Sugar is kinda my thing. I love it. It's my baby. What more is there to say? Sugar is also very bad for me. We have an abusive relationship, sugar and I. Sugar is so sweet to me, making me feel all happy and loved, but then when I wake up the morning after heavily consuming it, it accosts me with weight gain. See? Not so nice now, is it? In other words, sugar likes to stab me in the back.
Because sugar is so bad for me, I have tried on multiple occasions to either reduce my intake or cut it out of my diet altogether. Needless to say, this was a massive failure. Sugar is just too wonderful. And when I tried to go off sugar altogether, it went something like this:
I know. It probably doesn't make any sense to you. But if you've ever tried going off sugar, I swear this it what it feels like. You want that sugar soooo badly, but your conscience tells you not to have any and attempts to hold you back... It's torture. Don't do it. Just pet those sweet sugar geese!
I have a great sugary concoction for you to kick off your new free-spirited, geese-petting, sugar-eating self: Brown Sugar Cupcakes with Maple Almond Buttercream
(Modified from the original at Cafe Johnsonia)
Here's what you need:
CUPCAKES
3 cups flour (not anything fancy- just regular flour)
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
3/4 cup butter (1 1/2 sticks)
1 1/2 cups dark brown sugar, packed in tightly
4 large eggs (original says at room temp, but mine were cold)
2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups milk
BUTTERCREAM
2 sticks of butter (1 cup)
3 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp almond extract
A splash of milk
Maple syrup, imitation or natural
First, get all your dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, and salt) nice and mixed together. Set aside. Also preheat your oven to 350 degrees about now.
Then, whip the butter with the brown sugar in your electric mixer until it's light and fluffy. Also get a taste of this... It tastes amazing.
Now mix in the eggs, one at a time, making sure to scrape down the sides with a rubber spatula after each egg is mixed in. Then add in the dry ingredients and the milk, alternating between additions. The original recipe says to start with dry and end with dry, which is what I did, but I'm sure your cupcakes will still be beautiful if you just add them in whichever order works out for you. Do this a little at a time, perhaps 1/4-1/2 cup at a time. Scrape down the sides and mix again so everything gets in there. Your finished batter should look like this:
Pour your batter into lined muffin tins, making about 24 cupcakes. I poured mine nearly all the way up to the top, and this gave me pretty great results. Bake this at 350 Fahrenheit for 15-20 minutes. Be careful here! Some of my cupcake trays took longer than the others, so you may either want to make sure they're all done or cook them in multiple batches.
Your plain cupcakes should look like this:
Now for the frosting:
Beat the butter with your electric mixer until it's creamy. Then add 1 cup of powdered sugar and both the almond and vanilla extracts. Mix this very well. Add the rest of the powdered sugar a little bit at a time, maybe about 1/4 cup at a time, alternating with a couple little splashes of milk and many squirts of maple syrup. This part is largely up to you. If you want a thicker frosting, add less milk. If you want a more intense maple flavor, add more maple syrup.
Put your frosting in a frosting bag or a gallon-sized Ziploc with the corner cut off. I personally cut the tip small so that I could get a spiral pattern. It's your choice how big you cut it. Then frost those cupcakes!!!
These are a bit time consuming, and they make a monstrous mess, but they are amazing. Enjoy with caution. Pet your sugar geese lightly, and don't eat ten in a row just because you can. Good luck not turning out like this:
There I was, in my kitchen, listening to the likes of Iron and Wine, Death Cab for Cutie, and the Shins, and cooking one of my most favorite recipes ever- Buffalo Oven "Fried" Goat Cheese Balls (adapted from the original recipe on Half Baked Harvest)- and then I started thinking. I thought about this recipe and that it led me to try goat cheese for the very first time, and that led me down a whole different path. This recipe changed my life. It really did. And exactly how is this possible? One word for you: butterflies.
There is a theory that surely you have heard of called the Butterfly Effect. The theory states that the movement of a butterfly's wings on one side of the world can influence events on the other side of the world, and therefore, any action taken by any individual or group can and will affect countless others individuals and groups through a series of sequential events following the initial event. I'm done confusing you now... Read up on it if you find my definition to be lacking.
So how did Half Baked Harvest's recipe for goat cheese balls change my life? Let me explain. I used to be an extremely cautious eater. Like, beyond picky. There were so many things that I wouldn't eat because I'd never tried them before or because they looked weird or sounded complicated. Goat cheese was one of these things. I had never tried it- not even once. But the day I made this recipe, I tried it. And I loved it. Goat cheese became my new favorite thing. Right now you're probably thinking something along the lines of "Yeah, so what? It's just goat cheese." But let me tell you, that's just the beginning. After trying goat cheese I developed a passion for goats. I realized how cute they were and how versatile they were and how sweet and lovely there were... *sighs* And this led me down a new path in life. I had previously wanted to be an archaeologist specializing in Anglo-Saxon history which would've meant that I would have gone to Cambridge University in the UK to study Anglo-Saxon history in depth. In order to achieve this goal, I was putting so much effort into school. I wanted to get all A grades, take a whole bunch of AP classes the next year, and be some sort of super student. I wasn't myself. But all of this changed.
After falling madly in love with goats, I fell madly in love with farming. I wanted to be a farmer and cheese maker somewhere cold and rainy like Ireland or Minnesota. All of this led me to understand something I'd never been able to comprehend before: to be successful is to be happy. I previously had thought that to be successful I needed to be an excellent student and get excellent grades and go to an excellent university and have an excellent career. But I was wrong. If you are a farmer and you love to farm, then you are more successful than office bots with 6-figure salaries and politicians with a global grip who lack that dopamine reward. You've got it, and they don't.
So this recipe is like an old friend of mine. It pushed me in the right direction. It helped make me who I am today. I doubt it will have any effect on you whatsoever. I mean, it will have a fantastic effect on your taste buds, but probably not your core. Yeah, I'm just special. But surely you do have something that changed your life. Something simple and ordinary. Share if you feel like it.
Here it is: Buffalo Goat Cheese Balls
10.5 ounce goat cheese log
Generous amount of panko bread crumbs- original recipe calls for 2 cups, but I use less.
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup Frank's Red Hot
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. First cut your goat cheese into between 12 and 14 even slices. And then cut them each in half. And then form them into cute little balls. There should be 24-28 of these depending on how many slices you cut. If you make 28 balls they will be crispier. That's what I like, so that's how I cut my goat cheese.
Next, beat your egg and set out your bread crumbs. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Do not skip this, because your cookie sheet will be a terrible mess if you don't use parchment. Really. My setup looked like this:
Now here's where it gets tricky. You've got to coat the goat cheese balls in egg and then roll them in the panko until they are nice and covered. Place them on the baking sheet. I recommend using one hand to roll them around in the egg and the other hand to roll them around in the panko. Otherwise, you're going to feel irritated by all the bread crumbs sticking to your fingers.
By now, you've gotten through the hard part. Stick them in the oven for 15-20 minutes. I personally put mine in for 20 so that they can get nice and crispy. When you take them out they should look like this:
While you let these cool, make the buffalo sauce. To make the buffalo sauce, melt the butter any way you wish- I did mine over a hot burner. Vigorously whisk the Frank's and the butter together. And then you've got your sauce.
Now dunk your goat cheese balls into the sauce. I did this with my hands because I'm messy, but you can use a fork or something if you want.
After this, put them back in the oven for 5 minutes to crisp up. Then you're done! Eat them, or let them cool and then eat them. I don't like waiting for them to cool. You can put any leftover sauce on the side and dip the finished product in it for extra flavor. Or not. It's up to you.
You can save the goat cheese balls and reheat them in the oven if you'd like. But don't save the sauce. It will harden and become gross. If you want more, it's pretty easy to make. Just 1 part melted butter to 1 part Frank's Red Hot. Easy!
I'm sorry that my post isn't that funny today- it's just a different kind of recipe for me. To cheer you up, here's a one of my favorite stand-up routines to watch as you eat:
Uggghhhh
Vegetables. If it's green, I probably won't put it in my mouth.
But I'm guessing that if one were to just never eat vegetables ever, especially a vegetarian like moi, they would end up with scurvy or die or something. So we all have to eat our vegetables. Even if it pains us.
But what if...
You could eat vegetables and not vomit or pass out or burn your tongue off?
I have the answer!!! The answer to all your problems is...
Zucchini Ricotta Fritters
This is a recipe that I picked up from Five and Spice (a very healthy food blog) and modified to work for people like me who live the fast life and don't have time for draining things for an entire hour.
So here it is: Fast Life Zucchini Ricotta Fritters
2 zucchini
4 scallions
2 eggs
3/4 cup flour
1 tsp each salt and pepper
1/2 cup ricotta
Pinch of baking powder
2 garlic cloves
However much vegetable oil you need
The first thing you have to do is shred the zucchini using a grater. I don't expect your zucchini to be as big as mine. I lucked out and found monstrous zucchini.
AND THEN, here's where it gets fun, you've got to press all the water out of the zucchini by piling it into a tea towel and making a parcel that you will squeeze over your sink. Very aggressively. This takes a while, and your hands will reek of zucchini juice afterward. They may also hurt a bit. This should not take more than 5 minutes of angry squeezing. Also a very excellent outlet for all the rage you've accumulated over the day.
Put this into a medium bowl- or whatever works for you- and proceed.
Now it's time to thinly slice your scallions and then run through them with the knife a couple times to give them a nice dice.
Put 'em in the bowl and mince your garlic. Or use a Pampered Chef garlic press like me. Add this to the bowl too. Obviously. Actually, from now on, you should understand that everything is added to the bowl.
Now add in the ricotta, salt, pepper, and eggs.
Mix it up and make it happy. Then add in the flour and baking powder and stir it up just like Bob Marley. Your finished batter will look like this:
Now heat up your oil on medium heat. I used perhaps 1/4-1/2 inches of vegetable oil. It's up to you how much you add, but this worked best for me.
Add the batter a spoonful at a time, making sure to flatten the fritters to about the thickness of a couple quarters stacked on top of each other. Fry these for a few minutes on each side. I prefer to brown them as much as I can without burning them to ensure that they are 100% cooked all the way through. It's easy with this recipe to get fritters with a crispy outside and a mushy inside. Not. Fun. And possibly not safe to eat?
Once these are all nice and fried up, put them on a plate covered by a paper towel so that they can lose some of their oil.
AND VOILA, fast life zucchini ricotta fritters. The original recipe has some nice ideas for garnishes, but I don't personally like to eat these with anything else except maybe some good hot sauce. But only sometimes.
Enjoy <3
If you want to re-heat these, I recommend sticking them in the oven for a few minutes. Microwaves are not nearly as fun. Plus they make you feel less accomplished.
