It’s our last day of 2015! You know what that means. It’s time to take a look back and reflect on the year we’ve lived. Did we accomplish all the goals we set for ourselves? Did we put more good into the world? Did we eat enough cookies?
My 2015 was pretty uneventful, but I spent it with people I love and people I like, and I definitely ate enough cookies, so I’m calling it a good year.
This is also the time of year for superlatives. And since Baking Mischief is a food blog, I’m sharing my culinary ones with with you.
Favorite…
Baking Mischief recipe: These Butterscotch Thumbprint Cookies . I love all the recipes on the site, but there’s an amazing sugar-covered, butterscotch-filled reason that this was the first recipe I ever posted.
Food I ate this year: A chocolate and dulce de leche churro I bought at Greenwich Market. Why are all churros not handed to you directly out of the grease and stuffed full of more sweet stuff?? The greatest kindness I ever have or will perform was eating only half so that everyone in my party could try a bite.
New recipe I tried: I made soooo many good ones this year, but in the end, I went with My Baking Adiction’s Café Mocha Cupcakes because her mocha buttercream is perfection in a piping bag and because they were just so damn cute. I sent them to a teacher breakfast and someone asked if they could buy 50 for a party that weekend.
Biggest…
Kitchen disaster: My exceptional clumsiness in 2015 . I broke a total of three Pyrex dishes, two bowls, at least one cup, and two or three plates this year. It was not a banner year for glass or ceramics in my kitchen.
Baking project: This year’s gingerbread house was close, but making more than 60 red velvet Iron Man cupcakes for a Marvel event at my dad’s comic shop was definitely the most stressful project I took on this year.
Most…
Used kitchen tool: My trusty kitchen scale . I love that thing. Interesting food I ate: Escargot sausage . It tasted like sausage. Valuable thing I learned: The weight of most standard baking staples . It makes cooking go so, so much faster, and people are so impressed when you can tell them the weight of half a cup of flour off the top of your head.
A couple non-cooking stats and the big one…
Most read book: Good Omens (x3) Favorite film: Mad Max: Fury Road Longest long run: 18 miles Most happy tears cried: The Parks and Rec series finale
My favorite moment of 2015 : I have three-way tie. Getting the chance to see Benedict Cumberbatch’s Hamlet in London was an astonishing delight. I completed NaNoWriMo for the first time, finishing on day 15 with a 10k word sprint as the perfect writing-fueling storm raged outside. And, of course, the absolute terror and exhilaration of pressing “publish” on my first blog post here.
What about you, do you have any favorite/biggest/most moments of 2015 you’d like to share? I think it’s important to look back on the year’s bright spots, because let’s face it, 2015’s been hard on the world at large. Sometimes it can all feel too dark. Holding onto these little moments of joy and accomplishment help keep me hopeful going into the new year. Here’s to a kinder 2016.
My grandmother’s breakfast fried rice, stuffed with bacon and eggs for a quick and hearty meal.
The recipe I’m posting today is one of those family-favorite, special-occasions recipes. Growing up, we always served this fried rice for birthdays and New Year’s day breakfast. It’s white rice, fried up in bacon drippings, with chopped bacon, mushrooms, and scrambled eggs throughout. Top it with some shoyu or, like my father, slather it in ketchup, and you are starting this year off right!
When I decided to post this recipe, I titled it “Authentic Japanese-American Breakfast Fried Rice,” because I thought that it was a fun play on the fact that this is a recipe taught to my German mother (and then to me) by my Japanese father and grandparents, containing decidedly un-Japanese, very-American things like ketchup and American-style bacon. I always thought it was the perfect natural evolution of a traditional recipe to one more suited to the tastes of its current country. But when I went to my father to double check the recipe’s provenance, he told me that wasn’t actually the case.
According to him, the use of non-traditional meats, and condiments like ketchup, stemmed not from a natural evolution, but from the time my grandparents spent interned at Tule Lake during WWII. These were the ingredients they were served in the camps and that’s where they acquired a taste for them. Unfortunately, neither of my grandparents are still living, so I while I have so many questions, I can’t ask them. But I did a little research and there’s a fascinating write up and short audio story from NPR here with other first-hand accounts about the effect of the Japanese internment camps on traditional Japanese dishes.
I debated changing the recipe name since it wasn’t really all that funny anymore, but recipes have histories, and changing the title felt like deleting this one’s. So I’m leaving the “Authentic Japanese-American” part, because that’s what it is. For better or for worse, it’s Japanese food that America helped shape.
Have you ever had any unexpected discoveries when it comes to family recipes? This is a first for me!
Ingredients
- ▢ 3 eggs beaten
- ▢ 8 strips of bacon cut into 1-inch pieces
- ▢ 8 ounces mushrooms sliced
- ▢ 2 green onions sliced + more for garnish
- ▢ 4 cups cooked rice* (day-old is best, but just-cooked is fine)
- ▢ 1 tablespoon soy sauce
Instructions
- Heat a large wok or skillet over medium heat. Spray pan with cooking spray (or coat with a little oil) and scramble eggs. Place cooked eggs on a plate and set aside.
- In the same pan, over medium-high heat, fry bacon, mushrooms, and green onions until bacon is cooked through and mushrooms are caramelized.
- Add the rice to the pan and stir. Continue until rice is toasted. Stir in eggs and soy sauce and cook until the eggs are hot.
- Remove from heat and serve. Garnish with sliced green onions.
Notes
Nutritional Information (4 servings)
Quick and easy shortcut 5-minute caramel sauce!
This is a quick and dirty post for 5-minute caramel sauce. I’ve used this caramel in a ton of recipes across the site, like my Caramel Macchiato , Apple Pie Sundae , and Salted Caramel Snickerdoodle Milkshake , and I will certainly use it in many more, so instead of re-typing the recipe every time, I thought I’d give it it’s own dedicated page.
Why is this recipe called shortcut 5-minute caramel? Because it uses brown sugar instead of the traditional white sugar (which technically makes it a butterscotch ) so it only takes 5 minutes to make.
To get the dark, amber color in caramel, you have to melt granulated white sugar, which isn’t all that hard but requires fairly careful watching and more time than I’m often willing to give to a quick dessert or my morning coffee.
By using brown sugar, you get the delicious caramel flavor and almost none of the work. You just throw the ingredients together and let it simmer away.
This shortcut version is perfect for serving over ice cream, whipping into buttercream frosting , or drizzling over whatever takes your fancy. It’s also quite good by the spoonful out of the jar, if you’re into that sort of thing… 😉
More Perfect Dessert Sauces
- 30-second Chocolate Sauce
- Hot Fudge Sauce
- Peanut Butter Sauce
- Nutella Sauce
- Strawberry Sauce
Ingredients
- ▢ 1/4 cup ( 2oz ) unsalted butter
- ▢ 1/2 cup ( 100g ) brown sugar
- ▢ 1/2 cup heavy cream
- ▢ 1/4 teaspoon salt*
- ▢ 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- In a small pot, over medium-high heat, combine cream, brown sugar, butter, and salt. Cook, whisking occasionally, until butter is melted and ingredients mixed.
- Bring to a low simmer, turn heat down to medium and continue to simmer for 5 minutes, stirring every minute or so.
- Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.
Notes
Slightly Adapted From Smitten Kitchen
Classic shortbread thumbprint cookies with delicious homemade butterscotch filling.
Photos have been updated. Don’t worry, you’re in the right place. :)
I’m so excited to hit publish on my very first blog post today!
I wanted the inaugural post to be something that reflected the spirit of the blog to come, one that was representative of my passion for healthy recipes, eating your veggies, and branching out of your culinary comfort zone. But honestly, it’s December. It’s pretty much all cookies all the time coming out of my kitchen right now (stay tuned for salad in January).
So instead, I’m starting today with a classic cookie, my current obsession, shortbread thumbprint cookies with homemade butterscotch filling.
This is going to sound crazy, but I wasn’t a shortbread fan for most of my life. Beyond a few tried-and-true family recipes, we weren’t really bakers in my house growing up, nor were we cookie people.
I know I ate shortbread. I vaguely remember turning my nose up at those shiny blue tins of the stuff every year at Christmas, and I’d used it as a base in bars, but I didn’t understand the sweet and buttery goodness that was the homemade shortbread cookie until my sister baked up a batch for me.
My immediate reaction was, This is amazing. I never want to not be eating these. And then, Hey, World, what other wonders have you been holding out on me?!!!
Since that day, I’ve made this recipe waaaaay too many times in way too many variations (rolled in sugar, rolled in sprinkles, icing, no icing, chocolate drizzles, etc.) and have finally settled on my perfect variation: rolled in sanding sugar * or turbinado sugar *, turned into a thumbprint cookie and filled with butterscotch.
The butterscotch is the perfect, creamy complement to the buttery cookie and the sugar gives it a crunch to keep things interesting. These cookies are so good you’ll never want to let your shortbread go naked again!
Ingredients
Cookies
- ▢ 1 cup ( 8 oz) unsalted butter room temperature
- ▢ 1/2 cup ( 60 g) powdered sugar sifted
- ▢ 2 cups ( 280 g) all-purpose flour
- ▢ 1/8 teaspoon salt
- ▢ 1/4 cup sanding sugar optional
Butterscotch
- ▢ 2 tablespoons ( 1 oz) unsalted butter
- ▢ 1/4 cup ( 50 g) packed brown sugar
- ▢ 1/4 cup heavy cream
- ▢ 1/4 teaspoon salt
- ▢ 3/4 teaspoons vanilla
Instructions
Cookies
- In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. Stir in flour and salt, mixing until just combined, making sure to scrape the sides and bottom of your bowl.
- Cover and chill the dough in the refrigerator until it is firm enough to handle, about 15-30 minutes. You should be able to shape scoops of it into a ball without it being too sticky or cracking. If it is over-chilled and difficult to work with, leave it out on the counter for a few minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Using a tablespoon, scoop dough and roll into balls (slightly under 1 ounce each). If desired, roll balls in sanding sugar until completely covered. Place dough cookie sheet, 2 inches apart.
- Bake for 10 to 12 minutes. The cookies are done when their bottoms are lightly browned.
- As soon as they come out of the oven, use a round teaspoon or the back of a wooden spoon to create shallow wells in the center of each cookie. Be careful not to press too hard or you can cause the cookies to crack. Set aside.
Butterscotch
- Melt butter in a small, heavy-bottomed saucepan. Add brown sugar, salt, and cream. Stir to combine. Bring to a simmer and, stirring occasionally, cook on medium for 5 minutes.
- Remove pot from heat and stir in the vanilla. Use a teaspoon to spoon butterscotch into the thumbprints. Allow the butterscotch to cool slightly before serving.
Notes
Butterscotch Shortbread Thumbprint Cookies Nutritional Information Adapted From: In the Kitchen with Stefano Faita Butterscotch Filling Adapted From: Smitten Kitchen
Small-batch Instructions: This cookie recipe halves cleanly, just use a pinch of salt instead of 1/8 teaspoon. For the butterscotch, simmer for 4 minutes instead of 5 in a 1-quart pot, and use 1/2 teaspoon vanilla.
Original iPhone Photography, Circa 2015
