Despite recently punching a girl in the face, I swear I’m a lover and not a fighter.

Now I will admit I am somewhat of a cynic when it comes to matters of the heart. I was never one of those girls who had a boyfriend all the time. Not because I couldn’t have one (yes, I realize my EGO is out of control ) but because I simply chose not to.
I was always in awe of my female friends who seem to hop from boy to boy, never having any down time. No down time to really know, in my opinion, who they were and what they truly wanted. They also always seem to be in love all the time. Really, I think most of them were just in love with being in love. That’s just never been my style.

Perhaps it’s because I can count on one hand how many times I’ve been in love. I certainly believe in it. I know it exists. I just used to be quite picky….well, still am.
“You see how picky I am about my shoes and they only go on my feet.” Now granted Cher (Alicia Silverstone) was talking about her virginity in the movie but I can apply it to my heart as well.
Some of you may be familiar with the three date rule? If you’re not, it basically is that come the third, that is the sex date. Now I NEVER followed that rule at all, give it up when you want to give it up. And if you are under the age of 18 and read my blog…just don’t do it, that’s my PSA for the day (cue the cheesy music).
But in my own way, I had my three rule. But mine was three weeks…and not sex related. If you lasted three weeks dating me, chances are you were in it for the long haul. Only problem was, very few made it to the three weeks.

I think I had a little dating ADD or I just knew it wasn’t what I wanted and decided it was best to move on. Now, I am a good breaker upper. Guys were usually taken back by response when being broken up with. I thanked them. Not for breaking up. But for the experience and time we had together. That’s it. I learned early on, I don’t want to be with someone who doesn’t want to be with me. Plain and simple. Sadly, I can’t say the people I broke up with left so gracefully. Somehow they seemed to end up drunk on my porch pounding on my door. Until my friend L’s husband would come over and remove them (he is a large guy). In fact, it became quite the joke. When guys I was dating would meet him at a party or what not, he would introduce himself as “Hi, I’m J, in about two weeks I’ll be removing your drunk ass off of Peabody’s porch”. Sad thing was it was a joke, but kind of true.

One thing I never had a problem professing my love for was cheesecake. I mean I hosted a whole event dedicated to it. Next to bread pudding, it’s my favorite.
This particular one has a lovely chocolate-hazelnut cookie crust, which the extra makes for great sandwich cookies. You can spread some Nutella between the two cookies…good stuff.
You don’t have to make the heart pattern on the cheesecake. Truthfully, I started off trying to make the maple leaf but that went really, really badly. So I went back to hearts. But you can just swirl away if you like all the same.

Lastly, a shout out to my husband on this Pi Day ( 3.14), it’s our 6 year wedding anniversary. Six years ago today he decided to put up with me on a daily legal basis. Lucky him.

Raspberry Swirl Cheesecake with Chocolate-Hazelnut Cookie Crust

Chocolate-Hazelnut Cookie Crust

12 oz unsalted butter, softened
1 ¾  cups powdered sugar
1 egg
2 cups flour
1 cup cornstarch
1 ¾  cups ground hazelnuts
½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder

Using a stand mixer with a paddle attachment, cream the butter with the sugar until light. Add in the egg and mix well.

Mix together the flour, cocoa powder, ground hazelnuts, and cornstarch.

Add this to the creamed mixture and blend.

Form the dough into a bowl and wrap in plastic. Chill for about 4 hours.

This makes WAY more than you need for the crust. So press the crust onto the bottom of a 10-inch spring form pan that has been lined with parchment paper and sprayed with baking spray. Prick bottom with fork. Make the crust about ¼ inch thick. Bake at 350F for 10 minutes. Let cool. Follow the directions down in the cheesecake portion.

For the extra dough…make cookies:

Roll out the dough to ¼  inch thickness. Cut with a cookie cutter(I chose to make hippos but any shape will do).

Chill the cookies for 10 minutes and preheat oven to 325F.

Bake cookies for about 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool on a rack.

Raspberry Swirl Cheesecake Filling

1/3 cup raspberry jam
2 ½  pounds (yes pounds, don’t write me asking me if this is right)  cream cheese, at room temperature
2 ½ cups granulated sugar
2 TBSP flour
5 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 ½  cups raspberries, pureed and strained
Preheat oven to 350F.

Using a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, cream the cheese and sugar until soft. Add in eggs one at a time.

Mix until incorporated and scrape down the bowl down occasionally.

Add flour and mix well. Stir in the vanilla.

Spread the raspberry jam over the cooled crust coming about ½  inch from the edge.

Pour in 1/3 of the cheesecake batter. Then drizzle half of the puree on top. Repeat with more cheesecake batter and then puree. Pour the last third of the batter on.

With a thin knife marble the cheesecake. If you want to make the sort of heart like I did, make a V with the puree and then shape it into a heart the best you can with the knife.

Bake in a water bath at 350F for approximately 2 hours.

Remove cake from water bath. Cool to room temperature and then chill over night.

“You may not be her first, her last, or her only. She loved before she may love again. But if she loves you now, what else matters? She’s not perfect – you aren’t either, and the two of you may never be perfect together but if she can make you laugh, cause you to think twice, and admit to being human and making mistakes, hold onto her and give her the most you can. She may not be thinking about you every second of the day, but she will give you a part of her that she knows you can break – her heart. So don’t hurt her, don’t change her, don’t analyze and don’t expect more than she can give. Smile when she makes you happy, let her know when she makes you mad, and miss her when she’s not there.” -Bob Marley

Sometimes it means sacrificing your body for the good of the game. In baseball it’s usually getting hit with the ball to take a base. In hockey it’s taking a puck that usually ends up hitting your body where there is no padding(I don’t know how the puck knows there is not padding there…but it knows).

In the fine cinematic masterpiece Armageddon, Bruce Willis takes one for the team, which in that case was our country, by going down into the asteroid and blowing it up with a nuclear bomb.

Monday night I went to take one for the team but got away with it so it wasn’t really a sacrifice. But it still counts in my opinion darn it all. See we were playing this team. This team had 4 girls on it who were less than polite and played pretty darn cheap. Not against me or the other girl on our team, but against the guys. Because they knew they could get away with it, and they were.
One girl actually tackled one of our guys and started punching him. He got a roughing call. All he did was lay there and get beat on. Not cool. This made our team less than happy. We started taking lots of penalties. Usually provoked by the girls. Which of course fueled them to do it more. One chick (she was no woman) kept shoving our players during altercations and saying “are you gonna hit me? Go ahead hit me?”

So in between periods our captain said that we were either going to get into a brawl (which he followed up with…we’re not good at…speak for yourself, I excel in that area) or we should start playing hockey (which we never did). So needless to say with 7 minutes left to play one of their girls tripped our player and grabbed on to his leg. He pushed on her to get her off. And let’s just say from that point on…it was on like Donkey Kong. I was on the ice and so I made my way quickly over for support.
At this point I had in mind that I was going to fight and take one for the team. As I knew no guy on my team was going to hit the girl. But I would.
So there she was screaming and hitting my player saying “what the fuck are you going to do about it? Hit me? Hit me? I dare you to hit me.” So I hit her. In the face. She then looked stunned and told me that she dared me…and before she finished the sentence I hit her again. In the face.

Then the ref pulled me to the side. Since I was never touched, I’m going with I won that one. I was thinking I would get in trouble for that. If you play recreational hockey I should have gotten third man in and a double minor for roughing. But I got nothing. I did go and sit the 5 minute penalty for our player that got kicked out, so in away I did take one for the team.

Speaking of the team, here are some cookies that I made for some of the guys on my team. They are a slight adaption of a David Lebowitz cookie from his Chocolate book. If you don’t have it, it’s very informative and has some good recipes. These are nice and chocolaty. The original cookies have cashews but I went with toffee pieces instead. I like it better that way.

Double Chocolate Espresso Toffee Cookies

8 ounces unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
1cup light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp instant espresso powder
2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1cup toffee pieces
1 cup mini semisweet chocolate chips 

Preheat oven to 325° F.
Line 3 baking sheets with parchment paper or spray with baking spray.

In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugars until light and fluffy.

Add the eggs, vanilla, and espresso powder.

Mix well, stopping once to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl.

Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt.

Mix into the creamed butter mixture, scraping again. Stir in the toffee pieces and chocolate chips.

Scoop the cookie dough using a cookie scoop, so that they are about the size of a golf ball, arranging them at least 2 inches apart.

Bake until the cookies are just flat, 16 to 18 minutes, turning and rotating the baking sheets as necessary for even baking.
Let cool about 10 minutes before transferring from the baking sheet to the cooling rack. Once cool, store at room temperature in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

Adapted from The Great Book of Chocolate, by David Lebovitz

Last year at this time I couldn’t find a Girl Scout to save my life. It was like they were all trying to earn the Ninja badge or something. The one girl I did finally found made a killing as I panicked that I would not find another girl and cleaned her out. Seriously, I bought so many, I still have some from last year.

But this year. The year I am choosing not to buy them, these girls are everywhere. Swarming at the grocery store and changing shifts every hour or so, there are that many troupes. Which is awesome that Girl Scouts is so popular but darn it all, I’m trying to be good.

Now I’m not a total stick in the mud. I do donate straight cash to every troupe I run into. That way I avoid the cookies and the troupe gets my direct donation. See, they only make $0.70 for every box they sell. But if I straight up hand them $5, they get to keep the whole thing. They are happy and my jeans are happy they don’t have to stretch.

Of course, when you run a baking blog avoiding Girl Scout cookies is kind of stupid. I mean, I’m still going to be eating bad stuff. Oh well, in my mind it makes sense.

All these Girl Scouts everywhere reminds me that Girl Scout uniforms are about as ugly color green as one can get. And of camping.

Ah, camping. Oh how I loved it as a kid. Tromping through creeks. Picking up rocks, sticks, bugs, etc… Getting excited to see a chipmunk.

Then I grew up and realized, the ground is hard. It hurts to sleep on the ground. My back gets out of whack and I limp after I wake up. And of course, where the fuck am I suppose to pee?

But the one thing I still enjoy of course is S’mores. This little ice box pie is a product of me being seduced by the mini graham cracker crust at the store. I liked the idea of not having to make my own (just call me Sandra Lee). The only time consuming part was making the marshmallow ice cream. I had planned on using mini marshmallows on the top, only to discover when making these that I only had the large ones. Oh well, some much for the Be Prepared part of Girl Scouts. I think they should change their motto to Make Due With What You Have. I think this would be far more appropriate in real life.

Mini S’mores Ice Box Pies (or yet another excuse to light stuff on fire)

2 packages of mini graham cracker crust (6 come to a pack) or 1 regular sized graham cracker crust
½ batch Marshmallow Vanilla Bean Ice Cream (recipe follows)
Chocolate Glaze (recipe follows)
Marshmallows (about 15-18…you’ll want some just to eat)

Marshmallow Vanilla Bean Ice Cream

1 cup whole milk
A pinch of salt
½ cup granulated sugar
2 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
2 cups  heavy cream
6 large egg yolks
1 tsp vanilla extract
10 ounces Marshmallow Fluff
Heat the milk, salt, and sugar in a saucepan. Scrape the seeds from the vanilla beans into the milk with a paring knife, then add the bean pod to the milk. Cover, remove from heat, and infuse for one hour.

To make the ice cream, set up an ice bath by placing a 2-quart (2l) bowl in a larger bowl partially filled with ice and water. Set a strainer over the top of the smaller bowl and pour the cream into the bowl.

In a separate bowl, stir together the egg yolks. Rewarm the milk then gradually pour some of the milk into the yolks, whisking constantly as you pour. Scrape the warmed yolks and milk back into the saucepan.

Cook over low heat, stirring constantly and scraping the bottom with a heat-resistant spatula, until the custard thickens enough to coat the spatula.

Strain the custard into the heavy cream. Stir over the ice until cool, add the vanilla extract, then refrigerate to chill thoroughly. Preferably overnight.

Remove the vanilla bean and freeze the custard in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

Place the soft ice cream into the bowl of an electric stand mixer(or use a large bowl and beaters). Beat in on medium-high speed the 10 ounces of marshmallow. Beat until fully incorporated, about 3 minutes. Place into a freezer friendly container and freeze for at least 3 hours.

Adapted from The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz

Chocolate Glaze

6 ounces milk chocolate
4 TBSP unsalted butter

Break chocolate into small pieces and place in a small stainless steel bowl over a pot of hot(not boiling)water. Melt the 4 TBSP butter in a small saucepan, and skim off the white foam that rises to the top. When chocolate is just melted, stir in the clarified butter(discard the white solids left behind). Set aside until chocolate is 86F.

To assemble:

Evenly distribute chocolate glaze to bottom of each pie crust. Dip marshmallows into the remaining chocolate if desired. Let set up in fridge for 10 minutes.

Set ice cream out so that it gets soft. Soft enough that it can be piped through a pastry bag. Pipe ice cream into the prepared crusts. Cover lightly with foil and place in freezer to re-freeze. Leave at least an hour.

Using a culinary torch, toast marshmallows. Place on on top of each pie.

Won my hockey game.
Lost my hockey game.
A drink for every bruise I got in the hockey game.
A drink for every time I mess up in the hockey game (though this is not wise because I usually pass out from how much I end up drinking).
Need to avoid doing laundry.
Need to avoid folding laundry.
Stressed because I have no clean laundry.
I wasn’t killed by a giant orca at SeaWorld today.
Taxes. This covers you from January to April 15th.
Stress from work.
Stress from not having work.
Want to see how many free beers I can get.
The mail got delivered.

With excuses like those, I don’t need a special day of the year to drink. First off, I’m not Irish. When they have a Scottish-Canadian holiday I’ll be all over that. But I’m not Irish, and I’m not being Irish for a day. That’s lame. No one ever goes Bosnian for a day.

Also, I’m not a big fan of actually going out on St. Patrick’s Day. It’s amateur hour. I mean, if you are sitting around waiting for a day as an excuse to go drink, clearly you are not a good drinker. You have not been properly training all year round to get in shape for the holiday itself. Which is why there are so many stupid people getting DUI’s, stumbling around drunk telling me they love me, puking in the corner,  and what not. Now it’s too late for this year, but I challenge you, that if you do go out for St. Patrick’s Day, start training now for next year. Oh sure, it takes lots of dedication, but if you are willing to commit, I feel you can do it. I have faith.

I may not usually go out for it, but I do usually like to cook something for it. Usually with stout. Last weekend, I was down in Portland. We took the train actually into Vancouver, WA which is just on the other side (easier to get to our hotel from that stop). While having some downtime waiting for our train (it was late due to running someone over on the tracks…yikes) it was suggested to me and my travel companion to hit up the Salmon Creek Brew Pub. So I did. For the sake of training and all. I sampled quite a few of their beers (again, all for training purposes only), my favorite being the Belgian. The other being their sweet stout. You could actually take beer home with you in growlers or keg. Since I was fresh out of a keg, I bought two growlers. Sadly my favorite beer can not be taken home (it’s just too expensive for them to sell) but I got the stout and the Scottish ale to go. Got to love the train…you can just walk on in with beer no problem.

Once you open a growler though it goes flat pretty quickly. And though I will drink flat beer no problem (years of training will help you with this), I decided to use the rest in recipes. Hence, a stout cake. A Chocolate Stout Cake with Bailey’s Irish Cream Ganache Buttercream Frosting to be exact. Proving you can be in training even when you are not drinking directly from a glass. But if you want to drink from a glass, I suggest serving a Stout Float. Trust me they are good. I made mine here with vanilla ice cream because we had it, but it’s really good with Bailey’s Irish Cream Ice Cream.

And in case you all were wondering, why yes, I was in training right before I frosted this cake. My frosting  job is even worse than usual.

Chocolate Stout Cake with Bailey’s Irish Cream Ganache Buttercream Frosting
For Cake:

2 cups stout (such as Guinness)
2 cups (4 sticks) unsalted butter
1 ½  cups unsweetened cocoa powder
4 cups all purpose flour
4 cups sugar
1 TBSP baking soda
1 ½ tsp salt
4 large eggs
1 1/3 cups sour cream

8 ounces chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter three 8-inch round cake pans with 2-inch-high sides. Line with parchment paper. Butter paper.

Bring 2 cups stout and 2 cups butter to simmer in heavy large saucepan over medium heat. Add cocoa powder and whisk until mixture is smooth. Cool slightly.

Whisk flour, sugar, baking soda, and 1 ½  tsp salt in large bowl to blend.

Using electric mixer, beat eggs and sour cream in another large bowl to blend.

Add stout-chocolate mixture to egg mixture and beat just to combine.

Add flour mixture and beat briefly on slow speed. Using rubber spatula, fold batter until completely combined. Fold in chocolate chips.

Divide batter equally among prepared pans. Bake cakes until tester inserted into center of cakes comes out clean, about 35 minutes. Transfer cakes to rack; cool 10 minutes. Turn cakes out onto rack and cool completely.

Adapted from Epicurious.com
Bailey’s Irish Cream Ganache Buttercream
10 ounces semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
1 cup heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla
3 TBSP Bailey’s Irish Cream (or more if desired)
12 ounces unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup powdered sugar

Place chocolate in a medium bowl.

Heat cream in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Once boiling, pour over chocolate. Let sit 3 minutes. Add in the vanilla and Bailey’s Irish Cream and whisk until smooth. Pour into a 8-x8-inch pan. Spread evenly and place in fridge for 30 minutes, until the ganache is cool and almost completely set.

Using an electric mixer (or a stand mixer) beat the ganache, and add the butter, one TBSP at a time, until all the butter is incorporated. Add the powdered sugar and beat for another 3 minutes.

Your frosting may look curdled a little. This is what the Bailey’s likes to do to the frosting. I add a lot of  Bailey’s to  mine so it likes to curdle. Tastes good. That is all that matters.

Cheers! Now get to training!!!!