Dylan & Erica’s Place…

I work with computers all day. I really do love my job and love the people I work with. Yes I have to get up at the crack of dawn to travel to a client site and have to work 9-10 hours a day but you know what .. I love the people I work with and what I do. I mean I wish I could open up a bakery and just bake all day long but low and behold.. I can’t. So I bake for my co-workers.

I work with nothing but boys who can eat, eat, eat, did I say eat, and never gain weight. The make me sick, but they also get rid of my goodies. I never know what I am going to bake. I have no idea. I usually just find stuff and try to add my own little touch on it. I sometimes have requests from my co-workers and sometimes just tell them I will bake something. I used to work inside the office and would have this co-worker named Rahul who could eat eat eat and never gain a single pound. He LOVED my baked goods. Whenever I didn’t bring something in he would be upset and say, “Erica why didn’t you bake anything last night?” Sometimes you just don’t have enough time to bake… whenever you work 45-50 hour weeks but I do try to bring some goodies in at least once a week. I like to make people happy and smile.

Fast forward a couple of months, I was put on a project … not in the office anymore. Poor Rahul is dying in the office all alone IM-img me every so often saying, “why didn’t you stop at the office to bring me something? You can do that before you go out to the client site.” Or..”I’m hungry, what did you bake today..bring me some. FEED ME!” I feel bad for him but I’m sure he can go buy something at HEB or Kroger or something. I mean its right down the street.

I however now know why I was put on this project…. To be the official baker. Boys get hungry… add food their stomachs and you have… happy boys. Happy boys means happy clients. Yes I know that really isn’t my purpose at the office and on this project but it makes me happy to know my co-workers are wondering what I brought in today.

I haven’t been baking alot because of the drive and we were busy moving into our new house and hosting some family functions but now I believe I am back to business. Not to mention, I ran out of flour and sugar! How does that happen? I guess the same way my co-worker Sarah, ran out of butter! It just does. My pantry is now stocked! So guys, and you know who you are, you will be having more goodies I promise. You won’t have to say, “awwww man, you didn’t bring anything today” but instead, “w00t! Erica brought use some goodies.. they are in her cube”!

This now leads me to telling you about pink lemonade cupcakes. My manager came up to me the other day and said, “Man, you didn’t bring anything”. I felt horrible. I used to bring stuff every day into the office. And now.. I’ve been slacking. I told him I would make some cupcakes. I LOVE making cupcakes. They are so easy to transfer from house to office and no mess up. The boys can just pick one up without having to cut anything. Its very nice. I told my manager I would be making something and decided I wanted something easy. What’s easier than pink lemonade cupcakes? Piece of cake.. I mean cupcake!

I love Shawnda’s blog. She has hard and easy recipes. So nice.. very nice! My team was able to have some yummy cupcakes and it didn’t take long. Love it! Everyone if you need a hit at a picnic or BBQ definitely think about these. They are super easy and super yummy! Don’t worry team.. I’m back to baking regularly!

Pink Lemonade Cupcakes, Adapted from Foodie Bride, and BakeSpace

Cupcakes:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
Pinch salt
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 egg whites
1/3 cup thawed frozen Pink Lemonade Concentrate
1/4 cup buttermilk
2 or more drops red food coloring

Combine first 4 ingredients in small bowl.

In a large bowl, whisk together sugar, oil, egg whites and lemonade concentrate. Alternately whisk in flour mixture and buttermilk, making three additions of flour mixture and two of buttermilk, beating until just smooth. Add just enough food coloring to turn the batter a light shade of pink.

Scoop batter into prepared pan. Bake in preheated oven for 20-25 minutes or until tops of cupcakes spring back when lightly touched. Let cool in pan. Remove from pan and let cool completely on rack. Top cooled cupcakes with frosting.  And top with yellow colored sugar.

1 recipe Lemon Buttercream Icing (recipe follows)

Lemon Buttercream Icing
3 cups + 3 Tbsp confectioner’s sugar
1 stick unsalted butter at room temperature
1/8 tsp salt
1 Tbsp lemon juice
2 TbSp Pink Lemonade Concentratate
Red food color (to color icing and sugar, optional)

Add the butter, confectioner’s sugar, salt, lemon juice,lemonade and food coloring (if using) to the stand mixer and mix on low using the paddle attachment until combined. Turn the speed to med-high until the icing is fluffy and uniformly pink.

Kolache (also spelled kolace, kolach, or kolacky, from the Czech and Slovak plural koláče) are a type of pastry consisting of fillings ranging from fruits to cheeses inside a bread roll. Originally only a sweet dessert from Central Europe, they have become popular in parts of the United States (Wikipedia, 2008).

For all of you out there, a kolach, is not, is not I tell you, the item you get at Shipley’s filled with meat, nor is it the things they call Kolache from Kolache Factory. I want everyone to know this. It makes me cringe every.time I hear someone say, lets go to Kolache Factory and get some ham and cheese Kolaches. No Ma’am. Those aren’t kolache (Yes this is the plural. Kolache is plural. Kolach is singular). Stepping off my soapbox. Can you tell Kolache is near and dear to my heart? Let me tell you a little bit about my family.

My father is Czech and German. The Kaspar family (My father’s side) immigrated from the Czech Republic, then known as Czechoslovakia, in 1905 to South Texas to farm. I was so fortunate to grow up eating homemade kolache. Not the things you find in Houston. I’m talking about Grandma Kaspar waking up at 4 in the morning to make the dough, kolache. These little sweet dough pastries were so yummy. Absolutely my favorite thing to eat. I would be so excited when my mom would say, Grandma Kaspar made some kolache for you. My grandmother would make all different filled ones from prune to cream cheese. Guess what kind were my favorite? Yep, cream cheese.

My mother was SO lucky to learn how to bake from the best. My mom was able to learn from her mother in law (My Grandma Kaspar) how to make these little goodies from scratch. My mother is now a wonderful kolache maker along with these rolls called cream cheese rolls (We will get to this in another post, but just know my mom makes the best ones EVER!) Thankfully after my grandmother got older, my mother was able to bake homemade kolache. And then she taught me. I am so thankful my mother was such a great teacher other wise, I would know how to sift anything. Heck, I wouldn’t even know what I sifter was. I am able to know when the yeast has risen, how to make some yummy cream cheese filling, and how to roll out the dough. Thank you momma for teaching me the basics of baking 101!

My Grandmother has went on to another life and oh I miss her so much. However, I can continue her legacy by baking some homemade kolache for my children. Hmmm I guess I need to have a daughter now to continue this?

Here is my first attempt at making homemade kolache. I have to admit they were scrumptious. Thank you mom for teaching me Grandma’s Czech baking skills. And Grandma Kaspar, every time I bake kolaches, cheese rolls, and sugar cookies I am thinking about you and watching you shine above me!

Cream Cheese Kolache, Adapted from Grandma Kaspar and Texas Monthly

Dough

1 cup milk
1 packet of yeast
3 tablesppoins sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 egg, beaten
1/4 cup shortening
3 cups flour

Warm on cup milk and pour into a bowl. Dissolve yeast, sugar, and salt in the milk. Add the beaten egg and shortening.
Mix well. The dough is ready when “the dough chases the spoon around the bowl”. This usually takes about a total of about 3 - 3 1/2 cups of flour.

Cover the dough in the bowl and let it rise in a warm place until doubled, about 2 -4 hours.

Melt a stick of butter on the stovetop so that it is ready for spreading on the dough. Grease the tops of two cookie sheets and preheat the oven to 350 degrees. After the dough is doubled, punch it down into the bowl. Flour the work surface slightly. With a tablespoon scoop out balls of dough and drop onto work surface, maybe a dozen at a time. Then take each fall of dough to the palm of your hand and roll into a ball. Place the ball on a cookie sheet in evenly spaced. Brush with melted butter. Let them proof maybe another 20 - 40 minutes.

Press down an indentation in the center of each ball and fill with approximately one heaping teaspoon of filling. Let them set another 10 minutes. Sprinkle with posypka. Bake the pan of kolaches about 20 minutes but check after 15. They should be a light golden brown in color.

Yield: about 24 kolaches

Posypka

1/2 cup butter
1 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups flour
Combine all the ingredients in a bowl until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

Cream Cheese Filling

16 oz cream cheese
2 egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
Soften the cream cheese. Beat remaining ingredients together with cream cheese in a medium-sized bowl.

Sorry everyone for the lack of updates.  Unfortunately, my laptop crashed and well I lost alot of my photos.  I know its sad however I did find some on my work network and all I have to say is YIPPEY!!! Get ready to learn how to make some homemade kolaches.  NO not the kind you buy at Kolache Factory.  A Real Kolache.  A Czech Kolache.  Get ready to be impressed!

Repeated from last week =)  

Recently I found this website, Blake Makes from Foodie Bride which gives out free food. Yes free food. I saw on Foodie Bride’s blog that she made some yummy yummy brownies with Peanut Butter Dulce de Leche. Who on earth would make such a thing. Doesn’t that person know there probably is 1,000 calories in one serving of that stuff? Seriously? There has to be. Well I don’t know exactly. I haven’t tried it…. YET. I should be receiving this finger licking goodness pretty soon. I heard its in the mail.

I was one of the lucky 40 or so people to get my hands on some Peanut Butter Dulce de Leche. Problem is.. What do I make with this goodness? I will only have one jar and man I want to make EVERYTHING and anything with this. Or wait, I just want to eat it. Darn it, I need to make something. Hmmm so I got to pondering…I thought about my dad. Let me tell you a little about my dad.

My dad is amazing. He is a wonderful baker (my mom is the “cook” in the family, my dad and I only know how to bake and fry stuff. Wow, we are alot like Paula Deen). Back to my dad. My dad is also a little nuts. He loves ice cream. Ice cream .. any kinda of ice cream. This man eats a bowl of ice cream every.single.night before he goes to bed. Every night. Every night. To make it even better he even has a candy bar with it. Yes this isn’t healthy but the man gave up drinking beer and started eating ice cream. I’m sure his doctor is happy :-).

I remember growing up my favorite thing to do on weekends is making homemade ice cream. My dad used to go to the store and get TONS of ice and rock salt and hours later we would have homemade ice cream. It was so good and yummy and Oh.My.Goodness CREAMY. Gosh I miss that. I got to thinking PBDDL ice cream.. this is going to be the best ever!!! I can’t wait to make it. You have no idea. With some sprinkles on top.. Thank you for stretchy pants and gym shorts.

First item of business make some ice cream with PBDDL. I have a feeling Ben and Jerry’s might be calling up Blake and me and wanting our recipes. Hey if Steven Colbert can do it, we can right?

So I did it everyone.  I made my first batch of Peanut Butter Dulce de Leche Ice Cream.  Yummy. It was so creamy and delicious.  The chocolate ice cream went SO well with the PBDDL.  Not to mention the peanut  butter cookies.  Nothing says dessert better than ice cream sandwiches. NOTHING! Take a look at my ice cream and enjoy.  Maybe one day Blake’s PBDDL will be on your selves in your local supermarket.  Or you could always take a trip out to New Orleans, get some gumbo, pralines, watch some LSU football, and visit Blake and get some PBDDL.  My next trip.. I’m so doing that =).  I’m so lucky to have a Louisianian husband!

Chocolate Ducle De Leche Ice Cream and Peanut Butter Cookies = Sandwiches! , Adpated from Emeril, 2004

For the ice cream:
2 cups whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 pound semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
5 large egg yolks, beaten
1 small jar of Peanut Butter Dulce De Leche

For the cookies:
1 cup  crunchy peanut butter
1 cup sugar
1 large egg, lightly beaten
Ice Cream:

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine the milk, heavy cream, sugar, and chocolate.
Whisk until the sugar is dissolved and the chocolate melts completely.
Heat the mixture to the scalding point (where bubbles form around the edge of the pan).
Remove from the heat.

Beat the egg yolks in a large mixing bowl.

Whisk in 1/2 cup of the hot cream mixture into the beated egg yolks.

Then whisk the egg mixture into the remaining hot cream mixture in the saucepan.
Cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture is thick enough to
coat the back of a spoon, 2 to 3 minutes.

Remove from the heat and strain through a fine-mesh sieve into a clean mixing bowl.
Cover the top of the mixture with plastic wrap and transfer to the refrigerator
until thoroughly chilled around 2 hours.

Process in an ice cream machine according to manufacturer’s directions.
When the ice cream is nearly completely churned, spoon in the peanut butter dulce de leche to create a swirl in the ice cream.

Transfer to an airtight, lidded container and freeze for 2 to 3 hours or up to overnight.

Cookies:

Heat the oven to 350 degrees F and position 2 oven racks in the center of the oven.

Combine the peanut butter, sugar, and egg in a mixing bowl and stir until smooth.
Divide the dough into 12 portions, each about 2 heaping tablespoons each.
Roll each portion in your hands to form a smooth ball.

Place the cookie dough balls about 2 inches apart on ungreased baking sheets.
Press down on each ball of dough with a fork to form a crosshatch pattern.

Bake the cookies, switching the baking sheet positions mid way through cooking,
until they are lightly golden, 12 to 14 minutes.

Let the cookies cool on the baking sheets for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack.