bring the dough back with more flour. It’s been four years since my first attempt at braided challah and this recent attempt shows how much I’ve learned.

Cherry Turkish Taffy

Is there a candy from your childhood that you miss? Something that reminds you of warm summers riding your bike around the neighborhood? Maybe a sweet that you always bought at the candy store? Perhaps it was a confection that made a trip to the movies worthwhile? I think that we all have that one treat that holds sweet memories and most likely you can’t get that candy anymore. Why do candy companies do that to us? They get us hooked on something delicious then take it away, like dealers. Sucrose dealers.

When I was little, my mom worked nights. She was the banquet manager at a hotel and had to manage the big events that occurred on the weekends. This meant that it was up to dad to entertain my brother and I. One of our favorite Saturday night events was to head to the movies. I remember watching Jurassic Park, Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country and Titanic with my boys. Guess who picked the last movie, ha ha, winner!

Before we would head to the movie theater, we would stop at the local 7-11. We would stock up on cokes and candies, because who wants to pay ridiculous movie theater prices? My candy of choice would inevitably be Tangy Taffy. A big (HUGE) slab of taffy, with a sour bite and an amazing flavor. With your choice of grape, strawberry or cherry, it was hard to go wrong with this treat. It would last for hours and turn your tongue colors. The perfect movie candy.

It’s funny that this was my favorite candy, because my mom also had a childhood love of taffy. Although oddly enough, you can still buy her favorite brand. My mom recalls heading to the theater with a dollar and being able to purchase her ticket and have enough left over for some Bomono Turkish taffy. Bomono taffy was available in strawberry, chocolate, vanilla and banana, just like a banana split!

This recent batch of candy came out more like Bomono than it did like Tangy taffy. I think it needs some citric acid to get that tangy flavor. Next batch!