World's Worst Cookies

Well, for those of you getting frustrated with my competency in the kitchen, here's a treat for you. As an aside, is there an opposite to "ineptitude"? I'm pretty sure "eptitude" isn't a word. Just wondering if there's a positive root word for ineptitude. Ok, moving on...

So, the Cake Boss is failing me. I know it's been a while since I've baked from the Cake Boss cookbook because I got distracted by the really yummy recipes in Martha and America's Test Kitchen. So I decided that it was time to get back to this book. This is the only cookbook that I am cooking through in order so that meant that the next cookies in the book were Tarelles (i.e. vanilla cookies). Ok, vanilla cookies. Not terribly interesting but I've had good vanilla cookies before so why not? I had a slight problem with these because the recipe calls for pastry flour and I couldn't find pastry flour in any of my supermarkets. However, the recipe does say that all-purpose flour can be substituted so I didn't think too much of it.

First step was to mix together sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Easy. Made a bit of a mess with the vanilla but no big deal there. Next step was to add shortening. This was almost a big problem because I was almost 1/2 a cup short! I say almost because I finished off my container of Crisco and thought I had another but did not. Eventually I found Crisco sticks in my cabinet though. Success! By the way, I'm not a Crisco diva that I need to have the sticks but I had a coupon for them so I bought them.

Then I had to paddle in some milk until "thoroughly absorbed". I disagree with that "thoroughly absorbed" assessment. I was mixing it like crazy but it still looked like watery cottage cheese for several minutes. It wasn't very attractive. But fine, eventually, I managed to get it combined-ish. Add flour and baking powder and I'm all done with the actual combining of ingredients.

Now comes the super fun part. I had to roll out these cookies into rings. There were very specific directions about rolling half the dough into a 30 inch rope and then cutting pieces based on another measurement and then rolling those out and initially, I sort of followed that. It was pretty unnecessary though, as long as you're confident that you can form uniform-sized cookies. So the measurements weren't my problem. My problem was the dough itself. Rolling ropes of dough can be really awful if you've got a super sticky dough or a very crumbly dough (both of which I've dealt with and documented here) but this dough was neither of those things. It's hard to describe though. It didn't stick to the surface and it didn't stick to my hands. It also did not stick to itself which made forming complete rings basically impossible. The other problem is that it kept falling apart as I rolled it. I don't mean that it crumbled. I mean that, as I rolled a rope of dough, if I rolled any piece too thinly, it became two ropes. This made the concept of making a "Twisty Tarelle" completely impossible. To do that, I had to fold the dough rope in half and then roll it against the work surface so it would make a spiral. It did not. It just broke. A lot. After trying this for several minutes, I just gave up and stuck to the regular tarelles.

So eventually, I delicately rolled out two cookie trays' worth of these cookies. And realized that I had barely used half the dough. Awesome. I baked them for the appropriate amount of time and until the bottoms were slightly browned as specified. Pretty sure they were baked perfectly. I put them on the racks to cool while I rolled the rest of the cookies. No big problems there besides those already mentioned. At this point though, I had the sneaking suspicion that these cookies might be a bit bland so I decided to add some sprinkles. The picture shows some of the cookies with sprinkles so why not? I'll tell you why not. Because sprinkles don't stick to the cookies. I tried. The only way to get the sprinkles to stick was to really press them into the dough which destroyed the shape of the cookie so after attempting this with three cookies, I gave up. Here's a picture of the finished product before I give you a taste assessment though:

These cookies taste bad. I had my boyfriend taste one at the same time as me and we looked at each other and he said, "they're not bad..." which usually means they're not good. I was a half step away from spitting mine out. They are so DRY. There's no moisture to them so it's like trying to eat seven saltines or a mouthful of flour or something. I've only had this type of texture once before when I tasted a cookie and it crumbled to dust in my mouth and I almost choked on the cookie dust. At least I didn't make those cookies though. Those may be worse. These are really bad too though. I don't even know how I should have made them better.

So at this point, I'm pretty displeased with Cake Boss. His cookies are very hit or miss. I'm thinking that I'll try to make one of his pastries next to see if he's better with those. These cookies though...thumbs down. So, anyone want some terrible cookies? I have about 40 of them and nobody to eat them! Seriously, suggestions of what to do with these are welcome. I don't know if I want to subject anyone I like to them though. Sigh. What a disappointment.

Oh, and let me just put in a plug for the contest I've entered. I am competing in phdcomics.com's 2 minute thesis contest. If I get enough votes, I will get my thesis turned into a comic which would be totally cool. Voting ends on August 20 so if you would please vote and share with your friends to extend my network of voters, that'd be terrific. Thanks in advance and I promise, if I win, there will be cookie sharing. Here's the link to vote: http://www.phdcomics.com/tv/2minute/#133. The title of my audio clip is "[Intentionally Left Missing]"

A Disney Moment: Hunchback of Notre Dame

There's no way to sum up this movie besides this statement: My sister and I rented this movie from the library FIVE times. That's right. For about a month and a half, we would rent Hunchback and then stare at it and not want to watch it. We really really didn't want to watch this movie. Finally, we settled down to get it over with (I think we may have rewarded ourselves with fast food first) and well, I guess I didn't hate it quite as much as I thought I would. Which isn't exactly a ringing endorsement.

I don't really know what bothers me about this film. The villain isn't exactly scary. That's not to say that he isn't evil. He's probably the most evil Disney villain what with all the fire and brimstone and wanting to burn gypsies. But unless you're an adult and thinking "he's one amoral SOB" then he doesn't particularly inspire fear. I will always argue that Ursula is a better villain than Frollo is.

I think the movie tries to cram too many plot lines in and I don't really care for the other male protagonist (you know, the one that isn't Quasimodo that I can't remember the name of). The music is ok and the animation is fine but it just never grabbed me. Also, the gargoyles. Are they just Quasimodo's subconscious speaking or are they really alive? This bugged me. I don't mind if we have talking statues but the ambiguity of it made me uneasy. So, in this grouping, it's a 5/5. But at least we're done with it and the librarians can stop thinking that we're unhealthily obsessed with Hunchback.

Wedding Cookies

Hello everyone! Welcome to A Statistician Bakes: Wedding Edition. I was recently a bridesmaid in my very good friend, Laura,'s wedding. To help contribute to the big day, I decided to make some cookies. Because that's what I do. And because we had to be at the venue from 9 am till the ceremony at 4 pm and I figured we'd get hungry. I really wanted to make Mexican Wedding Cookies because, well, that's the cliche thing to do. Then I looked at the recipe and realized there was powdered sugar on them and that seemed like a phenomenally bad idea considering that our dresses were black. So my criteria for these cookies had to be: yummy and no-mess. I landed on the ever-classic Snickerdoodle (Martha's recipe, of course) and Buttery Pecan Rounds. I said no to chocolate because who wants chocolate in their teeth during a wedding and I said no to anything heavy because that would really impede the getting drunk process required for any good wedding.

I won't talk to you about the Snickerdoodles because I've made them so many times before so I'll talk about the Buttery Pecan Rounds. They're super easy. No really, like, 4 ingredients easy. Ok, so it's not 4 ingredients, it's 6 but still, that's pretty easy. May I interrupt for a moment to lament the fact that I haven't baked in my own kitchen for about a month now? I love my mom's kitchen but I think my Connecticut kitchen is crying out in neglect. Makes me sad.

Ok, sidebar over. There's honestly nothing worth talking about with these cookies though. Combine salt and brown sugar. Mix in egg yolk. Add flour and salt. Mix in chopped pecans. That's it. I was supposed to add half pecans for decoration on top but I wasn't feeling that so I skipped it. So...that's basically it for these cookies. These cookies were in the light and delicate section of Martha's book because I figured that'd be good. Oh! I also went to the trouble to buy cardstock to separate my new very large cookie tin. Ok, so maybe it's not a cookie tin and is actually one of those big containers that hold three types of popcorn but it serves its purpose! Here's a picture of the finished product:

As far as the taste, the Snickerdoodles were great as always. The pecan cookies were good but a little too bland for me. If I make these again, I think I'll add a bit more sugar or maybe some vanilla. They were very light and delicate though. Oh, and to round out this entry, congratulations Laura and Pat! Here's a picture of me with the bride (who also happens to be my friend for the past 20 years...which makes me feel old...)

A Disney Moment: Pocahontas

Oh, this movie. I liked it as a kid. I belted out "Colors of the Wind" with the rest of the world. But when I rewatched it...well, let's just say it was an experience. Let me set the stage: my sister and I were all geared up to watch and my mom would occasionally flit in and out to see if the movie was over yet. Apparently she REALLY dislikes Pocahontas. Which I guess is understandable if you have two daughters who watched it obsessively in their youth and sang along (badly) to all of the songs.

First of all, I don't like the character animation in this one. I'm sure this is a controversial point of view. But in my household, this was a rage-inducing experience. "Her ass is HUGE!" and "Why does she have gigantic calves one second and then by the next scene they're gone???" are just a couple of the issues we have with Pocahontas. My personal issue is her hair. It defies all laws of physics. And you know what? If the wind keeps pushing strands of her hair the same direction, eventually she won't have any hair left on one side of her head. It's illogical.

Ok, that aside, the rest isn't too bad. I have mixed feelings about Grandmother Willow. I truly appreciate the background animation which is beautiful. I can't understand how Pocahontas magically understands English all of a sudden. And don't give me that "listen with your heart" stuff because that's crazy. Honestly, I buy characters talking to animals more than I buy a suddenly bilingual protagonist.

Also, my mom had a couple gems to add when watching this movie. Including, "you know why Grandmother Willow's bark medicine works so well? It's aspirin!" I should point out that my mom is a chemist. And my favorite: "She is picking up a baby bear cub! The mother would have mauled her by now! This is just teaching children to pick up bear cubs! Why is Pocahontas stupid enough to pick up a bear cub?" This went on and on during the rest of "Colors of the Wind" and was completely hilarious.

I know there's a lot of Pocahontas love out there but I just didn't feel it. It wasn't a great masterpiece. It was ok. It was a 4/5 in this grouping. I will be bracing myself in preparation for all the people who are about to tell me I'm wrong.

Please Sir, I Want S'more(s)!

Welcome back! To put this in perspective for you, I baked this dessert for a 4th of July barbecue. Yeah. I've been a blogging slacker. What else is new, right? So, my aunt requested a sweet dessert for the barbecue and I got her to narrow that down to chocolatey sweet (as opposed to fruity sweet) so that was my jumping point for choosing a dessert. After perusing my grandmother's cookbooks (because this adventure all takes place down the shore) I finally found it: Chocolate S'mores cake! How good does that sound? I can tell you're drooling already. Oh, I should also mention that this recipe comes from the Food and Wine Annual Cookbook 2009.

Step 1 was to gather all my ingredients and supplies. I cannot express enough how hard it is cooking in someone else's kitchen. I swear, if I had been in my kitchen, this recipe would've been about 1000x easier. Forget matters like figuring out where the teaspoon measures are kept. No, I'm talking about needing to go out and buy 8 inch square baking pans and a candy thermometer and basic staples like flour and sugar. Let's just say that shopping for the ingredients (on the 4th of July, no less) took a bit longer than expected.

But fine, all materials gathered, I was ready to go. The first thing to do was basically make a chocolate cake. This part was uneventful. There was a slight moment of horror when we discovered that the vegetable oil was being kept in an olive oil container (which made us seriously question what oil we had been cooking with earlier in the week) but we got it sorted out and I'm fairly sure we used the correct oil in the cake.

While the cake was baking, my mom and I set about completing two different tasks. She first thoroughly cleaned the not-so-oft used KitchenAid mixer and then set about removing seeds from a vanilla bean. This requires some explanation. And when I say "explanation" I mean "reason that I was misled by the recipe." The list of ingredients states "1/2 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped." Think about that with me. Doesn't that sound like you want the 1/2 bean sans seeds? It certainly did to me. So my mom was scraping out and discarding the seeds. When I perused the actual text of the recipe though, it referred to combining egg whites and the vanilla seeds. Oops. And when I say "oops" I actually mean "that was really poorly written and was a pain in the ass." Anyone disagree with that assessment? Anyone?

Ok, so while all that was going on, I was in the middle of a sticky situation. First I had to combine gelatin and water in a small bowl and let it sit. No problem there. Then I had to boil corn syrup and sugar together and cook until it was precisely 250 degrees. So I was staring at a candy thermometer for a while. I heated it perfectly and then took it off the heat as directed. I conversed with my mom over the vanilla bean incident and then noticed the gelatin that was still sitting on the counter not doing anything. Hmm. Something about that didn't seem right to me. My mom started beating the egg whites and vanilla seeds to form stiff peaks while I reread the recipe to figure out where the gelatin was supposed to go. Ah, apparently immediately after taking the corn syrup off the heat, I was supposed to mix in the gelatin. Whoops. Easily rectified though. I just reheated the corn syrup to the proper temperature and added the gelatin.

Now things get really ugly. We had to pour in the corn syrup/gelatin mixture while the mixer was still beating. This requires extremely good aim with an extremely sticky substance. We do not have extremely good aim. This stuff got all over the top of the beater, the sides of the bowl, the counter...it was bad. It was also so sticky that spatulas didn't really help with removing it from the pot. It was a very long process trying to get as much of this stuff into the egg whites as possible. By the way, in case anyone was wondering, I was better at pouring than my mom. Just saying.

Eventually we got things to cooperate. By now the cakes were cool and we spread our marshmallow mixture over the cakes. Then we had to toast the marshmallow with the broiler of the oven. Fortunately for me (and for the smoke alarms of the house), I have the marshmallow toasting job every Thanksgiving when we make our sweet potatoes so I'm a pro at not lighting the food on fire. (Yes, it can and does happen quite easily.) I browned the top of the marshmallows lightly (they probably could've gone longer but they were starting to smoke so I declared them done) and then set about the final steps of the assembly process.

We were directed to "insert the [broken] graham crackers into the marshmallow." Sadly, there is no picture of this dessert in the cookbook so we just used our imaginations to interpret what that meant. My mom artistically placed the graham crackers while I melted bittersweet chocolate for some chocolate drizzle. I drizzled like a professional chocolate drizzler (if that were a thing) and we ended up with some pretty awesome looking cakes!

As far as the taste goes, that's a bit of a story. You know what doesn't go well with chocolate s'mores cake? White wine. In fact, the combination is straight up disgusting. The problem I had was that when it came time to serve the cake, I was only halfway through a glass of really yummy white wine and I didn't want to put it down. DO NOT MIX WHITE WINE AND CHOCOLATE CAKE! This is your warning people. Red wine, good. White wine, BAD. So anyway, I think that influenced my opinion of the cake a bit. I thought it was a bit too sweet and the chocolate cake part was kinda meh. Everyone else liked it a lot though so it could've been my scrambled taste buds. Overall though, I'd call this a success. Even if it was a huge pain to bake.

A Disney Moment: Lion King


Ok, I feel like I don't even need to review this movie. I didn't even take any notes after watching it. It's clearly 1/5 in this group. It's just generally a great film. I get chills from just the opening notes of "Circle of Life." The music is all genius. It has one of the best villain songs (though I'll still argue that Ursula's is the best) and it's got a range of emotion that's lacking from a lot of the movies. Disney is obviously cruel for the whole Mufasa thing but it really is a poignant moment. The comedy bits work, the evil is scary, and the conclusion is satisfying. Not a single complaint. Is this film the best of the best? Maybe. The plan as it stands is to watch my top 5 movies in a crazy marathon once the mission is complete to assess what the true "best" Disney film is. For now though, let's just say it's in my top 5.

You See, Perry the Platypus...

Welcome people! I'm on vacation (which is today's excuse for the lack of blogging) but I have two baking adventures to regale you with from the past week. Ready? Let's go.

The first adventure you may judge me for. You see, while at the supermarket, picking up groceries for my California relatives who were coming to visit, my sister made an awesome discovery. She started "Ooooh!"-ing and pointing at the section with the Pillsbury place and bake cookies. You know, those holiday themed ones with ghosts or fireworks or shamrocks or school buses (yes, they do have school buses for September). I was quite confused because, while we do make these fairly often, I didn't think the firework ones were very special. Then she looked at me like I was an idiot and pointed out the holy grail of place and bake cookies: Perry the Platypus cookies.

Firstly, am I safe in assuming that people know what place and bake cookies are? If not, they are exactly what they sound like: pre-cut, preheat the oven, place on a pan, bake, and done. Of course, I make them best. No, seriously! My family has a knack for forgetting about them and destroying our pans with circles of burnt cookie. More importantly though, some of you may not be familiar with Perry the Platypus. Perry is from the Disney tv show Phineas and Ferb. I don't care how old you are, go watch this show because it is clever and has more adult humor than kid humor. And the kids in the show have a pet platypus named Perry. Perry is also a secret agent who fights the evil (sort of) Dr. Doofenshmirtz. This probably sounds crazy but Perry is the shit. And that's all I'll say about that so that I don't end up waxing poetic about the show. But go watch it. It's on Netflix instant.

So, before you judge me for not really baking (since place and bake cookies are in no way really baking) let me just say this: I'm on vacation. And sometimes, you need a place and bake cookie. And look how freaking cute they are!

Totally awesome, right? Oh, and they changed the recipe for these cookies! Now they are made with whole wheat flour which may not sound like a big deal but they taste so so much better than they used to (and they were already pretty good to begin with). Case and point: the package had 24 cookies. With 5 people eating the cookies, they were gone in, I kid you not, less than 7 minutes. Really good cookies. And then we all felt sick.

Hmm, I was going to talk about both my baking adventures in this post but now I'm thinking that the sun is shining and the beach is warm and I'll just blog about the other one later. (Read: tomorrow.) So in the meantime, I'll leave you with this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRCT30pDtVE

A Disney Moment: Aladdin


We're finally onto a new group of five movies! It took a while, I know. So now we're at Aladdin. Aladdin was one of my favorites growing up, mostly because of the Genie and Jafar was a pretty solid villain. Sadly, I didn't enjoy it as much on a rewatch as I hoped. The whole beginning was really jumpy (which had to do with late changes in the plot but that's not my problem) and I felt like there were way too many comic relief characters. Seriously, we had Iago, Abu, Raja, and the sultan. You really only need two comic characters at most. They're typically pretty flat characters and can be a bit unnecessary. Honestly, I think one of the more complex characters was the flying carpet. I really respect how they got that much characterization out of a non-speaking carpet.

The best parts were definitely the parts with the Genie. I love his songs, his jokes, and especially the flow of his dialogue. He's pretty terrific. Overall, this movie scored a 3/5. It was fine but it didn't exactly knock my socks off. That said, I can still basically recite the movie from start to finish. I'm serious. My sister yells at me for doing it during the movie.

Finally Some Brownies

Hello all! Welcome to this week's edition of "I never have any of the stuff I need for baking!" Allow me to explain. I was invited to a friend's house for dinner last week so, of course, it is only polite and proper to arrive with a dessert. Unfortunately, I didn't have any good reference points for what the family might enjoy so I was flying blind a bit. I seriously considered my first attempt at pie but then decided that there was too much room for error there. I didn't know the situation with nut allergies or dislikes so finally I just threw up my hands and found a recipe for Ultimate Fudgy Brownies in the America's Test Kitchen cookbook. Everybody likes brownies.

Brownies. No problem, right? Wrong. First, I checked the ingredient list. It called for bittersweet chocolate, which naturally, I didn't have. But that's ok! They say you can substitute semisweet for the bittersweet. Perfect except...I'm out of chocolate. I don't even know how it happened but it did. I considered using a different recipe but then I decided to suck it up and go to the store. Before I left, I remembered to check the rest of the list. Ingredients: check. Baking implements: not so much. This recipe called for an 8 inch square baking pan. Searching for a baking pan, searching for a baking pan...nope, nothing. I briefly started doing the volume math to utilize my 13x9 inch baking pan and then decided that I'd probably need the pan eventually so I chose to buy an 8 inch square pan. Plus, my brain didn't really want to do the math.

So, last Wednesday, when it was about a hundred degrees in CT, I headed out to go to the store and to go to the gym. I got all the way to the supermarket before realizing that leaving chocolate in my car in 100 degree heat was a terrible idea. So I went to the gym first like a good girl. (Go me!) Then I picked up the pan and the chocolate (bittersweet and semisweet so I'm prepared for next time) and I was ready to go.

The first step I took was melting the butter, chocolate, and cocoa in the double boiler. That took a little while but I knew it would so that's why I did it first. See how smart I'm getting? While that was going, I combined the other ingredients (namely, sugar, eggs, vanilla and salt) and whisked them up real good. As the chocolate still wasn't completely melted, I set about preparing the pan for baking.

Here, America's Test Kitchen does something interesting. They reference the fact that brownies are a pain to cut and get out of the pan without getting them all messed up. Good point! That is usually a pain! I've heard tricks about putting the brownies in the freezer or trying to flip them upside down but nothing has been truly foolproof yet. This method is. ATK recommends a tin foil sling. That's right. Picture one piece of tin foil crossing the pan in one direction and a second piece of foil crossing the pan rotated 90 degrees from the first piece. This way, when you're done baking, you just pick up the bottom piece of foil and lift the whole thing out of the pan and onto the cutting board. I can't even tell you how well this worked. It was like magic. I highly recommend this method and hope I was clear in explaining it. Here's a picture of the nicely cut brownies in their tin foil sling:

As far as taste, these really are fudgy brownies. I think I may have overcooked them a bit because the sides were a little too crispy but the middles were all fudgy and delightful. Wouldn't do a thing differently with these brownies and they were easy and yummy so I'd definitely recommend these and would probably make them again. Success! And next time, I promise something more challenging! Really!

A Disney Moment: Beauty and the Beast


Ah, another classic. I've briefly discussed Beauty and the Beast already but now you get the in depth review. As I've mentioned, this movie ranks 2/5 right behind Little Mermaid. Little Mermaid just has a better villain. That was pretty much the tipping point for me. I still love Belle best and the music is still superb. But for some reason I was just more drawn to Little Mermaid than Beauty and the Beast. I'm not sure why. Oh wait, here's a theory...

I went to see Beauty and the Beast in 3D on the big screen when it came out. (Yes, that's how far behind I am with writing about these movies.) My sister and I timed it perfectly. We got up to this film just as it was being released and went on a weekday morning to the movies. A quick note on the 3D. I loved Lion King in 3D and I think Finding Nemo and Little Mermaid will all be great on 3D releases but I just didn't think Beauty and the Beast lent itself to the 3D conversion well. Not enough sweeping landscapes. It was fine but I didn't think the 3D added anything. Also, there was the matter of the creeper at the theater.

That's right, creeper. Middle aged guy came to the theater alone wearing a trenchcoat. Not strange yet. I see movies by myself all the time and I'd hate for someone to judge me for it. And the trenchcoat is an irrelevant point without the following information. Throughout the movie he was fidgeting constantly and a few times got up to presumably (?) use the restroom. Any one of these things: not creepy. All of them together: totally creepy. So, perhaps I was too distracted by the man "enjoying" the movie to truly enjoy it myself and maybe that contributed to my lower ranking on Beauty and the Beast than I might have expected. Also, eww.

Ready in a Jiffy

If I handed you a cookbook filled with everything from breads to cookies to cakes to pastries and said "Pick anything you like for me to bake today," what would you choose? I'm talking sky's the limit here. You name it, it's in this book. So, given those options, would you choose Corn Muffins? I didn't think so. But my boyfriend did so that's what I made.

I dove into the corn muffin recipe in the America's Test Kitchen cookbook. The very first thing I did was defy the recipe because why wouldn't that be my way of doing things? The recipe specifies to grease the muffin tin rather than use the muffin papers. They argue that muffins baked in paper liners are shorter and paler and that half the muffin comes off in the paper when you peel it. I argue that it's easier to clean up if they're baked in the papers. So there. I defy thee, America's Test Kitchen!

Ok, meanwhile with the actual baking, I had to whisk the dry ingredients together. Easy, easy. In a different bowl, I had to mix together the wet ingredients. Also easy. By the way, did you know that there's sour cream in corn muffins? I didn't either! The last step was to fold the wet ingredients into the dry ones, being careful not to overmix. I am awesome at this. So it was no problem. Last step: portion into the muffin tin and bake. The whole process took me maybe 20 minutes before baking time. Hmm. That wasn't terribly interesting, was it? 


So let's discuss the taste. I happen to love corn muffins. I had never made them from scratch before though. I usually go with the good ol' Jiffy boxed stuff because, well, it's just so easy and yummy. So the true test was this: are homemade corn muffins any better than Jiffy corn muffins? On my tasting, I leaned towards them tasting basically the same as the Jiffy corn muffins. But what's the use of one woman's opinion? Oh, by the way, they tasted really yummy. Did I mention that yet? Anyway, I needed more opinions. 


I asked my boyfriend to taste them (since he requested them and all) and he said they were good but offered up no opinion on their comparison to Jiffy. Super helpful. So I brought in my corn muffin expert: my sister. She makes Jiffy a lot more often than I do and is more of a corn muffin fiend than I am. She was stuck with tasting day old muffins but as she put it, "I obviously know what a day old Jiffy tastes like." So in the end, with confidence, my sister concluded that they taste exactly the same as Jiffy. So, friends, given the option of Jiffy and homemade, this baker concludes that you should save yourself the time and effort and just go with the Jiffy. I guess this adventure was more of an academic success than anything else. At least the muffins tasted and looked delicious. Take a look: 

Next time, I'm picking the dish and it's going to be more complicated. I'm sick of it being easy! Which no doubt means that there's entertainment to come. 


A Disney Moment: Rescuers Down Under


Well, there should be no doubt in anyone's mind that this movie ranked a 5/5 in this grouping. However, that's not because it was bad. It was just against some formidable opponents. In fact, I enjoyed Rescuers Down Under a great deal more than I enjoyed the Rescuers. It was prettier, it was smoother, the story made more sense. For once, we had a main character who is not completely and utterly stupid. Nice change of pace there. I felt that a bit too much time was spent focusing on John Candy as the bird. He just didn't read as a character in the movie, he read as John Candy. Amusing as that was, too much of the film got devoted to that notion. My only real critique was how screwed up it was for the evil dude to tell the mother that her son was eaten by alligators. I mean, that really sucks. That's it though. A fine film but not really much to write home about. 

Summertime, and the Livin' is Easy

Welcome to the start of the summer edition of A Statistician Bakes! Ok, so maybe the summer edition is no different from the usual baking adventures but it's my way of saying that I'm back! After a super long hiatus that included finals, a trip to Disney World, my sister graduating college, a conference, and a two week long cold, I am finally back to baking. There were a couple of things that I baked that I forgot to blog about so I'll briefly touch on those in this entry as well. Meanwhile, this week begins my summer of unemployment baking! My summer will consist of baking, working on my dissertation, and studying for my general exam. I plan to get a bit more elaborate than just cookies. Time to take the next step into the wild blue yonder, as they say.

But first, a recap. While I was MIA from this blog, I baked 7 layer cookies from the Cake Boss cookbook and Cinnamon Raisin Swirl Bread from the America's Test Kitchen cookbook. The 7 layer cookies were actually pretty easy and involved making 5 small cakes (two white, 1 red, 1 green, 1 brown) and layering them with layers of Nutella in between and then coating them with chocolate. I didn't have many issues with this but the parchment paper that was on the bottom of the pans made one side of each of the cakes kind of greasy and I'm not sure why. A note for the future. Also, coating these with melted chocolate makes them ridiculously hard to cut without cracking the chocolate off. Lame. They tasted pretty good but they weren't exactly my cup of tea so I sent them all away to a friend who liked them and wasn't entirely sure if I had made them since they were all professional and complicated-looking. Yay! Starting to pass as a professional! Anywho, here they are:

Also, yes, they are pretty big cookies. I don't know how you're supposed to bite all those layers at once unless you have a really really huge mouth.

Moving on...

The other thing I made was Cinnamon Raisin Swirl Bread. This was pretty fun because I had to do some actual hand kneading and allow for rising time and all that nonsense. There was also some drama because I totally almost forgot the raisins. Whoopsie. The only eventful thing about this was the actual baking process. When I baked the bread, it looked like this:

Yeah, it freakin' grew. It was like the tiny loaf pan couldn't contain the monstrous bread. The end result of this was that I got my very first baking burn. Trying to remove this from the oven in this state was chaos and my hand managed to hit the rack and I got a tiny, tiny burn on my hand. It's gone now but it felt like a momentous occasion. Also, a raisin managed to escape into the bottom of my oven and totally burnt there. No, I don't know how and no, I haven't successfully cleaned it off completely yet. (It really burned on there!) I have another picture here to show you my swirling technique (recall the icebox pinwheel cookies of yore. It was like that.)

Yeah, my swirling still needs some work. I think tighter rolling is the key.

And now, on to the main event! I have spent the past two hours baking in almost complete silence. That's right, silence. Why would I do that? Well, because today is my boyfriend's 25th birthday and I decided this morning that I'm insane and I wanted to surprise him with a cake. So, I consult my books and find a nice, somewhat easy chocolate cake recipe. Then I look at my kitchen tools and realize that I completely left my cake pans back in New Jersey. Good job, right? But that's ok, plan easily amended: Cupcakes! Perfect, so I go about making the cupcake batter (without using a mixer, mind you because I am being SILENT) and the recipe I chose was for Dark Chocolate Cupcakes from the America's Test Kitchen cookbook. Have I mentioned yet that I love this cookbook? If I haven't, I should because it's totally awesome and has a billion great tips and pictures. Good good book.

Anyway, I mixed up the batter just fine and baked them no problem. Now, here's where you get to judge me a bit: I didn't make my own frosting. I know, I know, shame on me. But frankly, frosting out of the can is just as good as anything I would make if it's just a standard chocolate fudge frosting (which is what I used) and it wasn't worth the effort and I was trying to do this quickly and QUIETLY. So judge me if you like but that's my excuse and I'm stickin' to it.

What I did make was my own writing icing. I found a simple recipe for writing icing in the cookbook and it worked perfectly. I've never had an icing recipe work out quite so well for me. It was just the perfect consistency though and sweet but not too sweet and I had absolutely no problems with the piping bag which may in fact be a first for me. So, I used my mad piping bag skillz to create this masterpiece:

Work of art, right? Anyway, two hours and several unwashed bowls later (I didn't want to make any noise!) and now all I have to do is wait for him to wake up. Mission: accomplished. The only downside: It's noon and I'm staring at these cupcakes that I totally can't eat yet. Torture. I bet they're good though.

A Disney Moment: The Little Mermaid


A classic. Like most little girls, I love Little Mermaid. I was excited for a rewatch. And, in fact, Little Mermaid was only recently surpassed by Beauty and the Beast as my favorite Disney movie. After all, Belle is the best "princess" and Ariel is kinda stupid. But now, I have to say, Little Mermaid trumps Beauty and the Beast. Belle is still better than Ariel but as an entire film, I am forced to rank Little Mermaid with a 1/5 in this grouping.

And the reason is this: Ursula. She's freaking terrifying. She's the scariest Disney villain of all time. Ever. Those who are about to argue "But Frollo is the most evil!" are wrong. There are few children in the world who don't want to crap their pants when Ursula grows 60 or so feet. Her villain song is one of my favorites because so much happens during it. It's not just a song break; it moves the plot along while still being a catchy, intelligently-written song. Ursula is what makes this movie truly great.

Of course, the other songs are terrific as well. I'll happily say that all those songs make me smile. The pacing of the film is good. The animation is lovely. I actually think that it's a movie that will do well with a 3D re-release, mostly because of all of the sweeping oceanic landscapes and bright colors.

Anyway, I don't want to continue gushing but I loved watching this movie. It made me happy. Oh, and the hidden Mickey, Donald, Goofy, and Kermit in the audience at the concert at the beginning of the film absolutely made my day. If you didn't know they existed, go watch again (or just look on youtube) because it's totally awesome.