How to make your neighbors mad...

I think it goes without saying that a quite neighbor is a happy one, either that or they're really anti-social. But which ever way you look at it, if you find yourself living in an apartment complex, this tends to ring more true. 

For instance, take my husband and I. We have been living at our apartment complex for almost 7 months as a couple (newly married) and for me, I've been here for almost a year. Within our time here we have lovingly labeled each person who shares a wall with our home according to their habits...

....while sitting on the couch, hears the door slam. "Guy next door's home!"Dog barking at same time every night "Angry guys puppy needs to potty!"Stuff falling and sounding like tiny tremors "Wine lady is at it again."...

For the most part, besides these random occurrences, our complex has a reputation for being library silent. Well, that is until I start baking something. 

It was a hard reality one day while my husband I were sitting on our couch watching cat videos, that in the midst of our hysterical late night laughter routine, we heard one of our neighbors talking.

OMG! Is that a normal voice level? 

We both became silent and stared at each other.WE ARE THE NOISY NEIGHBORS! This was life shattering I tell you! I am not a person who knowingly or unknowingly likes to cause others inconveniences, and I am very certain that noise is an inconvenience when you share a wall or three. 

Quickly my mind recited every late night baking session I have ever had. Ugh, I hate me. That kitchen aid does not  sound like a tiny harp. So with that horrible realization, the last couple times I've baked, I've tried to be aware of my baking routine. What hour is it? Just because it's morning in Japan doesn't mean it's okay to bake in Oregon. Stupid conscience.

Well, after trying to make life easier for the rest of the world and dealing with a few other things that life was throwing at me. My neighbors have been able to rest easy for the last few months. That is, until this evening! 

But more on that in a second. We have some catching up to do!

I've been trying to tell myself over this last month that I'm still far too young for a midlife crisis but facts are facts people. I quite my job, chopped off my hair and turned 30. Those all seem like pretty self inflicted mid-life things to do if you ask me. But anyways, I've been asking myself a few questions over the past year and now I'm forcing myself to come face to face with them: What is my plan B and do I have one? 

I've had a deep need to do something creative with my life, and what could be one of those avenues for exploration you may ask? Baking of course! but not just baking but maybe every taking up photography as well, and what do I always take pictures of... food, of course! 

So there you have it. Two options for exploration. Baking and Photography.

My only issue though with the second part is that I have an iPhone for a camera. I so badly want a REAL camera. One that you have to manually adjust the focus and that doesn't ring at you or tell you you missed a call from your mom.

Well, I guess my coy and subtle hints that I've been giving my husband, such as: "You know what would make this picture look better? If it was taken on a real camera. You know what would be nice? A camera. I want a camera" finally payed off.

Okay, maybe I'm not actually good at hinting but the day has come and the sky opened up and there were beams of light! Scratch that, So there was no light except the glowing of the candles on my birthday cupcakes and the sky may not have opened up but I did get to open some pretty fantastic gifts. 

What were these fantastic gifts? let me tell you. To start, I got a month subscription to an online course to learn about photography and specifically, food photography! (Thank you to my best friend for that one). And then there is the topper, I'm also borrowing her awesome camera with all the fixings until I go with my husband to pick out my own(Yay husband, good job!).

Now that we went down a very windy rabbit trail, we now find ourselves back to the story about my noisy neighbors. Okay, it's me, I'm noisy. But anyway, with a camera in hand, how can you not be inspired to make something late at night? 

So there you have it, after three long months of no baking or what seemed like any creativity, of any kind. I found myself staring at copious amounts of frozen fruit, with a huge hankering for homemade Sorbet. (I know not baking, but still yummy.)

Since this was my first time making sorbet I didn't know what I was doing. This resulted in what probably felt like an hour to my neighbors but in actuality, I'm pretty sure I spent around 15 minutes trying to bend the fruit in my food processor. 

Apparently, it's challenging to turn rock solid fruits into a silky, smooth, frozen wonderland that is known as sorbet. But, I did it. 

To my neighbors, I apologize. To my husband and my best friend, I say thank you. 

Yay, Sorbet!

Strawberry Lemon Sorbet, mixed with Peach Sorbet.
Bon Appetit!

 

When life gives you lemons... they're sour.

It should be no surprise by now that I'm typing this at almost exactly 11:00 PM. After all, it's me we're talking about. The crazy midnight baker, at it again.

Recently, my baking hit a bit of a stand still. I went back to work after being on vacation for two weeks, got sick my first day back. Thought I was better, went back to work, still sick. Went back home. Well, you get it. I was out of commission for a while. So it wasn't until today that I started to hear the sweet sound of my kitchen aid calling to me.

"Holly, Where are you?"

"Who said that?!"

"It's me. Your gorgeous Tiffany Blue mixer."

"Huh?"

"I miss you." *Whispered

We made whisk-to-eye contact. I run to the kitchen and there we both began to cry and embrace in the warmth of a hug.

Okay, maybe not. But one things for sure, I was ready to bake.

After junking out on online tutorials and watching an endless stream of cooking shows. Watching was no longer enough. I needed to get in on the action. I needed to bake.

I had found a new recipe online for making Macarons, so I thought I would give it a try.

I was skeptical at first and had a few moments of panic when I put the flavoring in and thought I had caused my batter to go flat. But when all was said and done, I ended up with some delicious smelling lemon macaron batter.

The first batch was beautiful. I watched those puppies like a hawk. Like a hawk who didn't want to burn his macarons. I would think if a hawk were making maracons, they would also feel this to be a priority and area of concern.

So there I sat, on the floor. Oven mit in hand, ready to swoop in and save my little yellow cookie babies at any moment. That was until I glanced up and noticed the timer on the oven was never set.

Panic! complete and utter PANIC!

How long have they been in there?! ARRRG!!! I WAS SUPPOSED TO ROTATE THEM HALF WAY!

Okay, calm down. After regrouping myself and saying a few phrases of self affirmation, with my oven mit ready I turned those suckers as fast as I could. However, When one turns a cookie sheet in a hot oven and only has on a short oven mit, Words of caution: THOSE WALLS BE HOT!

Okay, so now that that is finished. There I sat on the floor watching my macarons through the glass oven door and propping my hand up to the sink where I positioned it under cold running water. Nothing could stop me from obtaining cookie perfection, not even my own burnt hand (It was a tiny burn, but I like the sound of the extreme dedication in that sentence).

Two minutes shy of the timer going off, I pulled those beauties out of the over. Drum roll please! Yummy, delicious lemony macarons.

I placed my first batch to rest and cool. After that, I quickly whipped up my next batch and plunged them in the oven. After all, I am a pro now. What else could go wrong? (Insert more words of self affirmation because well, sometimes I get cocky.)

I filled the finished Macarons using a raspberry butter cream frosting I had made over the break. My mouth was watering. Next step, tasting. As a ritual, I always make sure to use my husband as a guinny pig, I mean taste tester. So after I practically force fed my husband while he was in the middle of a computer game, because I'm pushy and needed further affirmation of my improving baking skills. I got what I was waiting for, Success!

Next step, obligatory foodtography session and a quick tasting of my own handiwork.

Aww, so good.

Wait, wasn't I doing something else?...

There it was. The second batch sitting teary eyed, neglected and brokenhearted in the oven. Well, more accurately, cracked and burnt. They were ruined. Much like parents do with their first child, I had babied and panicked over the small stuff, then by the second batch, I thought I had it all figured out. And much like babies, macarons don't raise themselves.

So, to conclude. Sometimes life is sweet, and in other times sometimes your lemon maracons come out a little sour.

I like my cupcakes tall, dark and frosted...

Being the particularly lazy person that I can be at times, and since I'm on vacation, I felt like I could justify my lack of motivation once my alarm clock went off at 10:00AM. Now 10:00AM probably sounds like a reasonable time to get out of bed but understand, since I had baked cupcakes until the wee hours of the night and didn't hit my head to the pillow until around 4:00AM, my body was seriously letting me know how much it hates my late night antics. 

So after a lazy morning of washing dishes and spending a horrendous amount of time goofing around with my makeup, which came out pretty stink-in awesome, I decided some time around 4:30PM that I would finally venture off to the store and pick up that annoying carton of heavy whipping cream. Ugh, I hate when I forget stuff.

So after getting in the car and determining that between the two stores of equal distance, the one located more closely to my husbands work was so much more appealing then the other, I went on my way... 

This may be a good time to share that I've struggled with ADD since I was a child but I've learned to overcome it, of course (Okay, maybe not all of the time). 

...Just as I hit the traffic light that happens to either turn towards the grocery store or point you straight towards my husband's office, I found myself driving straight. So, why not? After all, I had spent FAR too much time painting my face to waste it on the dairy section of the grocery store. Instead, I would surprise my husband at work! Woohoo!

It worked, DINNER AND A MOVIE!!!

(I may have fallen asleep for half of Star Wars. Hey, I was tired. I went to bed at 4:00AM, remember?!)

All this to say, 5 hours after my original plan to go buy heavy whipping cream, I finally found myself at the grocery store sharing my makeup talents with the dairy aisle.

And what do you know? It's Midnight!

There was mixing, whipping, melting and tears. Okay, maybe not tears but there were moments of sheer panic and fear when I thought I ruined my frosting. But in the end I was delighted in the results of my drawn out baking excursion.

Here you have it:

Dark Chocolate Cupcakes 

with Ganache and Blackberry frosting

and

Dark Chocolate Orange Cupcakes

with Ganache and Blackberry frosting

In the beginning, there were naked cupcakes...

While normal people prepare for bed, turn on their reading lamps or even turn off their bedroom lights, this seems to be just about the time when my internal clock says "Lets bake!" I don't know why, but I've always been a notoriously motivated night owl. 

For me, there is something peaceful and creative about the night. For my husband and neighbors, I'm sure it translates into obnoxiously inconvenient sound but I always try to do my best to keep it on the down low. 

Tonight, I felt inspired. What if I made some cupcakes? I've been doing some thinking, exploring my baking interests and in doing so, I've been on a bit of a baking spree. 

Tonight's confectionery experiment: 

Chocolate Ganache Blackberry Cupcakes 

Oh the thrill! 

Though my adventure in baking did not turn out quite the way I imagined, I decided it will have to do for now. My blood pressure may have risen once or twice and I may have inserted a few curse words here or there, sorry mom but in the end, I got the cupcakes baked and they turned out beautifully. 

Unfortunately, that is also where my story of this particular midnight bake off ends for the evening. Turns out my fridge does not have a heavy whipping cream dispenser in the door, much to my dismay. 

So with extreme annoyance and regret, my decorating will have to wait until the morning. At that time, I will venture forth to the local grocery store and buy every last carton of heavy whipping cream they have, just to make sure I remain appropriately stocked (I will probably only purchase one). But in the mean time, please enjoy this single picture of my beautifully naked, chocolaty cupcakes.