Baking Fun Friday

Hello world! 

Jello Never Looked so cool! 9 Boxes Worth!

Today was a very, very productive day! Woke up at 10:30 am - but really, can you blame me? I was up late last night for your benefit so please do not judge! I meandered downstairs and while my father and I sat down to breakfast, I took a look at the bags of oatmeal bran and almond bran that were floating around in the kitchen.  My mother had all intentions of baking the last few days, but has been busy with transforming the house into something more suitable to long term living. I was intrigued that the almond bran could be used as a substitute for half of the required flour in chocolate chip cookie and oatmeal bran muffin recipes.  So, I decided to make the recipe of oatmeal bran muffins that my mother had taken out and left in the kitchen for the last week. 


Instead of individual muffins, I made 2 small "cakes" ( I call them loaves) and found that I was not satisfied with cleaning the kitchen just for the muffin mix.  I decided to make chocolate chip cookies, replacing half the flour with almond bran.  In the middle of making the chocolate chip cookies, my mother begged me to make jello and I said "heck, why not? I'm already in the kitchen!" So I made 9 boxes of Jello: peach, strawberry and orange!  I noticed that the cookies were being cooked at 150 degrees and almost cried because they were not baking right...obviously since they are supposed to be cooked at 350 degrees. I worked out the stupid problem with the oven (it was on "hold" since I had timed the muffins to be baked...grrr!) and I lamented that I had wasted a whole bag of chocolate chip cookies because they were horrible flat. and stuck together for having literally melded and melted together. I took em out, and my baker mother "eeeeeh.... they're fine."  I didn't believe her and begrudgingly went on with the jello. At this point I had burned my index finger checking on the cookies and was a bit miffed that they were flat. 


After box 6, I tell my dad to try to separate the cookies and put them on a cooling tray, and as he does, I taste them and nearly swoon. They are DELICIOUS. Seriously some of the best chocolate chip cookies I have EVER had. Mom, yours are first but mine are a very close second.  I'm not joking, these cookies are amazing, for all that they look flat and sad.  

Cookies (don't be fooled they are delicious!) Oatmeal bran loaves,
and the failed lemon meringue!

I then peruse our cupboard some more and discover two cans of condensed milk and decide I'm going to make a lemon meringue pie (my specialty, I love making them and made my first a few years ago) and for the heck of it, some flan. After all, today is Mexico's Independence Day and why not celebrate it with some flan??!  So I go about preparing the lemon meringue pie first and as I am beating the three egg whites, cream of tartar and sugar, I notice something is off.  The mix is not creating peaks. In addition, the new recipe I was using called for me to bake the whole pie together, when I distinctly remembered making the filling of the pie, baking, taking it out and then pouring the top (the white part) over the half baked pie. Shrugging, I figure this new recipe has to work. I pour the non-peaking white mixture on top of the pie and bake it. 15 minutes later it is not looking good. I take it out and trust my mother when she says it  just needs to cool and then start working on the flan.

Flan before you turn it over...stay tuned!

Flan is really hard to make! And my family doesn't have foil. And I substituted  coconut milk with coconut cream (don't know how we had all the ingredients in the house) and the pie pan i was using was hardly big enough to hold the filling. I didn't know you had to submerge the pie pan into water and bake it for an hour and a half, and then let it cool for four hours and preferably overnight. That's crazy. By this point it was already past 3:30 and I had been baking since 11 I think.  So with the flan in the oven, I made some whipped cream for the flan and realized what "peaked" looks like, and I could have kicked myself for not mixing the lemon meringue's egg whites more. Then I got ready to go to the library to pick up Changeless and Blameless by Gail Carriger like I said yesterday and kept checking on the flan.  It took an hour and 40 minutes for it to be cooked through the middle, and I set it to cool, went to the library picked up books and found more (YAY!) ate dinner, cleaned the kitchen, put the flan in the refrigerator to cool overnight, and will share the hopefully successful flan pic tomorrow!!  Also, I determined to make another lemon meringue today...so irritated with myself! 

I played two finger soccer with my little bro, complete with soccer shoes! My sister from NYC sent the set over yesterday and heres a pic of how cool it is to play this form of soccer!  I would have added a video, but it was not working and I don't know why -after 3 tries my patience wore thin, so I just put this picture in. I'll try for a video again tomorrow!

Be jealous! This method of playing soccer rocks!

Well, that was my day, pretty awesome if I do say so myself! I only burned two of my fingers! And though they still hurt, it was worth it. I can't wait to read.  Also, I need some empty picture frames so that I can start decorating my room better.  Tomorrow, Gerry has a soccer game at 9:30! Weekends + my family = FUN. 


Okay, Peace.