How to Make Horchata

While Dude and I were in Arizona, I had my very first taste of horchata at a teeny Mexican restaurant called Moreno's.  If you've never had it, horchata is this amazing milky, kinda spicy drink made from rice.  If you like chai tea, you'll love horchata. 

Since we got back to Pittsburgh, I've been dying to find some really good horchata and have been failing at every turn. 

I tried the grocery store boxed version and it tasted like milk water that had been fermenting inside of a gym sock. 

We've been to three different "authentic" Mexican restaurants (as authentic as you can get in Pittsburgh) and only one offered horchata and it was not great. 

After that last failed attempt to purchase horchata, I gave up and decided to make some myself. 

Making your own horchata is insanely simple.  It requires ingredients that you probably have in your pantry right now and no special equipment other than a big jar and a blender.

Birthday Cake Marshmallows

Ok, let's get this out in the open right now.  I LOVE marshmallows.  I think this love stems from when I was a kid and my Mom would use marshmallows as a bribe to get me to take my ear infection medicine.

On an unrelated note - was I the only kid to get ear infections constantly?  I remember at one point my Doctor telling me that I was not allowed to have any more ear infections because he was tired of treating me.

Maybe I made that up.  I was an imaginative kid.

So anyways, I found this recipe on Pinterest while Dude and I were in Arizona and it's been on my to-do list ever since.  Last weekend, I picked up a candy thermometer and I knew it was marshmallow time; and can I say, this recipe does not disappoint.  The marshmallows turn out light and fluffy, with just the right amount of cake flavor.

If you want to make them yourself, here's what you'll need:

• 2x 1 cup of caster sugar (I'll show you how to make your own out of granulated sugar)
• 2x 2 teaspoons of light corn syrup
• 2x 1 tablespoon of gelatine powder
• 2x 1 large egg whites
• 2 Tbs vanilla cake mix, sifted
• 4 Tbs chocolate cake mix, sifted
• Sprinkles
• Candy thermometer
• Vegetable oil or spray butter for greasing
• Icing sugar for dusting finished marshmallows

I made my marshmallows in two layers - a "cake" and a "frosting" layer.  If you don't want to go through the trouble, or if you're a marshmallow racist and don't like chocolate or vanilla, you can just make one thick layer in the flavor of your choice.  The directions below are to make two layers.

First up, cover a 9x9 pan with parchment paper and grease it really well.  I used a vegetable oil spray, but I think a butter spray or straight butter or vegetable oil would work just fine.

If you live in a hick town like me and can't find caster sugar anywhere, don't fret!  Caster sugar is just superfine sugar and you can make it by throwing regular granulated sugar in a food processor for a couple minutes.

To be honest, I don't think this step is 100% essential, but the perfectionist in me struggles to not follow a recipe exactly.

So the next step is to melt together 1 cup of your sugar and 2tsp of corn syrup with 100ml of water.  Why 100ml?  Because that's what my inspiration recipe called for and I can't do conversions.

Last time I attempted to convert something from metric to US, I used a half-gallon of milk in a recipe that was really calling for close to a quart.

So now that we can agree I'm an idiot.  Dump 1 cup of your sugar into a saucepan.

Then add two teaspoons of corn syrup.

And 100ml of water.

Set the burner to low and simmer until all of the sugar is melted.  

While you're waiting, measure out 100ml of water and pour it into a small bowl and sprinkle 1 tablespoon of plain gelatine over the top and let it sit while your sugar melts.  This ended up being roughly a packet and a half for me.

Once the sugar has melted, break out your candy thermometer and clip it to the side of the saucepan.  Increase the heat to medium high and boil until the temperature reaches 250° F.

When the temperature reaches 250°, immediately remove the pan from the heat and set it to the side while you complete the next step.

Separate one large egg white and pour it into the bowl of a stand mixer.  You can still make this recipe if you don't have a stand mixer, it'll just take a bit longer. 

Plus, think of how ripped your guns will be if you use a hand mixer.

Start the mixer at medium speed.

While the mixer is going, pour the now jiggly gelatine and water goo to the hot sugar mix.

Whisk them together until smooth.

Time to start moving, the sugar/gelatine mix will start to get super sticky and gooey pretty quickly.

Bump up the speed on your mixer to high and gradually add the hot sugar mixture to your egg.

Really slowly kids, unless you want to try scrambled egg marshmallows.

Wait, we may be on to something...savory marshmallows...  Someone else try this and tell me how it goes.

Beat the egg and sugar until it's glossy and white.  This took me probably 3 or 4 minutes.  With a hand mixer, I imagine it will take closer to 6-8 minutes.  (Think of your ripped biceps!  So worth it!)

When the stuff in your mixer bowl starts to look like marshmallow fluff, turn the mixer off and fold in 2 tablespoons of sifted white cake mix.  You can always add more if you want a more "cakey" flavor.

Then fold in as many sprinkles as you want.  I added 3 tablespoons.

Pour the gooey marshmallow fluff into your prepared pan and put it in the fridge while you make the chocolate layer.

Rinse and Repeat to make the chocolate layer.

Combine 1 cup of sugar, 2 teaspoons of corn syrup and 100ml of water.  Heat over low heat until the sugar is melted.

Meanwhile, measure out 100ml of water again and pour it in a small bowl.  Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of gelatine over the water and let it sit while your sugar melts.

When the sugar is melted, bump the heat up and boil until a candy thermometer reads 250° F.

After that, immediately remove from the heat.  Separate an egg white and put it in your stand mixer.

Whisk the gelatine into the hot sugar; and when it is smooth, gradually add it to the mixing bowl with the egg white.

Let that sucker mix until you have a big old bowl of marshmallow fluff.   Or work your arms again.  Then you have a free pass to not feel guilty about licking the beaters and the spatula.

Actually I used a stand mixer and I will never feel guilty about licking the spatula.  That's just a rule I live by.  

Then add in your sifted chocolate cake mix.

Notice the tiny-ass bowl I was using here to sift the cake mix.  If you look closely, you can see the giant-ass mess I made on the counter underneath it.

Pour the chocolate marshmallow layer on top of the vanilla layer and put it back in the fridge to chill overnight.

Now, avoid turning around and looking at your kitchen for as long as you can.  And when you do, just know that I feel your pain.

When the marshmallows are good and chilly, you are less than an hour away from all the marshmallowy goodness you can handle.

The next steps are to cut the marshmallows and give them a light coat of powdered sugar to keep them from sticking together.  You can do this by either individually rolling each cut marshmallow in a bowl of powdered sugar...

...or put a little powdered sugar in a plastic bag and dump all your cut marshmallows in there and shake it up.

You can cut your square of marshmallows however you like with a greased knife, but Dude and I found that spraying some spray butter on a pizza cutter was by far the simplest method.

Set your cut and powdered marshmallows on a baking sheet and leave them to dry for an hour.

I know, I know, longest 60 minutes of your life.

To be honest, I didn't taste any difference between the marshmallows straight out of the powdered sugar and the ones that had dried for an hour and the ones that sat in the fridge for 3 days so all you rebels out there, feel free to disregard this final step.

In the name of science, I decided to make a s'more out of these marshmallows.  Check out what happens when you heat up homemade marshmallows.

Still good, just not really gooey like a store-bought marshmallow.

Worth every calorie.
Background Noise for this Project: House of Cards - Season 1, Episode 10:  Chapter 10

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The Cherpumple

Warning:  This post may give you diabetes.

Guys, I am so darn excited to share this - my greatest baking accomplishment - ridiculously amazing dessert with you.

For anyone out of the loop here - a cherpumple is what I call "The Inception Dessert."  It is 3 different pies, each pie is then baked into 3 separate kinds of cake.  Then the three layers are stacked on top of each other and covered with icing.  A dessert inside of a dessert, if you will.

The original cherpumple, created by Charles Phoenix, is a cherry pie baked into a white cake, a pumpkin pie baked into a spice cake, and an apple pie baked into a yellow cake.

We stayed pretty true to the recipe, with one minor change - we baked the cherry pie into a chocolate cake.  To be honest, I can't believe my buddy Charlie up there didn't come up with that himself.  I mean, what goes better with berry than chocolate??

So the idea of a cherpumple first started making its rounds in my head while we were in Phoenix. Long story short, we talked about it a lot but never made it.  But, on the plane home, Dude and I talked a bit and realized the cherpumple wouldn't be as massive of a project if you enlisted two other people and had them each bake a layer!  So when we got home, we assembled our crew!  Enter Chris and Jody.

So, on Super Bowl (am I allowed to say that?) Sunday, we created the cherpumple.  Chris and Jody were amazing and assembled the chocolate/cherry and yellow/apple layers, so I only have pictures of the spice/pumpkin layer being created, but you'll get the idea.

Homemade Crock Pot Greek Yogurt

I mentioned it before in the My Favorite Granola post, but I figured it was past time for me to share my Homemade Crock Pot Greek Yogurt with you.  I know the idea of essentially curdling milk is freaking terrifying, but I swear it's not that bad.

And can I tell you, it's so damn gratifying to eat yogurt that YOU made, knowing there are no crazy preservatives or other junk in it??

Kind of makes you feel like, heck yeah I could do this homesteading thing.  I could live off the land.  I could be an organic crunchy granola chick.

But then you remember how awesome a Grande Skinny Peppermint Mocha from Starbucks is and how much you love going to Costco on a Saturday just to eat free samples and you snap out of it.

Ok, back to the yogurt.  I'll hold your hand while you take a couple of deep breaths and repeat after me:  I can do this!
 
Here's what you'll need to get started:

• 2 Quarts of whole milk (I usually use organic, but I sent Dude to the store to pick up this milk...enough said)
• 1/2c of plain yogurt
• Your preferred sweeteners, here's what I used:

Recommended but not necessary:  a Slow Cooker Liner.  This will cut your clean-up time from 5 minutes to 5 seconds.

One word of warning, you're going to want to think about timing on this because in about 6 hours you're going to have to measure and stir a bit.  And if you don't plan far enough ahead, you may end up setting your alarm for 3am to do it.  I'm not saying this because it happened to me the first time I made this yogurt.  Pinkie swear.

Ok, now that you pulled all that stuff out, put it all back except for the milk; and pour that into your Crock Pot.

Put your Crock Pot on Low and if your Crock Pot is goofy like mine and only has a couple of options for time, set a timer for exactly 2 hours and 45 minutes.

This is what 2 hours and 45 minutes looks like on my stove timer.

Now walk away until the timer goes off because warm milk smells icky.

After 2 hours and 45 minutes, come back, turn off your Crock Pot, leave the lid on, and set the timer again, this time for 3 hours.

In case you were confused about the 3 hours thing.

Apologies for quality of the next couple of pictures, my camera inexplicably (or maybe I accidentally left it on for like 20 minutes, I don't know!) died right as I started measuring.

So anyways, three more hours have passed (see what I meant about thinking about timing before you started?); and you've got a Crock Pot full of warm milk.  Ladle one cup of the milk out of the Pot into a small bowl.

Now measure out a 1/2c of plain, store-bought yogurt.

This is called your starter.  Someone smarter than me would tell you it has something to do with the bacteria.  But personally, I don't understand it and I don't really want to talk about the bacteria in stuff I'm going to eat.  Basically you only need this store-bought yogurt once.  Next time, you can use the yogurt we're making now in this step.

Plop the yogurt into the bowl of warm milk; and if your helper has been a good puppy all day, you can let her lick the spoon.

Gently whisk the milk and the plain yogurt together.

Pour the milk/yogurt mixture back into the Crock Pot.

Put the lid back on the Crock Pot and let it sit on the counter for 8-12 hours.  If you have a drafty kitchen like I do, I suggest covering the Crock Pot with a towel and putting it somewhere warmish, like your oven.

I have no proof that this does anything, but I read it one time on a blog somewhere; and everyone knows you can't post something online if it isn't true.  Plus I'd rather be safe than end up with two quarts of stinky milk in my Crock Pot.

But that's just me.  If you want to roll the dice, I won't stop you.

After 8-12 hours your yogurt is done!  But to make it official Greek yogurt, you need to drain off the whey. 

To do that, grab a strainer, a bowl for it to sit in and some sort of straining material.  I use a flour sack towel, but I think cheesecloth or muslin would also work.

So place the towel in the strainer and set the strainer on top of the bowl.  I prefer to do this step in the sink because my Crock Pot bowl is heavy and I have weak little girl arms. 

Carefully pour your now thickened milk/yogurt mixture from the Crock Pot into the strainer; and move the entire setup to the fridge.

Leave it there until you've drained off at least 3/4 of a cup of whey.  It took me roughly 3 hours to drain off almost two cups of whey. 

What is whey?  I haven't got the slightest clue.  I know Little Miss Muffett sat on her tuffett - while we're at it, what the heck is a tuffett? - eating her curds and whey.  I can't imagine eating this stuff straight.  But, I do know you can substitute it in any bread or dough recipe for water or milk.

Or you can do what I do, pour it into a mason jar, throw it in the fridge for a couple of weeks, plan to use it to make bread; and then never make the bread and throw it out when stuff starts floating in it.

Up to you.

Alright, back to the stuff you came here for!  Greek Yogurt!

After you drain off the whey, your yogurt is ready to be eaten and stored.  I usually make three different containers.  I leave one plain, to use as a starter next time; I layer one with berries and agave or honey; and I layer the final one with jam.

You can set up your yogurt here however you like.  If you want to add granulated sweetener or vanilla extract or any other kind of flavoring, now is the time to do it.

Your yogurt will keep in the fridge for a week or two.  Use your best judgement there.

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Background Noise for This Project:  It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: Season 1, Episode 4:  Charlie Has Cancer