SPCA Bake Sale Pound Cake

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SPCA Bake Sale Cake Bread

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SPCA Christmas Bake Sale

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SPCA Bake Sale Cookies Brownies

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I hope you're all having a good week.  I'm having a great week myself, but I have a nagging feeling that I can't seem to shake, and it's about the 27,000 exotic animals that the SPCA is taking care of.  Last week, I told you about the largest animal rescue in US history that took place in Arlington about six weeks ago.  Since then, the SPCA of Texas has been caring for 27,000 exotic animals who were neglected and abused.

I got an urgent email from the SPCA this week, which said that the “people” (I use that word loosely) who owned the company have appealed the judge's decision to confiscate the animals from them and award custody to the City of Arlington.  Until that appeal is settled, the SPCA will continue to care for the animals, at a cost of $8,000-$10,000 per day.  They are in desperate need of $150,000 ASAP!

If this situation touches your heart as it does mine, will you please consider making a donation to the SPCA?  If I could do another bake sale tomorrow that would put a dent in this need, I would do it.  But their need is much bigger than that.  They need us all to come together for them, and contribute what we can.  Thanks for considering helping these poor little critters!

BigSis added this note January 28 at 1:30 pm: I just found this great video on DallasNews.com, which shows some of the animals and gives you an idea of the lengths the SPCA is going to for these guys.  Here's the link: http://www.dallasnews.com/video/dallasnews/hp/index.html?nvid=412930

It's short, so please check it out.  I'm in love with the Ring-Tailed Lemurs and the teensy turtles.

~BigSis

Posted under Animals

With our SPCA Bake Sale looming on the calendar, I've been busy planning and test-driving a couple of new recipes.  The last thing I need during the baking frenzy is a recipe that doesn't work!  I have a bunch of tried-and-true favorites that I'm making, but still wandered through my cookbook collection in search of some new goodies to try.  I flipped through Carole Walter's “Great Cookies”, and found a dark chocolaty recipe called Triple Chocolate Peppermint Bars that sounded crazy good.

You make a dark chocolate shortbread base and then top it with a dark chocolate brownie filling that has peppermint schnapps in it.  Then you cover the whole thing with a thin chocolate ganache that has even more schnapps in it.  How bad could that possibly be!  It certainly deserved a test-drive!

I didn't have schnapps so I used peppermint extract instead, and left the ganache layer off since I thought it might be too smeary and messy once it's packaged in a cute little treat bag.  The top got a sprinkle of crushed candy canes instead.

Can I just say YUMMY??  Oh, mommy, these have an incredible chocolate flavor!  Maybe I loved them so much because I adore chocolate shortbread and brownies and peppermint.

Only one little problem…my bars didn't come out looking anything like the photo.  I expected the bars to be kind of chunky and thick, but mine came out very thin; only about 1/2″.  Phooey.  I can't figure out what I might have done wrong, if anything, but I guess it doesn't matter.  I think the bars are too thin and fragile to work well for the bake sale, which is a bummer, but this recipe is a keeper!  If I make them again and don't need to package them, I'll definitely add the ganache layer!

~BigSis

Posted under Food

We still have donations coming in following Monday's SPCA of Texas Bake Sale, so I'm not telling you yet how much money we were blessed to collect!  Maybe by the weekend I can let the cat out of the bag.  Not that I would ever put a cat in a bag; that wouldn't be very humane.  Unless I had to do that to get the cat out of a dangerous situation and couldn't do it any other way.  ^..^  Do I have a touch of rambling Christmas delirium?  Think so.

I also have some recipes that you have to make if you're trying to figure out what to bake for Christmas!  These were my favorite things to make for the bake sale, but it occurred to me that they are also awesome things to make for Christmas gifts.  I'm not burned out on baking yet – weird, I know – so I may make more of these before we hit the new year since we had nothing left after Monday's sale!  I would feel comfortable mailing all of these except for the Snowballs.  They're a little fragile so keep them at home.

• Barefoot Contessa's Outrageous Brownies: plain, with mint Oreos, or with chocolate chips and walnuts.  I know I talk about these ALL of the time, but they're my favorite brownies and I love them.  We sell the HECK out of them at bake sales.  Not because of my baking prowess, but because it's an awesome recipe!

• Vegan Pumpkin Bread: no one believes there are no eggs or dairy in this bread.  It's moist and flavorful, and absolutely one of my favorites.  I have to add walnuts.  Have to.

• Fudge: chocolate, cinnamon and peanut butter.  Just use the regular fudge recipe on the marshmallow cream jar, and substitute cinnamon chips and peanut butter chips for the semi-sweet chocolate chips.  I like to pour the fudge into little silicone molds with Christmas shapes.  When they're cool and set, you can easily unmold them, sprinkle with sparkling sugar (brown on gingerbread boys, green on Christmas trees, and red on stockings).  For a final touch, add some royal icing accents here and there.  For the sale, I packaged them two different shapes to a treat bag: one chocolate and one cinnamon or PB.

• Pecan Pie Bars with Chocolate and Bourbon from the Pastry Queen: these got a little oozy, but they were fudgey and boozy, so who the heck cared?  Nobody!  I love the original flavor of these, and was shocked that I loved this over-the-top variation even more.  Wicked!

• Chocolate Mint Snowballs: based on RecipeGirl's Snowballs. I used mint chips and pecans instead of peanut butter chips and peanuts.  Roll these in green sugar and powdered sugar, and pack in a cute treat bag with a ribbon, or a box with a window so you can peek at them.

Happy baking, little kitchen elves!

~BigSis

Posted under Holidays

I've been talking about it for a while, but in case you haven't heard, our Bake Sale benefiting the SPCA of Texas is coming up on Monday.  This Monday! Great googly moogly!  So much to do in so little remaining time!

We want this to be the best sale we can possibly put together for the SPCA, and we're pretty much driving ourselves wacka-doodle-doo over it.  That's what happens when a few OCD perfectionists come together on a project they're passionate about I guess, but we've created a really stressful week for ourselves.

Hissy-Fit Photo by Vaughan

I freaked out big-time yesterday and had a little hissy fit about some things that weren't going the way I wanted them to.  By the end of a really long frustrating day, I was about to cry and decided to just go to bed and start fresh this morning.

I was thinking that bunches of us are hissy-fitting this time of year, not just me.  I sometimes wish I could be more lackadaisical and nonchalant about things instead of giving myself an anxiety attack trying to get it all done.  The challenge I think is how to arrive at a balance; how do you be more nonchalant and less compulsive without turning into a full-blown procrastinator who doesn't get things done?   I have no idea since I'm not good at balance and moderation; I'm all or nothing about everything I do.  When it comes to the bake sale and other things I care about, it's 100%-full-blown-all-I've-got.

How do you manage to achieve this kind of balance in your life?  I really want to know.  When I start melting down like this, all I know to do is try to slow my breathing down.  It does seem to help.  Also taking a minute to focus on what's really important helps a bit too.  Am I freaking about something that even matters?  Probably not.  Am I making too much of this right now and overreacting?  Probably so.

If you have any tips on this topic, please send them on.  I betcha I'm not the only one doing the Hissy-Fit Freak right now!

~BigSis

Posted under Animals

Cherry-Pecan Meringue Bars

Gearing up for the SPCA Bake Sale, I had one more promising recipe to taste-test.  Like the Double Chocolate Peppermint Bars I tested recently, the inspiration again was Carole Walter's “Great Cookies” – a James Beard Award winner and IACP winner.

These bars took a little doing – about an hour to put together – and are a touch too fussy for the Bake Sale.  You have a brown sugar shortbread base, with a cherry filling and a meringue pecan topping.  The combination of flavors was great, especially if you're a nut lover.  All in all, pretty delicious, and lighter than a lot of the things that come out of my oven this time of year!

So, these bars gets thumbs up for flavor but don't get invited to the Bake Sale!  I'll be making Cookie Madness' White Chip Raspberry Bars for the sale again, since they were well-received last year.  You get a similar zip from the berry jam (I use my homemade cranberry jam) with a nutty complement from sliced almonds.  If you double Anna's recipe, it fits nicely in a 13 x 9 pan, and will give you 12 healthy-size bars.

If you have a little bit of time on your hands, do try these Cherry-Pecan Meringue Bars.  I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Cherry-Pecan Meringue Bars
(adapted from Great Cookies)

Filling:

1 cup dried cherries
1/2 cup water
1 cup cherry preserves or jam (I used homemade cranberry jam)
1 tsp fresh lemon zest
1/2 tsp cinnamon
pinch of ground cloves
pinch of salt
2 Tblsp POM Wonderful juice (the original recipe called for Cherry Heering liqueur which is a bit pricey, and unnecessary IMHO)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Line a 13 x 9 pan with nonstick foil.

Place the cherries and water in a small saucepan. Cook, covered, over medium heat for 5 to 7 minutes or until cherries are tender and almost all of the liquid has evaporated.

Add the rest of filling ingredients. Bring to a boil. Place the mixture into a food processor and pulse 5-6 times. The mixture should still have some texture, rather than being a puree.  Chill mixture for 30 minutes or up to 1 week.

Crust:

3/4 cup (1-1/2 sticks) unsalted butter (I used salted)
1/3 cup lightly packed brown sugar
1-3/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt

Place the butter in a medium saucepan and barely melt over low heat, remove from heat and allow to finish melting. Set aside to cool to tepid, then stir in brown sugar. Blend in the flour and salt all at once.

Drop 8 spoonfuls of dough onto the prepared pan. Press dough evenly into bottom of pan. Bake at 350 for 15 to 17 minutes. Let stand for 2 minutes then spread the cherry filling evenly over crust.

Meringue:

8 oz pecans (2 cups chopped)
3/4 cup sugar
3 egg whites, at room temperature
1/8 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract

Place the pecans in a food processor and add 1 tablespoon of the sugar and pulse 3-4 times, or until finely chopped. Set aside. In a stand mixer fitted with the whip attachment, beat the egg whites on medium speed until frothy.  Add the salt.  Increase the speed to medium high and beat until firm but not dry. Add the remaining sugar 1 tablespoon at a time, taking about 1 minute.  Add the vanilla and beat 30 seconds longer to form a shiny meringue. Fold in 1 cup of the chopped pecans.

Spread the meringue evenly over the cherry mixture, smooth the top, and sprinkle with the remaining pecans. Bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes, until golden brown.

Cool on a wire rack. Remove from pan, using the foil to lift it out, and cut into bars.

~BigSis

Posted under Food

I'm so mad at myself.  Livid and disgusted and sick, in fact.  Is there anything worse than being mad at yourself, for something you did or didn't do?  It's so much more satisfying to be mad at someone ELSE.  You can punish them and demand that they make things right.  Whatever those “things” are.

I can't be mad at anyone else this time.  I'm responsible.  I killed my plants.  All of them.  All.  Of.  Them.  Every last one.  The curly hoya and the regular hoya I've had for close to 25 years.  The ficus that LilSis gave me when she moved to California, along with the other plant she gave me that I never knew the name of.  The gorgeous new hoya hanging basket I found last year.  And the dracaena  from our dad's funeral.  They're all dead.  I put them in trash bags and hauled them to the dumpster.

How did this happen?  How did I keep these living things alive…some from my very first apartment, to the condo, and then to the dark apartment building, only to kill them all here?  Last December 15, on the day of the SPCA Bake Sale, we had the mother of all sleet storms here in Dallas.  I had been baking non-stop for 3 weeks, and was punchy from a 14-hour day of raising money for one of my favorite charities.  By the time I got home and unpacked things and cleaned up my kitchen and fed my furkids and myself, I must have fallen into a coma because I didn't give one thought to all of the literally freezing plants on my north-facing patio.

If I had even one working brain cell at that point, I would have just put a couple of sheets over the poor things to protect them from the sleet and temperatures in the teens.  But did I do that?  Nope.  And so they all died.  I've been watering and watering the little stumps, hoping to see one little green sprig, but none appeared.

I'm a little surprised at how upset I am that all of these living things are dead.  I've taken care of them, watered them, fertilized them, trimmed them, nursed them, moved them, enjoyed them and loved them for so many years.  And now I'm responsible for their deaths.  I know I can get new plants.  But they won't be MY plants.  They'll just be plants.

~BigSis

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