E back from 2 weeks in Japan

He is not completely 'teh suck' because he brought me back two special trinkets. Pictures will be forthcoming. According to him, Naruto appears to be the most popular anime right now, over One Piece. Sigh.

Here's the One Piece collectibles he got me.


Gift from E

I'll be waiting to assemble them with R, as I cannot be selfish and leave this pleasure to myself alone.

Breakfast at yonghe again

Breakfast at yonghe


douhua


stinky tofu

Tragicomedy -- E in Japan

So my mother's oldest son, E, is now in Japan, with two of his buddies. This may sound innocuous enough, but there is not one native Japanese speaker among that group of twenty-somethings. Add that to the fact that neither of them are extremely well off financially, and you have a recipe for disaster.

I hope none of them get groped on the subway. Tee-hee.

Why do I live with such shady people?

First my bike, now my toothpaste. Why would the people who have access to my suite steal my toothpaste? It's lame -- L-A-M-E! I stuck a note on my bathroom mirror near where the toothpaste used to sit in the hopes that whoever took my toothpaste would return it.

I don't actually think any of the girl suitemates took it. Likely it was one of their stupid boy acquaintances or whomever else they gave access to our suite. Just like their boy acquaintances piss in our toilet and inevitably miss and then our bathroom smells like urine. Wonderful, guys.

One Piece is the best manga/anime ever!

Just had to inform everyone. Twelve Kingdoms was good, but One Piece is the best, bar none.

Despite being done with baking, R and I went back to her place together to clean up after our baking marathon, and get in a little more One Piece.

Some of R's housemates had left for winter break, and so there was a pile of their dirty dishes overflowing onto the kitchen counter. R didn't want to wash them, but I said her kitchen was going to reek if they sat there for another week or more, so I helped her wash them as we cleaned up our less problematic baking mess.

After that, we got in a few episodes of One Piece. What I like about One Piece is the sheer creativity. Sure, it doesn't contain too much philosophical exposition, or mecha, but it has PIRATES!

Our Winter Break gifts...

Here are the finished products. At long last, here's my gift to my nephew, a tin of homebaked cookies and the first One Piece episodes.


Dec 15: 11:15 am Gift to nephew

Next, R brought in the reject cookies and fudge from our baking into lab for labmate consumption.


Leftover reject cookies, for lab

We didn't forget Richard, the guy who manages to help keep our lab clean.


Gift to maintenance guy

We were having issues with how to install the shrinkwrap on our tins since none of us had a hair dryer or heat gun. Then, as R's blueberry bagel toasted in our manly toaster, D had a brilliant idea.


R's bagel toasting

He used the escaping heat from the toasting process to heat up the shrinkwrap. This worked surprisingly well.


D heating shrinkwrap for cookietins

Finally, here's the result of D's shrinkwrapping.


Shrinkwrapped cookie tins

Baking adventure, part III

Today we decided to ice the sugar cookies, and make one last batch of chocolate chip cookies. I tripled the "Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie" recipe from Crisco for this last batch.


My last chocolate chip cookie dough mix

Instead of shortening, we've been using butter, which aside from the chocolate chips and large bottle of real vanilla extract was the most expensive component of the cookies. With this last cookie dough mix I added closer to the full amount of fat that the Crisco recipe suggested.


R mixing royal icing for sugar cookie decorating

R followed her mother's royal icing recipe, but I didn't realize the box of confectioner's/powdered sugar I had bought would not be enough to make a stiffer icing. Here are the instructions we followed:

Royal Icing
3 egg whites
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
powdered sugar

Beat egg whites and cream of tartar on high speed until foamy. Gradually add powdered sugar, until desired consistancy. My suggestion is to make it a little stiff, since adding food colors waters it down. Place a few tablespoons into several bowls and color as desired. Squeeze through baggies to decorate cookies.



R commencing the decoration process

Next R began icing the sugar cookies. To decorate the 20+ cookies took her > 2 hours.


First batch of chocolate chip cookies out of the oven

Voila, after ~ 10 minutes of baking at 375 F, our chocolate chip cookies turned out flatter and more the consistency we wanted. Since we hadn't been expecting the cookies to spread so much, several of the cookies merged on one of the cookie sheets. Thus it was that we felt obliged to sample a few of the hot out of the oven cookies.


Closeup of additional boysenberry thumbprint cookies

Here's a picture of our less buttery boysenberry thumbprint cookies. They kinda turned out tasteless and floury, with a higher dough to boysenberry preserve ratio than our first batch of flatter ones baked on Saturday.


Cutting the last hunks of fudge

This was the last condensed milk fudge we made, and we packed it all up into tins and containers to bring into lab.


Layered fudge squares for easy storage


Beautiful chocolate chip cookies


More beautiful flat chocolate chip cookies, cooling on racks and plates


Size difference: boysenberry thumbprint cookies versus chocolate chip cookies


R's first batch of fully decorated sugar cookies


The second batch of sugar cookies


All sugar cookies


Filled cookie tins, ready to be sealed and sent off as gifts to our long-suffering advisors


Closeup of filled cookie tins


Closeup of other filled cookie tin

Baking adventure, part II

After going into lab today, R and I took the Line 11 bus back to her place for some more cookie baking around 5:00 pm. Around 8:00 pm, after we had been baking for several hours, the UPS delivery person left a box filled with our empty food-grade cookie tins.


Monday, Cookie tins for advisors as a winter gift

Our quick fudge recipe using sweetened condensed milk had set, so we were able to unmold the fudge brick and cut it into cubes to stick in our advisors' cookie tins. We layered some of our less salty cookies from Saturday's baking as well. Also, we redid our boysenberry cookies with less butter, but they turned out too doughy/floury due to us cutting the butter amount in half.


Sugar cookie dough, cookie tins partially filled with cookies and fudge, along with a filthy floor

I started mixing together ingredients as per R's mother's sugar cookie recipe, but since we had stupidly tried to cut the fat amount in half, the dough wouldn't come together properly. So, I added milk and eggs to compensate, but then the batter became too soft. Thus I was forced to add more flour and sugar. You can imagine the outcome. Basically, the whole experience taught us not to improvise on the tried-and-true so haphazardly.


Closeup of our winter treats

Eventually we were able to mix together a reasonable sugar cookie dough, and after refrigeration the dough stiffened up somewhat. Since there was no rolling pin in the house, R had the brilliant idea of using a roommate's beer glass to roll out the dough between two sheets of wax paper, and use the beer glass' lip to cut out circles. This actually worked okay, since the dough was so soft that we really didn't need to roll it out but just smoosh it down.

Cookie Practice!

Due to the sad state of our finances, R and I decided to bake cookies for our advisors and family/friends for Christmas/winter instead of buying presents. Thus it was that I took the Route 11 bus to R's place for a cookie baking practice session. Both of us had baked cookies before, but always under the supervision of others (e.g. mothers), so we felt the need for a rehearsal.


First bad batch of oatmeal raisin on bottom, too puffy chocolate chips on top

Our chocolate chip cookies turned out too salty since I added a 1/4 tsp of salt without knowing that R had used salted butter and not the unsalted kind in the cookie dough batter. They were also puffier than we would've liked, so we edited the written recipe to include less baking soda in the future. We were able to dilute the saltiness of the mix after the first batch went into the oven by adding more flour, sugar, and vanilla.


Boysenberry thumbprint cookies

Next we made boysenberry thumbprint cookies, adhering strictly to the written recipe. But the cookies spread out too much since our cookie dough, made with butter as the only fat, had gotten too warm before being dropped on the cookie sheet.


Lighter pic of boysenberry thumbprint cookies

They still tasted awesome, but we told ourselves that maybe all the recipes had too much butter in them. We also made up one preliminary batch of fudge. Here's the recipe, from Eagle brand/Borden's Condensed Milk:

Fudge
18 oz. of semi-sweet chocolate chips
1- 14oz can of Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk (NOT evaporated milk)
1 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla
dash of salt
Chopped nuts (optional)
Line a 8 inch square baking pan with wax paper
Melt chips in microwave with evaporated milk in a bowl. Heat for 1 min, mix, heat for 1min, mix, etc. until smooth. Add vanilla, nuts and salt. Spread in pan and refridgerate until firm.

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Note to self:

After mixing cookie ingredients for each recipe, refrigerate cookies before dropping them on the cookie sheet.

1.) In oatmeal raisin cookie recipe, use less butter and cook for the lower estimate of time given.

2.) In ultimate chocolate chip cookie recipe, use less butter. Also, use unsalted butter if possible. If using normal salted butter, don't add the 1/4 tsp of salt.

3.) In raspberry/boysenberry thumbrint cookie recipe, don't push down on cookie ball too much or dough backing the preserves will be too thin. Also, don't add as much butter as they suggest.