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I held a brunch today and went through about 6 lbs of potatoes, 4 lbs of meat, a dozen eggs, and the equivalent of 4 sticks of butter for 6 people.  This is a bit of an exaggeration as I have sizeable leftovers.  Anyway, most of the butter went into dutch baby bunnies that quickly became called dutch baby butter bunnies as the recipe called for 1/2 a stick a piece.

The start of the recipe is to melt the stick in a skillet and then to dump the batter on top of it.  I think the recipe overstated the need for butter as the bunny wasn’t lifted from the skillet so much as slid from it with about a tablespoon or two of butter puddled in the middle like a confectionary kiddy pool being dropped from a drop deck trailer.  Based on the grunts and groans, everyone had their fill and I wasn’t too enthused about cleaning up so I left the butter soaked pan to rest until after nap time.  I returned and pan had been licked clean based on the tongue marks and the rest of the butter had been absorbed by the pan, nicely seasoning it.  Behold the power of butter.

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Normally I prepare enough icing for my carrot cakes such that I can make one cut, ice two layers and have enough that my dad, brother, dog, cat, and brother’s girlfriend can each take a massive fingerful of the whipped cream cheese icing.

I prepared a cake tonight for work as I’d never bake a proper “congradulations, you shot out a baby” cake for coworker’s now six-month old (I was busy) but at 2 AM there’s few beaterlickers about.  There’s a ridiculous amount of icing on the cake.  I could have easily iced a 3rd layer or possibly another cake.  There’s a spot where it’s an inch deep.  It’s more like someone made an icing cake and dumped a carrot cake on it.  I did some work to try and make it less obvious so there’s a slight shelf where the icing extends beyond the cake forming either an icing overhang or an icing hat, depending on your vantage.  I left the cake out, homing my cat would go to town on it, no dice.  With a pound of cream cheese, 2/3 pound of sugar and a fresh stick of butter I may be responsible for either killing, or inducing diabetes in several of my coworkers.

Bonus Story:  My cake recipe involves about 200 grams of whole vanilla yogurt which I thought I had.  Well, having what is vanilla yogurt and having what was vanilla yogurt and is now an affront to both a just and loving God and baking soda is another.  I went to Wawa to get some yogurt and they had no whole or low fat vanilla yogurt, just non-fat which uses artificial sweeteners that taste like burning tires post-baking.  I grabbed a 230 g container of peach fruit-on-the-bottom yogurt and proceded to checkout, where the checkout agent put it in a bag.  I was so dumbfounded that my single serving of yogurt received a bag, I didn’t object like I normally do.

I go home, and start spooning out the yogurt and hit the peach part with only 180 grams of usable yogurt.  I’m not going back to Wawa to purchase another single serving of yogurt so I look around for a yogurt substitute.  I wondering if any of my coworkers will identify the 20 grams of mayonnaise in the carrot cake.

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A while back, I thought about making bacon chip cookies, and tonight I did.  They were quite nice, and I think I’d prepare them when I have curious company or need to fulfill a stereotype.  The more interesting part was acquiring the bacon at the Genuardi’s Checkout Line.

Me: Please don’t waste a bag to wrap the bacon separately.
Cashier: You don’t want the bacon touching the other food, do you?
Me: Why not?
Cashier: It’s bacon, it has juices.
Me: So you’re telling me that your store sells leaky bacon?
Cashier: No, but some of the bacon might go through the packaging.
Me: Please, don’t wrap it.
Cashier: Ok, but make sure you cook it just in case something gets in.

I’m confident that the shrink wrapped packaging inspected by the FDA for a meat that’s probably irradiated that I’m going to prepare over a 350° griddle and then crumble up and put into a cookie to be baked at 375° should be sufficiently safe.  Should the bacon magically exit the packaging through an aggregate quantum super-position tunneling effect in a process that would normally require millions of times the age of the universe to happen, I’d gladly suffer any intestinal disease to have witnessed a macroscopic manifestation of such quantum wierdness.

If the baconness were to spread, it’s more likely to be stopped by the glass containers of the other ingredients that shared a back with it than by the seran wrap-like condom of a wasted grocery bag.  Besides, what what if bacon-ness spread?  I don’t see how that’s a bad thing.  If bacon held its consistency better I’d use it as a coffee stirrer and in its thicker form a kind of edible fork for things that are scooped like rice or oatmeal.

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During my newly discovered free time, I started baking again.  I needed to work my way back in slowly so I started with a chocolate chip cake mix and entered a paroxysmal rage upon seeing the stupidly specific ingredients recommended.

Organic Eggs:  Normal eggs will cause you to become pregnant if you consume them when mixed with whole wheat flour and sugar sprinkles.
Hershey’s Chocolate: If you don’t make these cookies with our chocolate the cookies will die a horrible death and the Hershey people will mug your sister.

I’d much prefer they did the exact opposite and replaced “3 medium sized eggs” with “375 grams of unfertilized avian ovum” and 1 cup refined sugar with “400 grams of various disaccharides”.

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Ryan has been doing a lot of the cooking recently so I prepared marinaded pork for him, my father and I.  I prepared this in my typical way:  A pan sear in a cast iron skillet for 90 seconds a side followed by 2 minutes in an oven set to kill (500°F).  Little did I realize how long I had left the skillet on the burner top on high as later I would discover that the iron was oxidizing off.  Anyway, I add some salt and peanut oil and turn my head only to hear a “woof” followed by a nutty smell.  I’m pretty sure my dad saw this coming as he went to open the door for me.  How did I get a 800°F cast iron pan out the door you may ask?  Because like any incompetent chef I use flame proof welding gloves instead of pot holders.  Fuck you, Martha Stewart Everyday.