The Rainbow Cake

It was my friend, Miss Emily's, birthday the other month so we made some special cupcakes. They are so easy you will shit.

Cupcakes of the Rainbow

Ingredients
-2 Boxes White Cake Mix
-2 cans Ginger Ale

Supplies
-Traditional 4-color or 6-color set of food coloring
-5 medium sized mixing bowls
-1 large mixing bowl
-cupcake trays and papers

Step 1: Preheat the oven according to the box's directions. If you don't do this right the fuck now you will forget and you will need to wait to bake your cupcakes or, worse yet, you'll throw the cupcakes in the oven while it's still heating up. This spells disaster. Just preheat it now and forget about it. You'll thank me later.

Empty out the contents of the dry cake mixture in to your large bowl. Mix it up with 2 cans of ginger ale. The ginger ale will work as the binding agent, meaning you don't have to scour your sad college student cupboards for oil and eggs. It will also make the cake low-fat, fluffy, and slightly ginger ale-y tasting. It tastes like a solid soda, a little, so you can decide whether or not that sounds good to you.

Once it's all mixed up and has no chunks in it (we didn't use an electric blender. Fuck that! We blended it WITH THE HANDS GOD GAVE US) we portioned it out in to the other bowls. We now had 6 bowls with an equal amount of cake batter in them. Now comes the colorful part.

Some math might be involved in this. The back of the box will give you heinously large proportions from which to figure out how many drops to use for colors. I just dropped 10 drops of color in for the solid colors, then 5 and 3 for the mixed ones. If you took art in elementary school you have a basic understanding of the color wheel and can figure out that 5 drops of blue and 3 drops of red is going to give you a violet shade. Just keep experimenting, a few drops at a time, until it looks like the shade you want.

Then, start layering! I suggest you layer red, orange, yellow, green, violet, blue as that's the way the rainbow fucking works. Just add a spoon dollop to your cupcake paper and gently spoon the next color over the top. Nothing fancy about it.

BAKE. Just slide the cupcakes in the oven that you remembered to preheat at the beginning of your cupcake journey. You did, right? Good.


Oh fuck yes
Now, pull them out of the oven. At this point, everyone in the living room you promised rainbow cupcakes to is freaking out. Don't let them touch your fucking cupcakes. They need to cool. Put them in the fridge for 10 minutes if you need to (don't melt shit) but make sure that they are sturdy and cool before frosting. If not, you will have a horrible time and they will rip and look stupid.

I frosted with a white frosting because then when you bite in you really get the full effect of "shit man, there's colorz here". Frost 'em, stack 'em and serve 'em. If you want, you can hire a wood worker to make a giant display for you and pretend that you're on Cupcake Wars. You're not. Don't even pretend you are. You just made cupcakes with a box of mix and a can of soda. They would be ashamed of you.


Enjoy!

Potatoes a la Boulangère

Location:: That Tattoo Shop I Work At

Last night I had this screaming urge to cook something other than chicken nuggets. I had some potatoes, an onion, and some assorted cheese in the fridge. This is what happened.



Potatoes a la Boulangère
A fancy way of saying 'Potato and Onion Bake'
3 potatoes, peeled
1 yellow onion
1/3 cup vegetable or chicken broth
1/3 cup milk
seasonings

I sliced the potatoes and onions really thin and layered them in a baking dish: potato, onion, potato, onion, potato, onion. I then heated the broth in a saucepan and whisked in milk. I say "milk" very loosely since the recipe called for it but the only milk-like product in my fridge that didn't have chunks floating in it was alfredo sauce. I whisked that in instead and it turned out perfectly fine.

Pour the hot milk/broth mixture over the potato/onion one. I took this opportunity to sprinkle some fresh oregano over the top. The original recipe said to salt and pepper liberally between layers but I found this made it way too salty and almost ruined it for me. Let the salt in the broth do the work.

Cover and bake at 350 F for 40 minutes. Bake uncovered for another 15 minutes and then uncovered with a sprinkle of cheese over the top for another 15 minutes.

Hooray, you now have something fancy and French when before you thought you only had potatoes and fail.

Vegan alternative: Use an organic vegetable broth, those things never go bad. Like, ever. Just keep refrigerated. Instead of milk you just use a water and vegan butter spread alternative. You just want the potatoes to get a little creamy and you don't want them watery so mix up something with soy milk, butter alternatives, or cream alternatives that have a little more thickness than water.

Onion Dip and Gorgonzola Pasta Bake

So, I made the most delicious thing I have ever made in the history of life yesterday. Get ready for the dual combination of:

PAN FRIED SWEET ONION DIP WITH CROSTINI
and
BAKED GORGONZOLA AND SPINACH CREAM SHELLS

The shells were a lot of work; you had to be on top of the sauce, multi-tasking with the spinach, and timing everything right. But it was so worth it. I am currently depressed because I am staring at the very last shell in my bowl wishing that it would never end.

But first,

Pan Fried Sweet Onion Dip with Crostini
You will need:
2 large yellow onions
2 Tbsp butter
1/8 C vegetable oil
4 oz cream cheese (1/2 block)
1 C sour cream

This one is super easy. I french cut the onions and pan fried them on medium with the butter and oil. I also sprinkled a little sugar on them while they were cooking for funsies but it's not necessary.

While those are on the stove mash the sour cream and the cream cheese together in a bowl. Set it aside.

Once the onions are getting that wonderful smelling brown caramelized thing going (soft and buttery looking) dump them in with the cream mixture. Stir it all up and then set it covered in the fridge for an hour. You definitely want to let it sit for awhile or the sour cream will be all you taste. Let the onions do their magic.
Serve with toasted french bread! (also fucking awesome with Ritz)

The great thing about this dip is how portable it is. It's very stiff and not sticky so I just spread a glob of it on tinfoil, folded it up and carried it to work in my purse with some crackers. Hooray for work food! I added a little red pepper and salt to mine while mixing.


AND NOW

BAKED GORGONZOLA AND SPINACH CREAM SHELLS
The groceries for this recipe cost around $20 but with the amount this bitch is going to yield, you'll be eating for a week. This recipe makes roughly 8 servings worth.
You will need:
1 package large shell pasta
3 Tbsp butter
3 Tbsp flour
4 C milk
10 oz Gorgonzola (get a block)
1 pkg frozen spinach
3 cloves garlic
3/4 C ricotta cheese
1 C grated parmesan cheese

Alright. So you want to have everything ready and lined up on your counter in roughly that order with a colander waiting in the sink since the sauce making portion of this is going to be fast and furious. Start out by preheating the oven to 375 F.

Have two saucepans on the stove. In the first pour the 4 cups of milk in one and bring it to a simmer. You don't want your milk to boil or get all funky, just let it get warm. In the second saucepan melt the 3Tbsp butter and then mix it the 3 Tbsp flour. Once that's all good and thick (DO NOT BROWN TEH BUTTER, let it simmer and stay happy and yellow) pour the milk in slowly. I poured it in a bit and at a time and mixed with a wooden spoon the whole time. Congratulations. You've made a béchamel.

Once you have everything mixed to a good consistency (it will look like a little looser than a heavy cream) start crumbling the Gorgonzola in. Crumble in a little at a time and keep stirring constantly. This will yield you a very even, loose cheese sauce. Once it's all melted together take it off the stove and let it sit to cool.

Boil water and cook the pasta. If you're doing the large shells (which you should because all that goodness gets inside of the shells and EXPLODES) lay them out on a paper towel to dry so they don't overcook and get soggy.

Now, you want to toss the pasta with the cooled cheese sauce, 3 cloves minced garlic, 3/4 C ricotta, and the spinach. I microwaved the spinach and wrung it out with my hands. You can also use 2 bunches fresh spinach but then you need to blanch it beforehand which is crazy. I want to eat now.

Mix that shit up good and spread it evenly in to a baking pan. Top with the 1 cup Parmesan cheese and baked for 20 minutes or until the cheese on top is a beautiful bubbly brown.

Let it sit for 10 minutes (I KNOW YOU WANT IT NOW) and eat that shit. When you first crack the top layer and behold the cheese inside you will be shocked. I know I was. It is the most beautiful, delicious thing you will ever see.


Nomnomnomnomnom