Chocolate Caramel Shortbread | Procrastination

I am a terrible procrastinator.

Or, if you look at it from another view point, I’m really good at procrastinating. I try to stop, I really do. But the very fact that I have an internet connection doesn’t help me at all. Yes, I am talking about tumblr, twitter, facebook, pinterest, and just about every other website that sucks you into a black hole of non-productivity and leaves you scrolling and clicking for hours on end. I’m ninety percent sure, that one day there will be a legitimate psychological disease called “Internet Addiction”. I can already imagine the the infomercials  youtube/blogger advertisements: “Is the internet ruining your life?”

But don’t get me wrong, while these websites enable procrastinators, they also have a good side: they are amazing sources for all sorts of inspirations and ideas, from life hacks and inspirations quotes, to recipes and beauty tips. Pinterest was where I got the recipe for these amazing chocolate caramel shortbread bars.

I’ve modified the recipe quite a bit, because initially while reading the recipe I felt myself slowly morphing into Paula Deen because of the sheer amount of butter in the recipe. My revised version isn’t entirely healthy, but these bars are definitely worth the calories.

Chocolate Caramel Shortbread Bars

adapted from Annie’s Eats

Shortbread
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/4 cup sugar

Caramel
7 tablespoons butter
1/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1 14-oz can sweetened condensed milk

Chocolate
8 oz chocolate, finely chopped (I used bittersweet)
1 teaspoon light corn syrup
1/4 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into peices

To make the shortbread layer: 

1. Preheat oven to 325 F. Line a 9×13-inch baking pan with parchment paper.

2.. Whisk the flour, baking powder and salt together in a medium bowl.

3. In a large bowl, beat the sugar & butter together until well combined and slightly fluffy.

4. Then, gradually add the dry ingredients to the butter & sugar mixture, and mix it together until well combined. Transfer the dough to the prepared pan and press into an even layer over the bottom .

5. Bake for 15-18 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown. Transfer the pan to a wire rack and cool completely. ****note: don’t pour the caramel over the shortbread until the shortbread completely cooled, otherwise, it’ll take a really long time for the caramel to cool down.

To make the caramel layer:

1. Combine the butter, sugar, corn syrup and sweetened condensed milk in a medium saucepan, over a medium flame. Stir occasionally until the butter is melted.

2. Increase the heat to medium-high, & bring the mixture to a boil.

3. After it is brought to a boil, reduce the heat to a simmer, whisking constantly, until the mixture thickens and turns a light caramel color (approximately 10 minutes).

4. Pour the caramel mixture over the cooled shortbread and spread in an evenly. Wait for it to cool down completely, then allow to chill for a little while(because if the caramel layer isn’t solid enough, it’ll mix in with the chocolate and you won’t get those solid layers of chocolate and caramel).
To make the chocolate layer:

1. Create a double boiler by placing a heatproof mixing bowl over a pan halfway filled with water. Place on the stove, on a medium to high heat, until the water is boiling, then reduce to a simmer.

2. In the bowl of the double boiler, add the chocolate, corn syrup, and butter.. Give the chocolate a couple minutes to melt and stir occasionally, until everything is melted and the mixture is smooth and glossy.

3. Pour the chocolate over the chilled caramel and spread into an evenly, and smooth it out.  Let the chocolate set completely before cutting it up. 

~Deepshikha Das

Angel Food Cupcakes | Spring

The past few months for my have flown right buy in a flurry of school, changes and revelations. My parents finally agreed to let me wear contacts , I’m getting my braces off in a matter of weeks, and I’ve stopped procrastinating so much. While that is great, I’ve also had a revelation about going off to college. Initially, college seemed amazing to me, to be able to start over new, by yourself in a different environment, and meeting new people. But the more I thought about it, what I loved about college suddenly started to be the very thing that also frightened me about college. I would be miles away from my family, friends, or anything that was even vaguely familiar. Is it odd that I wish I was my geeky little freshman self again, so that I would still be ages away from going to college? As great as it is to try new things (something that food has definitely taught me), the overly sentimental part of me still wants to cling on to the small world I live in right now. 

But I do want a fresh new start, just like spring, and these cupcakes. The seasons and my thoughts definitely inspired me to find and make these cupcakes, and I think they’re the perfect spring snack. Spring reminds me of light, bright, and fruity tastes, and these cupcakes have all of those flavors. The light and fluffy angel food cupcakes are topped with whipped cream and a couple of strawberries and raspberries.

Angel Food Cupcakes w/ Whipped Cream  & Berries

Recipe Adapted from Alton Brown

4 dozen cupcakes

• 1 1/2 cups sugar (or castor’s sugar)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup cake flour, sifted (if you don’t have cake flour, you can make some! 
• 12 egg whites (the closer to room temperature the better)
• 1/3 cup warm water
• 1 vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 teaspoons cream of tartar
• Whipped cream
• strawberries & raspberries (any sort of berry you want, those two are just the ones I prefer)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. If you have regular sugar: Blend the sugar for about 2 minutes until it is superfine. if you have castors sugar, you can skip this step
3. Sift half of the sugar with the salt the cake flour in a medium bowl and set the remaining sugar aside.
4. In a large bowl, use a  whisk to thoroughly combine egg whites, water, orange extract, and cream of tartar for two minutes. Then, using a hand blender, slowly sift the reserved sugar into the eggs beating continuously at medium speed to achieve medium peaks
5. Once the eggs are whipped to medium peaks, sift the flour over the mixture, 1/4 a cup at a time. Repeat until all of the flour mixture is finished.
6. Carefully spoon mixture into an lined cupcake tray and fill 3/4 of the way up. Bake until the tops of the cupcakes are turning slightly golden, and you can insert a tooth pick between the liner and the cake and have it come out clean.
7. Cool completely & top with whipped cream and berries to your liking :)

Happy spring & I hope you all enjoy :)

Deepshikha

Sun-dried Tomato & Olive Tapenade| Reflecting Back

Every New Year, rather than making resolutions, I take a moment to reflect on what I’ve done in the past year, and I was flipping through my agenda. In the summer before freshman year, I bought this agenda that I’d intended to use for the school year. It was a fairly plain one, about the size of a novel and covered in camel colored canvas with a little pocket on the front. Little did I know that I would end up using this agenda for the next three years, and how attached to it I would become.Three years later, the pages are covered in my hand writing and random little scribbles, the spine is no longer a spine but rather a mass of tape, and I had doodled on the cover so much that it looked like I had attempted to color the entire thing with my pen. Looking at the ratty old thing I still managed to call an agenda, it amazed me how far I had come in the past three years and how fast that time had passed. I remember as freshman I thought I wouldn’t make the next four years. I’m now a junior in high school, taking my SATs and ACTs and getting ready for college.

Moving along to the food portion of this post, these are sun-dried tomato and Kalamata olive tapenade crostinis. Sun-dried tomatoes are one of my favorite things, and they play a huge part in this tapenade. They’re slightly salty and mostly sour accented with a tinge of sweetness, the olives add a deeper flavor to the mix, and the brie complements it all by adding an earthy but creamy undertone. I really love the complex mix of flavors in this, and this has definitely become one of my favorite snacks to come home to after school. Plus, it’s really quite a simple recipe, and great for parties (you can definitely make this ahead of time, and just make sure you have a loaf of bread nearby!).

Sun-dried Tomato & Kalamata Olive Tapenade

adapted from this blog

NOTE: I actually feel like this tastes the best a day after it’s made, because the garlic’s flavor is absorbed much more into the tapenade.

Ingredients

• 1 loaf bread (I used ciabatta, french bread is great too!)
• Brie Cheese (typically comes in whole wheels, I reccommend one 5 inches or more in diameter)
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 4 oz. Kalamata Olives coarsely chopped
• 7 oz jar of sundried tomatos (note: if you have tomato halves it will be approximately 21 tomato halves, and  be sure to julienne them!)  (Note: if your tomatos are preserved with oil, drain the oil out of them as best you can, and don’t worry about the tapenade being greasy, it will be fine!)

Instructions

1. Slice your bread into 1.5 cm slices.
2. Toasting the bread: preheat the oven to 400 degrees, and toast the bread until the edges start becoming golden, approx. 5-8 minutes.
3. Put the sun-dried tomatoes, olives, and garlic cloves into the food processor. Pulse until coarsely chopped. Be careful not to over pulse the mixture or you might end up with a sort of a paste.
4. To serve place a slice of brie on the bread( the slices of brie should be able to cover the entire piece of bread), add 1/2 tablespoon of tapenade on top, and serve :)

Enjoy!
~Deepshikha

Spider Web Fudge | Halloween

As a teenager, Halloween has definitely changed for me. Being a kid, I remember it being almost equivalent to Christmas, and it actually made me want to go to school whenever it fell on a weekday. Often, I’d stay up the night before, unable to sleep from the excitement, and the next morning I would be just as excited, as if I’d had a full night’s sleep. Next morning would be a fiasco for me, I’d jump out of bed extra early so I could get every aspect of my costume just right, pinned properly to stay in place, with impeccable face paint or makeup. The bus ride there was a pain, being squished in with all those other kids, but I endured it because when I got I would probably have the “funnest”(that was my favorite word as a kid) day of my life. I’d spend all day doing Halloween themed math problems, reading scary stories in English, and watch my science teacher be a mad scientist, and then at the end of the day there would be a party and the all the kids would stuff their faces with ridiculous amounts of Halloween themed junk food. Needless to say, it was a blast for any elementary/middle school kid.

But I was only a kid, and eventually had to face the scary reality of growing up. Upon entering high school, everything became a lot more serious. There were so many aspects of life that changed, but just to sum it it: high school is all work no play. Needless to say, Halloween became toned down, almost to the point of non existence. Nearly everyone is too tired to bother dressing up, or too lazy to do so. The whole day is full of serious, work, with minimal holiday influence. In the end, Halloween has turned into almost a normal day for me. However, this year, I’m definitely attempting to have some holiday spirit, and I made these little spider web fudge bites for a party that I’m attending.

These fudge bites, are super easy to make, and are just a simple variation from my cheater’s fudge recipe. They’re really perfect for parties, because they look cute and Halloween themed, but don’t take much effort to make. I also created gifs demonstrating some of the steps, so that it’s easier to follow!

Spider Web Fudge

makes approximately 24 pieces 

• all ingredients for this cheater’s fudge(click here for recipe)
• a mini muffin tin
• cupcake liners (to fit in the muffin tin)
• a tooth pick
• two piping bags (one medium sized w/ a large tip and the other smaller with a thinner tip) or two zip lock bags(instructions to prepare them are in the recipe)
• 3/4 cup white chocolate
• a spoon

1. Split all the ingredients for the cheater’s fudge in half. We’re doing this because white chocolate tends to cool fast, so it is easier to work with one half of the batch first.
2. Put the baking cups into the muffin tin.
3. So following the instructions for the fudge up to step three, make the first half of the recipe, and mean while, create a double boiler for the white chocolate, by filling a pan halfway with water, putting the while chocolate in a separate bowl, and setting that bowl in the water of the pan. make sure NO water touches the white chocolate, because it will not melt properly.
4. After you’re on step three for the fudge, and the white chocolate is melted, take the fudge base, and scrape it into the bigger piping bag, and pour the white chocolate into the smaller piping bag with the thinner tip. if you are using a ziplock bag: take the smaller bag, and cut a very small amount of the corner off to create a very small hole, be careful not to cut too much, it is very easy to underestimate the size. Then take the larger ziplock bag, create a larger hole, you should be able to put your finger through the hole and still have  small amount of space around your finger. You will put putting the fudge in the larger bag, and the white chocolate in the smaller bag. From this point on begin working quickly, because the white chocolate will harden over time.
5. Pipe the fudge into the cupcake liners, keeping the point of your piping bag/ziplock bag at the center and letting the fudge spread out from the tip and moving the piping bag up gradually until the cupcake liner is almost full. Pipe the fudge into all of the cupcake liners until you have nothing left. Then take a spoon, and even out the surface of the fudge. demonstrated below in the gif…(I apologize for the bad pictures, I was using one hand to take pictures, and the other to demonstrate…).

flatten

• Then, taking the white chocolate bag, pipe a swirl on the surface of the fudge, as demonstrated below in the gif.
  swirl

  
  

• Then taking the tooth pick, drag it through the fudge, starting from the center and pulling outwards, as demonstrated in the gif. I know in the gif, i simply pulled the toothpick through and then immediately went to make another line, but I recommend wiping the tooth pick between every line you draw, because there will be little bits of fudge and white chocolate stuck on there, and if you wipe it off, it will make the fudge look a little bit neater…

Dragging

• Put the tray into the refrigerator to cool, then repeat again for the second half of the batch, or just make one half :) You can remove the cupcake wrappers fairly easily if you want to remove them, or just leave them on there.
• Enjoy!

~Deepshikha

Chocolate Silk Pie

I’ve spent many times in my life sitting down in the dark with my little sister watching movies. Movies fascinate me, with film making stories come to life. I haven’t had time for movies as of late, actually I haven’t had time for anything. However, this weekend, I finally managed to find some time for myself, and sit down to watch The Help. I absolutely loved the movie, it was sweet, had a good amount of laughs in it, along with a good amount of meaning as well. Also, the vintage clothes and the whole setting of the movie was great. One thing that really caught my attention was a chocolate pie that one of the characters, Milly, had made. So, as a result, I decided to make chocolate pie [not the special pie for Hilly(; ].

Chocolate silk pie is a symphony of rich, smooth,  chocolate, with a buttery graham cracker crust to top it all of. I’ve tried this recipe with a traditional pastry pie crust, however  found it to be not as amazing in taste. The filling and the crisp graham cracker crust are a perfect pairing, like peanut butter and jelly. The filling of the pie is perfectly rich,  smooth, and melts in your mouth. It’s absolutely amazing.

French Silk Pie

adapted from Pillsbury

• 1 Crust (crust recipe below) (you can use a store bought one, or a regular pastry pie crust, but believe me it tastes better with a graham cracker crust)
• 5 oz. semi sweet chocolate
• 1 cup room temperature  butter(do not use margarine)
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 eggs(pasteurized)

Graham Cracker Crust

from allrecipes

• 1 1/2 cup of graham crackers
• 1/4 cup of sugar
• 1/3 cup of melted butter

1. Prepare the crust by mixing together the sugar and graham crackers in a small bowl, and then adding the butter in, until the butter is evenly distributed. Dump the whole mixture into a 9 inch pie pan and press into the sides and bottom of the pie pan. Bake at 375 degrees F for 8-9 minutes(time may vary a little depending on your oven). Set aside to cool.

2. Melt the chocolate down using a double boiler, and set aside to cool.

3. Beat the butter and sugar until fluffy, and then add the chocolate(which is cool now) and the vanilla extract, until mixed in smoothly.

4. Add one egg in beating until the color lighten and the volume of the mixture increases( about  2 minutes on high speed).

5. repeat step four for the remaining two eggs.

6. pour the mixture into the pie crust(which must be cooled or the mixture will start to melt), and smooth the top over.

7.  Refrigerate for about 2 hours, garnish with whipped cream and whatever else you feel urge to add, and serve :)

Enjoy!

~ Dee :)

Almond Cookies | A Tradition

January has passed by in rushed afternoons, studying as the sun crept down the sky. I missed having time to relax, read, or even to bake. As you can see baking hasn’t quite been in my schedule as of late, and I started to miss spending afternoons stirring up ingredients, feeling the warmth of the oven against my face, and biting into my creations just as they came out of the oven. Finally after weekends of studying relentlessly, I finally found myself an hour of time.

With this extra time, I made these familiar little cookies. I grew up with them, watching my mother bake them at nearly every special occasion, however I never quite liked them, or appreciated them. Soon, my family’s life became a lot busier, and my mother stopped baking the cookies for a while and the tradition was forgotten.

But only for a while.

A couple of months ago, in December I had to complete a school project about my family’s traditions, and the very first thing I thought of were these little cookies. I did not have much time that particular weekend, and my mom was more familiar with the recipe, so I asked her to make them for me. When I finally bit into one I realized how much I had missed my mother’s cookies, and remade them for my family.

Almond Cookies

• 16 tablespoons butter at room temperature (I used browned butter, but that’s purely optional)
• 2/3 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 1/2 cup flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup of ground almonds

1. Toast the almonds until golden brown.
2. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
3. In a separate bowl, cream the butter and the brown sugar together until fluffy, then add in the egg yolk, oil and vanilla, and mix well.
4. Add a half a cup of flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix in well.
5. Repeat step three until all of the flour mixture is mixed in.
6. Add the almonds to the mixture, and mix in well. Scoop 1/2 a table-spoon for each cookie and roll them into a ball and space them out on a cookie sheet evenly.
7. bake at 350 degrees farenheit for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.

Vanilla Sugar

A couple days ago I was sitting in my biology class, listening to my teacher talk about evolution, the past of earth, and fossils. Fossils were a subject that have fascinated me ever since I was a child, it amazed me how an animals body could turn into stone, however I never quite looked into it, intimidated and confused by the complex terms I didn’t understand, being the age of seven(even though I did try making my own fossils). However, when I grew older, I switched on to a different scientific fascination, forgetting about fossils until now. I’ve finally found out how fossils become the way they are, and the strange thing is, when I was reading about this, it reminded me vaguely of vanilla sugar. No, I don’t always relate everything I learn to baking, however this was one time I did :)

So with fossils what happens after its buried is that the minerals in the bones of the organism and other hard tissues get replaced with metal ions and other inorganic materials, and also combined with the pressure of the sediment on top of the whole thing transforms it.

With vanilla sugar you have two simple elements, sugar and a vanilla bean, with the insides scraped out. Now you leave them in an air tight jar for a while. The sugar starts to take on the smells and tastes of vanilla like the bones did with the metal ions and inorganic material. However in the end, unlike the process of fossilization, you end up with a delicious vanilla tinged sugar that adds a little flair to everything you put it in.

So, you ask, what exactly is vanilla sugar, and what do we do with it?

Well that’s simple. It’s simply sugar that  has this amazing vanilla taste to it, and you can do many things with it, like spoon a bit into your tea, or coffee in the morning, however I mostly prefer using it for making creme brulee, trust me it makes a difference compared to regular granulated sugar!

So I’ll start over from the beginning for how to make it.

you need:

A vanilla beans with the insides scraped out or used(i usually use mine in ice cream, and keep the pods around for exactly this purpose).

An airtight jar | I usually make really big jar of this but for depiction purposes:

and lastly: sugar. Just plain ol’ granulated sugar.

so what do you do with these?

1. Take the jar and fill it up with sugar(not fully to the rim. Just below is good.)
2. Take your vanilla bean, and push it into the middle of the sugar, like so:

3. Put it in the pantry wait for a month. Yes a month. Although I recommend checking on it every week and a half, because I’ve heard other food blogs say that their vanilla sugar was made much faster than mine. How do you know its ready? You open the jar, and the first you smell is the light aroma of vanilla, and if you taste the sugar it should definitely taste vanilla-y.

Bon apetit :)

~Dee D.

Simple Spinach Dip

School has finally started again, and as have the hectic days filled with work. Days seem to get shorter, and fall is soon approaching. The leaves haven’t yet fallen, but you can feel it in the air. I’d say fall is one of my favorite seasons, with its warmth of flavors, the colors, and even fall fashion. Its the season of pie, cinnamon, apples, and pumpkins. However, summer is also one of my favorite seasons, and one of the vegetables I see as part of the summer is spinach. It may seem strange, but its very much like summer, bright, vibrant and good for you. This post is a good bye to summer.

This spinach dip is a simple easy spinach dip, and you can add more to it to add a bit more of your own flavor to it. I’ve never made this recipe the same, not even once. What is here is simply a base, that you can add to, and make it better.

Simple Spinach Dip

adapted from Sailu’s Kitchen

• 1 3/4 a cup of spinach
• 1 tbsp. of butter
• 1 1/2 tbsp. flour
• 1 c. of milk
• 3 tbsps. of cheese
• 1/2 tbsp garlic
• any other ingredient you feel you want to add, to give it a little more flair :)

1. Parboil the spinach, adding a little bit of water to the bottom of a medium sized pan(until its about centimeter deep), and cover. Check every couple minutes, and cook until wilted.
2. Turn off the heat, and strain the spinach with a sieve to remove the water. Set aside
3. In a pan, melt the butter, then add the flour. Cook until slightly browned.
4. Add the milk and cook for approx 5-7 minutes on high-medium, until the flour/butter mixture is smoothly blended in.
5. Add the cheese, and anything else you want to add(such as more cheese/ different cheese or artichokes, or increasing the garlic, or instead using roasted garlic or whatever you feel is right)
6. Add in the properly drained spinach ( if theres too much water left in the spinach, it could mess with the consistancy of the dip).

Sometimes I even use this dip for a sandwich.

Bon apetit & happy fall!

~Dee D.

Europe

Houses in Burano, Venice

You may have noticed for the past month or so I’ve been a little absent…

No, I wasn’t being lazy and slacking off…I was actually in Europe! It was amazing, and I have some pictures and stuff to show you guys of places and things(including food).

I pretty much lived in London, and every now and then on weekends I would go with my family to other places in Europe, such as Scotland, Paris, Venice, and Rome.

So the first place I’d like to share with you guys…

Venice.

Gondolas in Venice

I would say, out of all the places I’ve traveled, this is the most amazing. It’s simply the fact that its such a different place from what people are normally used to. The whole city of Venice is quite literally on the water. There are no cars, just boats, and it is absolutely gorgeous, and magical.

A little off Venice, there is are three islands, Murano, Burano, and Torcello. The first one, Murano is famous for its glass making…

It’s a pretty great place, just like Venice, however on a smaller scale, and with much more beautiful glass.

If you ever visit, I would recommend checking out a glass blowing demonstation, its pretty amazing how the glass-blowers work with the glass.

A glass-blower in Murano 

The next island is an island famous for its lacework, and its amazingly colorful houses.

Its a great place to simply just walk around and admire the colors and beauty of the place. Even its windows are fascinating.

Another couple pictures of Burano/Venice

Gondolas in a canal

Houses In Burano, Venice

Gondolas

Venetian Mask Shop

Another thing Venice is famous for besides being on the water are their gorgeous masks. It really amazing.

The next place to show you is Paris.

I suppose I wasn’t as impressed with Paris as I expected it to be. Don’t get me wrong, it was a pretty amazing place(and the food…), but it struck me as any old big city. It was like london or new york with slightly different buildings, a different language, and a whole lot more bakeries. Still a great place to go though, here are some pictures…

The Louvre

The Louvre was amazing. Its crazy how there were so, so many pieces of art all in their, and some of this all being from so long ago. I did indeed see the original Mona Lisa, which was weird, and great in all.

A Stained-Glass Window in the Notre Dame

Another place that you must check out while in Paris is the Notre Dame. Its absolutely stunning, from the inside, because of all the huge stained glass windows.

Palace of Versailles

I feel as if I’m using the same adjectives too much, but once again, this was stunning. The Palace of Versailles is a great piece of history as well.

The Eiffel Tower

As for the Eiffel tower, at first when I saw it, I was quite confused. It didn’t live up to my expectations…however I had a ticket to go up on the Eiffel tower at ten thirty so I ended up staying a while. And I was quite glad I did, because the Eiffel Tower at night is completely different from it during the day.  And if you come at the right time, you can also watch it “sparkle”. I couldn’t quite capture the effect for you guys with my camera, which is why you see little white blotches all over it.

This isn’t something you really have to visit, I just thought it was interesting. Around the Eiffel Tower is bridge, and on that bridge, are hundred of locks,  and I suppose the couple puts them on there to symbolize their love. I found it strange how people all managed to do this… did just start out with one lock that people copied? Or was it a bunch of people who spread the word?

Sacre Coeur Basilica

The Sacre Coeur Basilica was also quite grand and this Basilica stood out to me the most for one reason. Its made out of color changing rocks which turn whiter when there is supposed to be bad weather, an effect which I  didn’t see, but I thought was very interesting.

Also around the basilica is the town of Monmarte, and even though its in France, its not at all like the places around it, it’s not very city-like, and its an interesting place to walk around.

The next place I went to was Rome. Rome’s history is honestly a very fascinating thing. Or to me atleast, I found it quite amazing how Rome rose to be such a great empire, and it also fascinated me how, it was so different from what it used to be, or it seemed to be different. Rome again, was your giant metropolis, but with amazing history and so many places from the past.

One of the places being…

…the Colosseum. Its really amazing how some thing so old still lasts today, and if you think about it you were in the same place people we standing hundreds of years ago.

The Trevi Fountain

The Trevi Fountian is also a great place to visit. Actually there are many, many fountains all around Rome, however I believe this is most likely the most famous of them all.

St. Pete’s Basilica, Vatican

St. Peter’s basilica, in the Vatican,  is probably the grandest of all the basilica’s I visited whilst in Europe. Its probably also, the most famous, because it is where the Pope is.

The Oculus of the Pantheon

Another church like the Sacre Coeur, which i found really interesting was the Pantheon. It was originally created as a temple to all greek gods, however it was converted to a christian church. Also as you can see, it has a hole in the top, called the oculus. The interesting thing about it, is that it is said, that it never rains in the pantheon.  The reason, which I will not reaveal here, is quite interesting, and its not because the oculus is sealed with glass.

And the last place I visited, was Ediburgh, Scotland. Once again, this place was also filled with sites of historic value. It’s also great to wander through the streets though, its very quaint, yet not so quaint.

Edinburgh also has many castles, and is home to Holyroodhouse, a residence of the queen. It was also fairly different from all the places I went, and I really liked it.

While i wasn’t off exploring these other places I just showed you, I stayed in London.

I honestly loved living in London. It was definitely different, from normal life, but I like it. The people in london seem much more relaxed than people in America. And it was great that to go places I mostly walked in the street, and used the tube which is something you can’t do in the suburbs of America. It may seem a simple thing, but I really liked it.

And I nearly forgot! What did I eat there?

Well many things. Most of which I forgot to take picture of for you guys. Don’t blame me, its was seriously yummy food!  But some of those things are already on this blog(such as tiramisu, which i had ALOT of in italy, panna cotta, crostata, and chocolate mousse), and others will soon be coming.

But here are somethings that I did remember to take pictures of…

Sticky Toffee Pudding

I like to consider this the british equivalent of apple pie. Its seriously yummy, and is even better warm with a scoop of ice cream on top.

This most likely will pop up on here sometime, as soon as i find a recipe :)

Belgian Waffles

Best waffles ever. Period. You don’t even need syrup.

Chocolate Bombe

This was so delicious, and so richy and creamy!  A bit like mousse…but thicker.

and lastly, macarons from laduree

And I suppose that’s all. Hope you enjoy the pictures!

Hope to blog soon,

Dee D.

Fudge | Summer

It’s really hard to believe that my first year as a freshman is over. It really feels like I was ranting about my fears of high school years just yesterday. I honestly anticipated this year to take forever, just like everything I don’t like seems to take, but really it just rushed right by. I’m surprised that I’m now a sophomore. I can still remember clearly of how I walked into the high school for the first time as a student, and wondering why school decor was always so drab.

And so sophomore year starts…

On a brighter note: I have a quick and simple recipe to share!

It’s fudge.

A fudge shortcut. Its ridiculously easy to make, and you can make it in ten minutes.

Seriously.

Oh and one last little thing: I made a face book page for the blog! Go and check it out and like it!

Here’s the link: http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Notorious-Experiments/182235575167065?ref=hnav

and here is the recipe:

Simple Fudge

PS: before you start making this recipe, know that it is very, very sweet. I rarely eat more than one or two pieces in a sitting because it is simply that sweet.

Adapted from Baking Addiction

•  3 cups chocolate chips(semi-sweet or dark chocolate is good, in the pictures above I used dark chocolate)
• 14 oz of sweetened condensed milk
• 1/4 a tsp of salt(fleur de sel is preferable but i have used regular table salt sometimes)
• 1 1/2 a tsp of vanilla
• if you really want to add some sort of nuts or something go ahead!(i recommend about a cup)

1. Line an 8 x 8 pan with aluminum foil
2. Mix together the chocolate, condensed milk, and salt in a medium pan, until the chocolate is completely melted and blended in.
3. Remove from heat and add in the vanilla.
4. working quickly pour the mixture into the lined pan(or else it will cool and harden, and when you’re smoothing the top, it’ll start cracking[it will look like its cracking], and it will look strange)
5. Cool in the refridgerator for at least 45 minutes or until it is completely cold and firm.
6. To cut it: make sure you use a knife with no ridges, or anything on the blade, other wise the edges of the fudge pieces will look strange. You want a knife like this:

Enjoy!

~Dee D.