Tuesday Bake Party. Delicious. Over-the-top. Chestnut Cake.

Before I say anything else, I want to tell you that sometimes I try too hard. That's what I've been told before, and if there was one instance where this might be true, it's this cake.

Does trying too hard mean that you try and fail? Or that what you attempt to do doesn't turn out the way you expect? Or does it mean, "I know you want me to like you but because you're sort of neurotic about it, you annoy me."

The latter of those choices is what I think it means, but I've also been told that I can see the dark side of things when I ought to see the positive.

If you're confused, we are in this whole life together.

I want to be liked. That's true. I want to be liked by homeless people, by the people who serve me in restaurants, by the hot guys in my classes and by the nerds, too. I'd like to be liked by the girls who are "bad" and the girls who are "good" and the cheerleaders.

Now that I've confessed it to you all, and perhaps one or two of you may also feel the way I do.

I've learned to hide my trying-too-hard nature, but it comes out in cakes and offers to help people paint their rooms or tutor them in physics. Jillian says I'm crazy. All I know is it's who I am and, sometimes after contemplating Jillian's rants, I say maybe instead of yes or let me get back to you instead of yes. It's a start.

But this cake. This cake is one of the Tuesdays with Dorie selections and it is among the most complicated things I've ever done. It is mighty tasty, though, and well worth the effort.

I'm not going to post the recipe because it's so long and because the idea behind Tuesdays with Dorie is that you're supposed to be inspired to buy her book, which would be a very good investment!

I can describe it this way: make one large chocolate cake with the secret ingredient of chestnut spread with vanilla, cut it into three layers, spread ganache between each layer and over the whole thing once it is assembled. Oh, don't forget the crushed canned chestnuts between those layers. Then, pour a ganache glaze over the whole thing. Finally, some more chestnuts (dusted with edible gold dust) for the garnish. Wow. It's a huge amount of work, but it feels great to have accomplished it.

That's the payoff for trying hard if you choose the right target for your attention; the success that comes with the effort.

Tuesday Bake Party. Sweet and Spicy Cookies.

Hello BFF!

I am off traveling tomorrow. To Toronto. My goal is to uncover several bakeries for you. I have their addresses but no car, so that means I'll be relying on the subway and taxis. And I can say I have limited experience with this sort of thing. I'm not scared for my safety, although each time I'm on a subway I think of the London bombings and then I try to remember that statistically I'm safer under the ground than crossing the street. (Yes, worriers among us unite!) My biggest fear is getting lost and standing in the parking lot of a gas station crying. I think gas station parking lots are very lonely places.

And if my own fears weren't bad enough, one of the girls in my class said I'm crazy to fly on a plane since I haven't had my H1N1 shot. I walked away. I couldn't respond.

The world outside a small town is big. It is dangerous. BFF, you know that. And, still, you go outside, don't you?

I am so into challenges these days. Last week I did the daring bakers challenge and this week, I'm onto the Tuesdays With Dorie challenge. These cookies were not too much of a challenge, (I think I've been making cookies since I was three years old- without much help) but they were delicious. I've frozen half the batch to crumble up for topping a fruit crisp and making a crust for a cheesecake because, honestly, how many crunchy cookies can one girl eat and not get a little tired of the taste? Now, cake, that's another matter entirely! I don't freeze cake, because I even eat the tiny crumbs left on the cake stand. Oh...don't get me started.

About the challenges. I am not eligible for prizes because there are no prizes. It's just baking satisfaction. I hope I gain traveling satisfaction while I'm in Toronto. Wish me luck tomorrow morning when you get up. I'll report on bakeries on Friday!

The recipe today is delicious, as always. Tips for baking:

• I didn't let the dough warm up too much after I took it out of the fridge because the cookies would flatten out and get real super crispy. And I like mine soft in the middle.
• I rolled the dough in sugar with ground pepper for an even more peppery taste. It was hot.

The Tuesdays with Dorie crew have requested that I don't post a recipe for these cookies so that you will consider buying the cook book, Baking from my Home to Yours, by Dorie Greenspan. It's on my top five list of all times baking books so I'd recommend it. I've made ginger/molasses cookies before and I'll say take your favourite recipe and add lots of fresh ground pepper to it and you'll get a similar result to mine. (And if you're really stuck for the recipe, leave me a comment and I'll send it to you.)

Daring Bakers: French Macarons

The official line: The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

I am soooo excited that I have accepted the challenge to become a DARING BAKER. I have joined this "club" that's part of a website The Daring Kitchen.

Once a month, I'll be posting the results of a recipe especially chosen by another club member that I have either failed or successfully challenged. (What's really cool is that club members find out the recipe nearly a month before the posting date- today- and we have a whole month to perfect what we show you.) I love secrets like this!

It was inevitable, I suppose, that something other than a cake would make its way into my blog. These macarons are a perfect way to begin. I should tell you that I would NEVER EVER have made these without the challenge. They looked too hard. But they weren't, or I got lucky. First try success.

I've attached the recipe here, but my variation called for 1/2 almond, 1/2 pecan flour (I mixed it myself in the food processor). I filled it with white chocolate Cinnamon Buttercream. The result is a bit like a Pecan Sandie or a Sinckerdoodle. However, this little baby is cookie sophistication. I would expect nothing less from a french cookie. The outside is crisp and the inside is sweet and gooey. Wow. I thought macarons were those gross cookies with all the coconut. That must be some Americanized version of the French delicacy.

Okay, so give it a try. If you have any questions, let me know.

French Macarons
Ingredients

• Confectioners’ (Icing) sugar: 2 ¼ cups (225 g, 8 oz.)
• Almond flour: 2 cups (190 g, 6.7 oz.) I made my own and didn't use all of it when I folded it into the egg whites because I didn't want the batter to be too stiff. (you'll pipe it so it needs to be runny)
  
• Granulated sugar: 2 tablespoons (25 g , .88 oz.)
• Egg whites: 5 (Have at room temperature)- I put mine in a bowl the night before and left them in the refrigerator to "dry" them out a bit.
  

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 200°F (93°C). Combine the confectioners’ sugar and almond flour in a medium bowl. If grinding your own nuts, combine nuts and a cup of confectioners’ sugar in the bowl of a food processor and grind until nuts are very fine and powdery.
2. Beat the egg whites in the clean dry bowl of a stand mixer until they hold soft peaks. Slowly add the granulated sugar and beat until the mixture holds stiff peaks.
3. Sift a third of the almond flour mixture into the meringue and fold gently to combine. If you are planning on adding zest or other flavorings to the batter, now is the time. Sift in the remaining almond flour in two batches. Be gentle! Don’t overfold, but fully incorporate your ingredients.
4. Spoon the mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a plain half-inch tip (Ateco #806). You can also use a Ziploc bag with a corner cut off. It’s easiest to fill your bag if you stand it up in a tall glass and fold the top down before spooning in the batter.
5. Pipe one-inch-sized (2.5 cm) mounds of batter onto baking sheets lined with nonstick liners (or parchment paper).
6. Bake the macaroon for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and raise the temperature to 375°F (190°C). Once the oven is up to temperature, put the pans back in the oven and bake for an additional 7 to 8 minutes, or lightly colored.
7. Cool on a rack before filling.

White Chocolate Cinnamon Buttercream

Ingredients

• 5 ounces of white chocolate, melted and cooled
• 3/4 cup of room temperature butter
• 3 Tablespoons milk
• 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
• 1/3 cup cinnamon

1. Cream the butter with your mixer.
2. Add the milk.
3. Mix more.
4. Add the cooled white chocolate.
5. Mix again.
6. Add the powdered sugar and cinnamon.
7. Mix. Mix. Mix.
8. If the buttercream doesn't look stiff enough, add another 1/4 to 1/2 cup of powdered sugar.
9. Scoop the buttercream into a pastry bag (I use the plastic disposable kind from Wilton) fitted with a big round tip. Pipe on one macaron, top with another macaron that's of a relative shape and size. Oh, you will experience such delight!

Friday Night Cake. Party Night Purple.

I can't hide the truth. You'll discover it as soon as you look at the ingredients list. I've been hitting the bottle, as my grandma always said. Fallen off the wagon, drinking the sauce, marinating his liver: all grandma expressions.

Alcoholism is one of those things you learn about in the 6th grade during the drug awareness unit. Just say no is the primary message, but you're also given a sort of checklist of what makes drinking a problem. I knew 20 or more adults who drank alcohol regularly, including my parents, but, I couldn't tell you if any of them passed or failed the check-list.

Mandy was in all of my core subjects in grade 9; by grade 10 she was hardly attending school and rumour had it that she was addicted to drugs or drinking, possibly both. Or she could have been pregnant. That's rumours for you. They were wrong.

Mandy understood the checklist. She'd memorized it for the Grade 6 unit test, (we'd both gotten A's) but she didn't realize until the ninth grade that her dad was failing at being sober. There were lots of clues along the way. One afternoon she came home from school and he was home early from work, said he had a headache. She and her sister were in the kitchen fighting over who deserved the last bag of chips when he stormed into the kitchen, exploding with anger.

Shut Up! The words came out loud and long, like a growling siren; his face red, the veins popping from his neck, he raged.

She and her sister never talked about it, not with each other, their mother or friends; and a few months later on a Sunday morning, Mandy answered the phone. It was the neighbor, Mrs. Pratt. Dad's truck was parked on the back lawn, had run over their garden gnomes and bird bath.

Mandy suspected then, but she didn't talk about it. Her dad repaired the damage and stopped drinking beer. Wine, he said, was good for his heart, but beer got him into trouble. Other than minor incidents, Mandy didn't see much. She thought maybe he was like all the other adults who drank alcohol- they regularly drank too much and then regretted it. In fact there was always a group of kids at school complaining of hangovers. Her father was just like those kids, a lightweight who couldn't take the hangovers.

In Grade 10, her mother asked her to stay home, to keep her dad from drinking. "She had to go to work and she thought if I could, you know, babysit him, we could get him back on track."

The story ends sadly. Mandy couldn't stop her dad, of course she couldn't, and he moved away. He said it was best for all of them. She'd heard he was living with a friend in Vancouver. Mandy worked to get through Grade 10, but she kept falling further behind in Grade 11. School requires concentration and if your life is messy, it's hard to think about quadratic equations, photosynthesis and metaphor in fiction. I hung out with her this year, we went for coffee after school because she wants to hire me to be her tutor.

I asked her what happened in Grade 10 and she told me the story.

Life sucks, I said.

That's it. Life Sucks. I can write a blog, I can bake a cake, but when it comes to composing the proper sentiment on cue- I fail.

She laughed at me, though, and we started with calculus. I asked her if she was ever going to drink. She said she would probably try it at some point, but she was in no hurry.

"I won't drink if I'm stressed out," she said. "Only if I'm happy already."

I'm sure an addictions counsellor would have a lot to say about Mandy and her story. I'm only relating the story as it happened.

So...I'm telling you this story because it relates to our Friday night cake:

I am not drinking alcohol from the bottle or even a glass; it's all about the frosting on this delicious cake. It's infused with bourbon. Maker's Mark is the bourbon of choice here, but it is expensive. Jack Daniels works, too. My dad bought me a wee little bottle at the liquor store (a sample!) and it was just enough. I'm not advocating alcohol as a primer for your party night. Seriously, though, these cupcakes have a zing and a zap that ordinary chocolate vanilla do not. I swear you'll notice the difference! And if you're not interested in trying it out, try out some other flavour. A cake, well made, with quality ingredients, is one thing that will make you smile.

Party Night Purple.
Chocolate Bourbon Cake
Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups cake flour (not self-rising), sifted
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup plus 1 Tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 Tablespoon distilled white vinegar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup water
• 1/4 cup of bourbon (if not using bourbon, just use 1/4 cup more water)

To do

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a muffin tin with paper liners.
2. Sift together cake flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda and salt.
3. With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, mix together oil, vinegar, vanill and the water and bourbon until well combined. Add flour and mix until smooth.
4. Divide batter evenly among lined cups- each will be 3/4 full.
5. Bake 20 to 25 minutes.
6. Cool the cupcakes completely before frosting...

Bourbon Sweet Buttercream (Warning: more steps than usual)
Ingredients

• 1 cup plus 2 Tablespoon sugar
• 1/4 cup bourbon
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• 1 1/2 cups unsalted butter, room temperature
• 4 large egg whites
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

To Do

1. First we'll make a bourbon flavoured caramel: Combine 1/2 cup plus 2 Tablespoons sugar and bourbon in a heavy saucepan. Heat over medium, until the sguar is dissolved and syrup is clear. Stop stirring and cook until syrup comes to a boil. Continue to boil, gently swirling pan to color evenly, until mixture is very dark amber. Remove from head; add the cream in a steady stream, stirring with a wooden spoon until smooth and combined. Let cool.
2. Now, our basic swiss buttercream: With an electric mixer on medium high, cream butter until pale and fluffy.
3. In a heatproof bowl (the one that goes to a standing mixer works great here!), combine remaining 1/2 cup sugar and the egg whites. Set bowl over a pan of simmering water; whisk constantly by hand until mixture is warm to the touch and sugar had dissolved (the mixture should feel completely smooth if you rub it between your finger and thumb).
4. Attach the bowl to the mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Start on low and gradually increase speed until you are at medium-high and the egg whites are at a peak forming stage. Whisk enough so that the egg whites are fluffy and glossy and completely cool (10 minutes total) reduce speed to low, add creamed butter a bit at time until all incorporated. Add vanilla. Mix.
5. Switch to the paddle attachment. (Don't worry if you don't have a fancy mixer, a regular old mixer will do. It's just that your arm gets tired. I know from experience!) With mixer on medium-low, drizzle in the bourbon caramel. It's done. Now you can color and decorate, but best of all, you can eat it!

Friday Night Cake. Ferocious Cherry Chocolate cupcakes!

I've been thinking about kissing.

It's not that I've kissed so often that I'm an expert; I'm actually one of those girls who watches all the kissing part on TV dramas and movies looking for tips. And, today, bffs, I will share them with you.

Here's what I have learned:

• Tentative short, lips only kissing, is for the guy who's been a friend forever and you're worried that maybe this whole kissing thing will ruin your friendship.
• Slow burning kisses are definitely the kind of kisses for long term boyfriends that haven't been so long term that you're a bit bored.
• Pecks on the lips and cheek are the obligation kisses. Your aunt probably gets a bigger thrill.
• Any kisses that also involve hands cradling faces, the stroking of cheeks, a lick along the earlobe suggest more passion is coming to a theatre near you.
• Ferocious kissing is saved for your massive crush guy. It's pent-up fierceness, cultivated by long stares from across the room, brushes of hands against sleeves, near meetings that fail to come to pass. Ferocious kissing involves tongues first, light tenderness in the coffee breaks and all the hands, lips and stroking of faces you can fit in for dessert.

I live for ferocious kissing, but have only experienced it once. The details, I will keep to myself. This is a pg rated blog, after all, reserved for lovers of stories and baking. So here's the recipe that will make your mouth water and your lips crave the tender touch of someone else's:

Cherry Chocolate Cupcakes.
Inspired by Martha again this week. Makes a batch of 32
Ingredients

• 1 cup plus 2 Tablespoons unsalted butter (aka 2 1/2 sticks) (room temperature)
• 1 cup plus 2 Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 1/2 cups plus 2 Tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup packed dark-brown sugar
• 3 large eggs, room temperature
• 3/4 cup sour cream or plain yogurt (I've also used cherry yogurt and it was great!)
• 1 1/2 cups buttermilk (use only 1 1/4 cups of buttermilk if you use the maraschino cherry juice)
• 1 teaspoon cherry extract or 1/4 cup of maraschino cherry juice

To Do:

1. Preheat oven to 350. Put those cupcake liners in the tins.
2. Whisk together flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt.
3. With an electric mixer on medium-high, cream butter and granulated sugar until it's the color of the center of a daisy- lovely light yellow. Add brown sugar and beat until fluffy.
4. Eggs drop in (without their shells, of course) one at a time. Scrape the bowl as needed to achieve a smooth batter.
5. Mix in sour ream. Reduce speed to low.
6. Add the flour mixture in three batches, alternating with two additions of buttermilk mixed with the cherry extract or maraschino cherry juice, but mix until just combined after each.
7. Spoon the batter into the liners, 3/4 full.
8. Bake 20 minutes.
9. Cool
10. Frost with a pink tinted lovely meringue buttercream frosting that has 1/4 teaspoon of cherry extract added to it.
11. Even cooler.

Pucker those lips. These are going to be delish!