Guest Attempt: To Catch a Leprechaun

Dear Readers: Let it be known that I'm not solely interested in guest posts from friends making rainbow-centric cakes. I swear, it's just a coincidence! In fact, as you'll see, the impetus behind these various rainbow-themed cakes couldn't be more different. In short, I'm so very excited to bring you this guest attempt from my good friend Kara who happens to also be the author of one of my most favorite blogs.

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The Envy
When I first saw the Leprechaun Trap Cake on Not Martha, I made brutal fun of it. Boy, does someone need to get laid! I thought. I joked in this way to Amelia, and thought more and more about the cake.

Not Martha's version:

photos via Not Martha

And then it happened—that thing that always happens when I am making fun of someone else's creation: I realize that I am envious. I want to make Leprechaun Trap Cakes. I want a job where I can make anything I want. I want to play so abundantly, detailishly, and colorfully, especially in my kitchen.

The Humbling
It happened on a trip to Alaska with my husband. We were traveling with his parents for two weeks, joined by his brother and brother's wife for one of those. We stayed in exquisite summer cabins, zapped mosquitoes with electronic wands, goofed off with sea otters, and generally explored all you have heard about Alaska: its wild, pristine loveliness, its lack of supermarkets, its mountains-meet-the-sea, Holy Bananas, This Is Our Country?-ness. It was epic—in a quiet sort of way. The way you know when you've met someone you will love forever, but it will be months or years until you can tell him so.

I am not finished with Alaska. I just don't know when we will see each other again.

That is neither here nor there, except that, sometimes, you DON'T know when you've met someone you will love forever. They sneak up on you. Like a leprechaun.

On a particularly stormy-inside, drizzly grey-outside day in the middle of our trip, we drove through a valley called Hatcher's Pass. Hatcher's Pass made everyone think of Ireland, though none of us had been there before. It looked just like the Ireland we all carried in our souls, from a combination of National Geographic photos, mysterious Celtic lineage, or, perhaps more truthfully, Far and Away.

In any case, I was bored and cranky, crunched up in the backseat. I was typing on my laptop—in Alaska! I know, I know, but I can only ride in a car for so many hours without absolutely going out of my mind. It has to do with private head-space, I think. Or control. It's not totally attractive. But I have learned over the years, and dozens of road trips with my husband, to accept it, to plug in the headphones, and go to work. It is better to deal with looking like a workaholic, or to actually be a workaholic, than to throw a tantrum.

So there I was in the backseat, typing away. I was hoping to stay sane, and also, record different ways to develop my creative ideas when I got back home. (One of the biggest boons to vacation, which should be put into Amelia's commercial, is getting fresh ideas for stuck projects waiting back at home.) In the middle of all this brainstorming, I looked out the window at a rain-slick rock nestled into a bunker of moss. I knew then and there that I could not deny my fascination with the Leprechaun Trap Cake any longer. The message was clear, taunting me from a nook behind that glistening rock: I must heed the call and attempt to catch my own leprechaun. And I must do it swiftly, upon my return home, and I must do it with cake.

The Reality (Or, My Continued Struggle To Make Sense of My Desires, And Respect the Wisdom of Their Spontaneous Appearances)
Once I decided to make this cake, I had to confront two issues:

1. I radically cut sugar from my diet in July, after a three-week cleanse that eliminated indecision, depression, and melancholy from my life entirely. Was I really about to dedicate a day or more to crafting something invented to house sugar; voluntarily make electric green icing without the excuse of throwing a child’s birthday party; and serve this creation to myself and others I love, knowing how sugar sucker-punches the digestive system?

2. I did not own an Angel Food Cake pan, nor did I want to own one. But a Bundt Cake Pan was clearly not going to suffice—I had seen the wobbly rainbows produced by such a pan. And if catching a leprechaun is the goal, the integrity of the rainbow inside the cake could not be compromised. I was obsessed by its vibrancy in Not Martha's version. And rainbows always remind me of the chakra system—one color for each of the chakras, starting with red at the root.

With issue Number 1, I decided that anything themed around a vibrant rainbow could not be all bad. Besides, I didn't have to eat it. I could just make it and celebrate it—freaky icing and all—and go about my merry way, tra la la.

With issue Number 2, I had to confront the weird thing I do when I pit creative urges against practical reasoning, which in this case manifested itself in price-comparing the varieties of Angel Food Cake pans for a week, trolling thrift stores to find a cheap one (thus justifying my weird urge to make a cake I do not want to eat), and poll relatives and neighbors (who I don’t know) whether anyone has an AFC pan I could borrow.

What a surprise! They did not.

I knew they would not. I knew I needed to buy one, if I had a chance of making such a perfect rainbow cake as Not Martha’s. But first, I had to struggle. I think this relates to a perverted attachment to drama, at least, Home Economically-leaning, Kara versus The World drama, which plays itself out in unnecessary ways a hundred times a day. I also think I get confused by my husband's upbringing, which prized frugality. I grew up in a different way—a way I think is fair to say prized aesthetics as much as anything else. When I try to play by the Midwestern customs I married into, I get poor results, like the time I borrowed my best friend's sneakers to run the mile in fourth grade, because they were supposed to be more aerodynamic. If I had just stuck to my own ways, I might have been fine. But I like to experiment. And sometimes, that creates confusion and a little discomfort. And then sometimes, it makes me finish dead last.

If we could all call this habit to explode little details into paralyzing life decisions a facet of the novelist in me, that would be awesome. Thanks.

The Reckoning (Or, How I Discovered For the One Millionth Time That Recipes Are Cool, and, How I Discovered That Sugar Is A Hot Lover, Good For Occasional Romps, But I'm Looking For A Better Man)

When I purchased the food coloring for this cake, my mouth went dry and my palms itched. I was so close to the rainbow, my adrenaline started pumping. Next, I looked up recipes.

Because I had invited my vegan friend for dinner, I decided to bake a vegan version of the cake. How hard could it be? I had baked vegan things before. They were all edible. Some were even fantastic. So I plunged ahead with flippant confidence, forgetting one thing about vegan cakes.

Naively clearing just one afternoon for this cake, I began. The vegan recipes I pulled from the Internet were so mediocre that I hesitate to include them here. Instead, I say: pick your favorite vanilla cake recipe, and Magnolia Bakery’s frosting recipe, and go to town. Double the cake recipe for a taller, possibly more rewarding cake.

I sifted flour with the other dry ingredients, and combined liquid ingredients in a separate bowl. As I prepared to add the liquid ingredients to the dry ones, I realized with a sinking feeling why I should have dug further into the website for a proper cake recipe. That was, simply: vinegar. Vinegar, often the final ingredient to vegan baked goods, catalyses the rising agents in baking powder and soda, standing in for the job eggs normally perform in veganless baking. Ideally, one adds vinegar seconds before putting a cake in the oven. But I had to separate the batter before pouring it into the pan, in order to create the different rainbow colors. Shee-it.

Luckily, I have vague ambitions of having a home apothecary someday and snatch whatever eyedroppers cross my path. I added all the ingredients I could without the vinegar, then separated the batter and created my rainbow colors. (The cake recipe I used called for 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract, which I happily added, not thinking of how it would make my batter beige, and thus affect the coloring process. After all, what painters start with a beige canvas? I suggest keeping the extract at a strict teaspoon if your recipe calls for it, or substituting seeds from a vanilla bean, and amping up the food coloring until the colors of your various batters really pop.)

Finally, I added the vinegar by drops to whatever color I needed to pour in next, moments before I poured it. It was sort of tedious, but also sort of the most exciting part of the whole day. Excitement around eyedroppers bodes well for a future apothecary, no?

I baked the cake, took it out, and stared at the hot pink blob that should have been blood red. I was slightly disappointed but since Rome was not built in a day (something I sadly often forget), I moved on. I cooled the cake on a rack and made the icing. I was both mesmerized by the bright green possibilities for the icing, and certain I needed a way around using a pastry bag. I settled on the old coconut trick my mom used for our birthday cakes growing up and dyed a bowlful of shaved coconut by soaking it in tinted water. (This water leered at me from the corner of the counter, growing scarier and blobbier by the hour, by the way. I only had the courage to use it because of my husband's assurance that it would not, in fact, bite me.)

Making the icing proper, I lamented the gobs of powder sugar required for icing and felt how permanent—or grave—the changes in my diet had become. I was actually dreading eating this cake.

I set cake efforts aside and embraced making real food for my friend who was coming to dinner. I was beginning to regret spending so much time on something that was going to turn my mouth weird colors, and not even really feed me. I hesitate to write this on a food blog at all, because I believe in all food as nutrition, and am uncomfortable labeling anything as bad. But balance is the goal here, for me anyway. After many decades of being somewhat addicted to sugar, I am taking a step back. So that I can return to our relationship someday, with appreciation and see all the ways we were there for each other. Remember all those slushies? Fourth of July cakes with fresh blueberries? What about that night you went skinny dipping with friends? Surely that was a sugar-addled decision! Etc, etc. However, I am in my Please-Don't-Call-Me phase with sugar right now. I just need a break.

There is this incredible essay in a collection called (somewhat ludicrously) Roar Softly And Carry a Great Lipstick: 28 Women Writers on Life, Sex, and Survival. The essay, by Anne Lamott, is about drinking and getting sober. The essay's main action takes place on a day that the author was still drinking and follows her mind as she justifies all kinds of drinking as part of her plan to get sober.

I think that making this cake might have been my flirtation with that same kind of thinking: how far do I want to take this new resolve towards health? What are the ways I can tempt fate?

After a satisfying dinner (toasted walnut mushroom burgers, corn on the cob), my friend and husband and I assembled the rest of the cake. At this point, I needed serious reinforcements, because I was in a spiritual tailspin and our un-air-conditioned house hovered around ninety degrees. Our one box fan whirred behind us as I delegated every task I could, yelling out encouragements like, Come on, team! Almost there!

My friend wrapped gold foil around quarters that my husband had reluctantly lent for this project and only agreed to do so if I returned them upon completion. My husband took photographs of the finished cake, growing as obsessed with this task as I had been with recreating the vibrant rainbow. I carpeted the cake with coconut. The ladder was ready (built out of pretzels and—cheat alert!—craft glue). Finally, I drew the crucial sign, advertising the gold a leprechaun might find in the center of our cake.

Presto! A Leprechaun Trap Cake. Nothing to it. I swear.

The Wrap-Up
In the end, I believe that all situations are neutral. It is our relationship to them that defines them and empowers our relationships to ourselves. I was once introduced in a lecture on Buddhism to the idea that everything we experience right now builds on what has come before it. I thought of this often, when I met my husband. I was in a draining relationship I desperately wanted to end at the time, and did not know how to do it. Whenever I am tempted to curse the days I spent in that dead-end, I am able to see the blessings of its occurrence: the ways that being unhappy prepared me for my recognition of profound love and the ways that I was still becoming the woman my husband was to meet in those times I felt unhappy.

Making this cake was a little like that. Over the past two years since finishing graduate school, I have simplified my ambitions in profound ways. Spending so much time on this cake, something I didn't really believe in—other than ironically, or competitively—was a gift of awakening, highlighting what activities I do care about and showing me that I don't enjoy messing around anymore in areas I don't care about. It was also a way to rediscover the happiness that I have built without loads of sugar in my diet. I missed the emotional equilibrium and mental clarity I had come to depend upon and recognized its departure as soon as I finished a solitary piece of the (somewhat oily, too-sweet, but very colorful) cake.

It feels a little weird to report on the experiment in this way. I feel a little traitorous, especially imagining all the beautiful treats that you, talented readers, are making. All the berries going into festive pies. All the birthdays celebrated with cake and skinny dipping. But I feel like I need to tell the truth, as soberly as possible, in order to come to terms with the social culture around certain foods and my own relationship to that culture, or those foods, and learn to accept that something beautiful in my mind may not feed my body as well. Sometimes a picture works as well as the real thing. Like in love, sometimes it is healing just to flirt for a night, or a season. (This is one of the miracles of fiction.) Other times, it is good to marry that love—to play games through its grace for as long as possible. The gift in this life is the chance to discover that knife's edge of difference, to navigate by our own gut reactions. Literally. Profoundly. And, ultimately, without remorse.

To your own awakening,
Kara

Double (Rainbow) Guest Attempt: Rainbow Cake

Is there anything (at least momentarily) more hopeful than a rainbow? Yes, you guessed it: Double rainbow!

(via Martha Stewart) Whisk Kid's version:

photo by Kaitlin Flannery of Whisk Kid

Sara's version:

photo by Sara Moe

Evin's version:

photo by Evin Watson

Sara's photographic recap:

Evin's recap:
My two year old daughter insisted on a rainbows-and-polka-dots themed birthday. Our friend, Jodi found that Martha Stewart had the perfect solution, a six-layer rainbow cake. I laughed when I saw the photo.

I have no real cake-making skills. The ridiculous height didn't concern me, however the color; the essence of the rainbow; how do you get those colors with that crappy, gnome shaped grocery store food coloring? The answer: gel food coloring. That is lesson number one and maybe the only one learned from this recipe, but its effect on me is immeasurable. There is no mixing liquids and ending up with dull colors and stained fingers. You just buy the gel food coloring that matches the color you are going for. Simple. And there are millions of colors to choose from. It can't be found at the grocery store, but William Sonoma seems to have it on their website, and I'm sure it is common in any baking specialty store. I got ours at this amazing baking store called NY Cake. (There is also a location in LA.)

The recipe instructs you to make the batter for all six layers at once, divide it evenly, and then add the colors. After adding the coloring, the vibrant batter immediately reminded me of that multi-colored custard they had the food fight with in Hook. Remember? They don't have food or parents, but the lost boys use their imagination to fill their bowls with roasted meat and colorful custard.

Once you've added the color to the batter everything else is straightforward. I have to say we were really impressed with the result. We didn't manage to get the icing between the layers to go on as thick as we wanted. The bands of white in Martha's cake look so good. I don't think it worked because the layers didn't cool all the way before we iced. (We don't have wire cooling racks. Those might have come in handy.)

In the end the end, we stuck to the recipe as best we could. The only thing different is the lack of sprinkles on the outside, which would have made a lot of sense. Because what is better than one rainbow? DOUBLE RAINBOW!!

OK, so I stole Evin's double rainbow joke for the first line of this post, but stand by the theft as I feel that the double rainbow joke needed to be doubly mentioned. Also: a big thank you to Evin, Keeley, Sara, and Sean for sharing! You guys are amazing. 

And lastly: this post feels a little awkward coming after what has happened and is still happening in Japan. I think Tim from Lottie + Doof summed up this confusion and awkwardness quite nicely here. And while making rainbow cakes and milk punch certainly can't hurt, I hope we can all finds ways to help. 
UPDATE! Another way to help: Heath Ceramics is donating 25% of online sales now through March 24th to Architecture for Humanity's rebuilding efforts in Japan. Check it out here.

Recipe via Martha Stewart via Whisk Kid!
Makes one 9-inch-round six-layer cake.

Ingredients
vegetable shortening
3 cups all-purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 1/3 cups sugar
5 large egg whites, room temperature
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups milk, room temperature
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple gel food coloring
Lemony Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Brush six 9-inch-round cake pans (or as many 9-inch cake pans as you have, reusing them as necessary) with shortening. Line bottom of each cake pan with parchment paper; brush again and set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt; set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter and sugar. Slowly add egg whites and mix until well combined. Add vanilla and mix until fully incorporated. Add flour mixture and milk in two alternating additions, beginning with the flour and ending with the milk. Mix until well combined.

Divide batter evenly between six medium bowls. Add enough of each color of food coloring to each bowl, whisking, until desired shade is reached. Transfer each color to an individual cake pan. Transfer to oven and bake until a cake tester inserted into the center of each cake comes out clean, about 15 minutes (working in batches if necessary).

Remove cakes from oven and transfer to a wire rack; let cool for 10 minutes. Invert cakes onto a wire rack; re-invert and let cool completely.

Using a serrated knife, trim tops of cakes to make level. Place four strips of parchment paper around perimeter of a serving plate or lazy Susan. Place the purple layer on the cake plate. Spread a scant 1 cup buttercream filling over the first layer with a small offset spatula so it extends just beyond edges. Repeat process with blue, green, yellow, and orange layers.

Place the remaining red layer on top, bottom-side up. Gently sweep away any loose crumbs with a pastry brush. Using an offset spatula, cover the top and sides with a thin layer of frosting (also use any of the excess frosting visible between the layers). Refrigerate until set, about 30 minutes.
Using an offset spatula, cover cake again with remaining frosting.

Guest Attempt: Mama Merle's Versa Rolls

Three things I'm into right now:

1. Grandmas in the kitchen. (More on this in a forthcoming mega-post!)

2. Friends tackling gorgeously photographed and very tricky-looking Martha Stewart recipes. (More on this coming soon too.)

3. poetry collections. 

So when my friend Ashley (a poet), after having witnessed my failed attempt at Martha's dinner rolls, emailed me with her Grandma's recipe and techniques, I practically blew a gasket. I couldn't be happier to share this guest attempt for her Grandma's dinner rolls. Here's Ashley!

*

Recently I saw that Bon Appetempt and I have been having similar dinner roll woes. I have been trying to mimic my grandmother's yeast rolls lately, to no avail. So when I went home to Alabama for Christmas, I said, "Mama Merle, you gotta show me."And lo and behold, after watching my grandmother go for it, I have been able to mostly-successfully recreate the smoothly rounded, fluffy yeast rolls of Merle lore.

When I gave it a shot, now far away from the warm-melty-butter-glow of my grandmother, I was sure I would lapse back into dense non-balls as a finished product. But I am happy to report I’ve now got the knack.

Mama Merle's “Versa” Rolls:
Keep handy a bag of all purpose flour (indeterminate total amount. One thing I noticed watching Mama Merle in action was she, of course, ignored her recipe years ago and intuited her flour needs.)
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp. salt
2 pkg dry yeast (I use Fleischmann's Rapid Rise)
1 1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup butter
2 eggs (room temp)
In a large bowl, mix 1 1/2 cups flour, sugar, salt, and yeast.
Combine milk and butter in saucepan and heat to very warm (melt butter).
Gradually add milk/butter to the dry ingredients. Beat 2 minutes with electric mixer.
Add enough flour to make soft dough. (Wooden spoon at this point.) I only add
enough flour until I can successfully lift the mass out of the bowl and onto the board.

Knead on floured board. (Whoa there, cowgirl! I initially was giving it a deep-tissue massage. Now in my wiser stage, I go gentle into that good dough. Also, I don't add more flour at this stage, only enough to keep it workable and non-sticky.)

Place in buttered bowl, and also butter the top. Cover. Let rise.

This "let rise" thing was too vague for me. Mama Merle's house is perpetually 98 degrees in winter and boy did that dough double on up. My apartment's thermostat said "47" this morning. So my dough takes way longer to double than does Merle's. Likely no one other than me is letting it get down to 47 inside. But I turn on the oven and let the dough sit on top of the oven with a towel covering it.

When it has beaten the odds against my frugality, it's now time for "pinching it off" (Mama Merle's phrase, not mine). But first, pound that fluffy, risen yeast ball down.

Now, what Mama Merle does is takes a smooth surface of the dough mass in her hand between the thumb and index finger in the crook there, and she pinches off a little bulbous heap. Sort of looks like a khaki mushroom.

She sets that pinch-side down onto a buttered pan. They are fine to sidle right up along side one another in the pan but you can arrange for those lovely bulbous tops to not touch so much by giving them a bit of space if you want. I sidled these.

The key here is uniformity. You will want all the bulbs the same size so there are none taller than the others so that they will bake evenly and all have the opportunity to have the same golden-brown. It's worth being careful to make that happen. Mama Merle makes that happen. I am not yet a consistently uniform pincher.

Let those rise a second time, covered, in a warm environment, doubling in size again.

Then, bake in a preheated oven at 375 degrees for about 12 minutes. When done, brush tops with melted butter.

Enjoy!

Tasty to note: Lately I have been turning this recipe into cinnamon rolls. Rather than "pinching one off," you pound your risen yeast ball and flatten it with a pin into a rectangle, coat it with melted butter, sugar and cinnamon. Then you roll that long-side to long-side in a long swirled log, cut uniformly into the individual rolls, and let that have its second rise. Bake the same way. Cream cheese icing recommended, on the side. I've found people like coating their own roll. (Mama Merle likely has an inventive phrase for that as well...)

Hope this helps!

Guest Attempt: Saveur's Chocolate Caramel Tart

I am so very excited about this guest attempt by my friend, Sara. Her now unavailable photography blog was one of the first blogs I followed with true anticipation. I would go to it daily, always saddened/annoyed if there wasn't a new post. This combined with the fact that I've had so many delicious meals at her house with her and her amazing family, I knew she'd put together a fabulous guest attempt. Uhm, I was right...

I'm calling this Saveur's Chocolate Caramel Tart, but in reality just as much credit is due to Lottie and Doof, whose adaptation of the Claudia Fleming original recipe factored into my execution heavily as well. In fact, once I knew that both recipes existed there was no way I could follow just one exclusively...the desire to pick and choose the better/easier/more novice-baker-friendly steps was just too great. So instead I read through both at length, plus the reader comments attached, and only then began my foray into something that I really, really do not do: baking.

I like to think this meticulousness is part of my charm. And maybe it is, except if you're my younger sister Grace, who called me last week to report that her ex-boyfriend had "finally realized what his problem with [me] was." Go ahead, read that again. Her ex-boyfriend. Called from ex-dom because he had an epiphany about what was wrong with ME. (Ok, in reality, they talk frequently and I guess this somehow came up in the course of a normal conversation?) Anyway. The charge: I am too good at everything.

In reality, I am not good at everything—far, far from it in fact. But what I am is driven. Detail-oriented. Willing to read the directions. Basically willing to work hard to look like I'm good at things. And I guess that, according to my sister, it often works. But one place where all those skills really don't hold up is in the kitchen, where spontaneity and intuitiveness account for more success than an alphabetized spice rack. And because of this, my sister is, and has always been, the better cook.

Maybe it's the impending holidays, or maybe it's that I just listened to this piece on NPR, or maybe it's the fact that I'm about to welcome my second child any day now...but I've been thinking a lot about siblings lately. So when Amelia asked me to write up a guest attempt on this tart, and my sister decided to copy me again make the same one on the same day, I had Grace document her process as well so we could see what happened.

* * *

It's afternoon in California, and I've organized my ingredients and done my prep work. One hour later at my Dad's house in New Mexico, Grace opens a bottle of wine and gets to work as well.

My phone rings almost immediately.

"Uh, do you have a fluted tart pan with removable bottom?"

"Yeah, I bought mine this morning." (after visiting no less than 3 different stores)

Grace mutters some expletives.

"You don't have one? Didn't you read the recipe?"

"...No?? I just read the list of ingredients."

She must hear me smirking through the phone.

"You're totally going to write about how you're a super organized jerk and I didn't read the recipe, aren't you?"

Oh little sister...how well you know me.

Saveur's version:
photo: Andre Baranowski

my version:

Grace's version:

This recipe starts off with making the crust. Having only made a pie crust once before in my life, when I was 12 and probably not alone in the kitchen (although that pie did place in the Martha's Vineyard Fair pie contest—yes, seriously), I am already out of my comfort zone.

Still, judging from the substance I lick off my beaters, things are A-ok.

However, now comes the part where the recipe wants you to "press dough evenly into bottom and sides of pan." Like, with my fingers? Am I missing something?

I consult the Lottie and Doof recipe, see that they want you to chill it, roll it, chill it, and then use pie weights (pie weights??) and decide to take the finger approach. The result is slightly...lumpy.

I am a bit worried until Grace calls again and tells me she has done the same thing. Score!
She also tells me that pie weights are just dried beans. Who knew??

I stick my crust in the oven, clean the entire kitchen, and read through the caramel portion of both recipes to refresh my memory. Grace sticks her crust in the oven and starts making the caramel, still reading the recipe for the first time as she goes.

My phone rings again.

"I need a candy thermometer for this??!"

Luckily, you don't, at least according to the Lottie and Doof recipe (or the reader comments on the Saveur recipe) so she does it by eye instead.
I, on the other hand, do not.
Did I mention I'm about to have a baby ANY DAY NOW?

Did I also mention that caramel is a seriously dangerous substance? Poetically, Grace and I burn the same exact finger during this step. Her battle wound is much more impressive than mine:

I pour my caramel into the crust, put the tart in the fridge to chill overnight, and collapse on the couch to watch a movie and knit. Grace pours her caramel into the crust, puts the tart in the fridge to chill overnight, and finishes her bottle of wine while perusing Facebook.

By morning, it's ganache time.
All goes well until I start pouring mine and realize that the tart is so cold and I'm pouring with so much care and so little speed that it's hardening faster than it can spread.
I use a spatula to avert the crisis but the result is again slightly...lumpy.

Grace calls and reports that hers is smooth and perfect.
Having seen the photos, I think this was actually a case of what's called differing standards.

I put my tart in the fridge to chill again, wash the dishes, and set the table before our guests arrive. Grace puts her tart in the fridge to chill again, re-bandages her blistery finger, and opens another bottle of wine.
Yes, I'm wearing velour pants. That's what happens when you're 9 months pregnant and it's Thanksgiving, people.
And yes, my sister is totally gorgeous. And probably has never worn velour pants in her life.

In closing, I would say I was mostly happy with the outcome of all this culinary sibling rivalry. I felt like my crust was maybe a bit thick (pie weights/dried beans next time?) and that the chocolate ganache could have been a thinner and smoother layer as well. All the chocolate was a bit overwhelming for me when I wanted the caramel to be the star. However, I am not really a chocolate person.

Grace thought her tart was perfect...she decidedly is a chocolate person though.

But then, you could have guessed that by now, couldn't you?

Recipe via Saveur:
FOR THE CRUST:
1 1⁄2 cups flour
1⁄4 cup plus 1 tbsp. dutch-process unsweetened
cocoa powder
1⁄4 tsp. kosher salt
10 tbsp. unsalted butter, cubed and softened
1⁄2 cup plus 2 tbsp. confectioners' sugar
2 egg yolks, preferably at room temperature
1⁄2 tsp. vanilla extract

FOR THE CARAMEL
1 1⁄2 cups sugar
3 tbsp. light corn syrup
1⁄4 tsp. kosher salt
6 tbsp. unsalted butter
6 tbsp. heavy cream
1 tbsp. crème fraîche

FOR THE GANACHE
1⁄2 cup heavy cream
4 oz. bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
Gray sea salt for garnish

1. Make the crust: Heat oven to 350˚. Combine flour, cocoa powder, and salt in a medium bowl and set aside. Using a handheld mixer, cream the butter and sugar in a large bowl until mixture is pale and fluffy; mix in yolks and vanilla. Mix in dry ingredients. Transfer dough to a 9" fluted tart pan with a removable bottom and press dough evenly into bottom and sides of pan. Refrigerate for 30 minutes. Prick the tart shell all over with a fork and bake until cooked through, about 20 minutes. Transfer to a rack and let cool.

2. Make the caramel: In a 1-qt. saucepan, whisk together sugar, corn syrup, salt, and 6 tbsp. water and bring to a boil. Cook, without stirring, until a candy thermometer inserted into the syrup reads 340°. Remove pan from heat and whisk in butter, cream, and crème fraîche (the mixture will bubble up) until smooth. Pour caramel into cooled tart shell and let cool slightly; refrigerate until firm, 4–5 hours.

3. Make the ganache: Bring cream to a boil in a 1-qt. saucepan over medium heat. Put chocolate into a medium bowl and pour in hot cream; let sit for 1 minute, then stir slowly with a rubber spatula until smooth. Pour ganache evenly over tart and refrigerate until set, 4–5 hours. Sprinkle tart with sea salt, slice, and serve chilled.
SERVES 8

Guest Attempt: Operation Cozy / Pumpkin Cupcakes with Maple Frosting

With my dear friend Heather Taylor, things/events/situations tend to fall under one of two distinctions: cozy and not cozy. When we were first becoming friends, it was around the time that the now cult classic The Holiday (I kid!) was coming out in theaters, and I distinctly remember Heather and her sister describing it as "porn for cozy people." I laughed and laughed, and now, four years later, Heather and her sister, Megan, are bringing you the coziest post ever to grace the face of Bon Appétempt. Seriously, if this were a drinking game where every time something cozy was alluded to, you took a shot; you would be w-a-s-t-e-d in no time. So, without further ado, I give you their guest attempt: Operation Cozy.

Ina Garten/ House Beautiful's version:

Heather and Megan's version:

"Are you tired of the same old pumpkin pie?"

There are a few FABULOUS things about when my sister comes to town and we inevitably wind up lazing around my parents' house at some point during the weekend, usually on a Sunday.

1. We watch cooking shows off and on all day long.

2. There are piles upon piles of food (and home and fashion) mags, so the kitchen inspiration potential is everywhere.

AND

3. There are crazy crazy baby pics of us everywhere!

The women in my immediate family love fall so much that it borders on fetish. The other thing we love a lot? In the words of Jack Donaghy on a recent episode of 30 Rock, "Her name is the Barefoot Contessa, Lemon." While hanging out at our mom and dad's house on a recent Sunday and flipping through my mom's issue of House Beautiful, we stumbled upon a recipe for Ina Garten's seductively titled "Pumpkin Cupcakes with Maple Frosting." Alongside the article, Ina says, "The truth is I've never really liked pumpkin pie, so yes, I have another idea this year: pumpkin cupcakes with maple frosting! Everyone gets their own individual cake…and the toffee topping isn't bad, either." Uh huh. Keep talking, Ina…

Here's the deal—it's suuuuuuch an easy recipe. A bit of dry ingredients, a bit of wet. Mix them together, stick them in the oven (using your mom's pumpkin-colored bowls in her beautiful kitchen and having what I deemed a mermaid-tail braid in your sister's hair only enhances the baking experience!).

As the sweet and warm pumpkin smell wafted through the house, we could barely contain our excitement about our creation!!!!!

And with the precision indicative of Ina's recipes, the little pumpkin cakes were done in exactly 25 minutes—perfectly soft and luscious. While letting these beauties cool completely, we got going on the cream cheese maple frosting. Room temp butter, cream cheese, vanilla extract, confectioners sugar and maple syrup (recipe calls for Boyajian Natural Maple Flavor but we couldn't be bothered with looking for that ingredient! Last I checked, there was nothing wrong with good quality maple syrup, right?)

Once frosted, the best part of this whole recipe comes to fruition. Chop up some toffee, Heath bars to be exact, and crumble, liberally on top of said cupcakes. And it's these here little crunchy bits that put this recipe completely over the top.

Cozy cozy cozy fall dessert completed! Thank you, Ina! And thank you, Amelia for inspiring us to turn it up just a little bit and make a casual day in the kitchen into a Bon Appetempt! Happy fall!

Recipe via House Beautiful:
Pumpkin Cupcakes with Maple Frosting
Makes 10 cupcakes

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
1 cup canned pumpkin purée (8 ounces), not pie filling
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
1/2 cup vegetable oil
Maple Frosting (recipe follows)
1/2 cup coarsely chopped Heath bars, for serving (2 1.4-ounce bars)

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Brush or spray the top of 10 muffin tins with vegetable oil and line them with 10 paper liners.
2. Into a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg. In a larger bowl, whisk together the eggs, pumpkin purée, granulated sugar, brown sugar, and vegetable oil. Add the flour mixture and stir until combined.
3. Divide the batter among the prepared tins (I use a level 2 1/4-inch ice cream scoop) and bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Set aside to cool completely.
4. Spread the cupcakes with the Maple Frosting and sprinkle with the chopped toffee bits.

Maple Frosting

6 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/4 teaspoon Boyajian Natural Maple Flavor
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the cream cheese and butter on low speed until smooth. Stir in the maple flavoring and vanilla extract. With the mixer still on low, slowly add the confectioners' sugar and mix until smooth.