Another Cookie Experiment: Dark Chocolate Caramel Thumbprint Cookies

I've had salted caramel on my mind ever since I had a salted caramel cupcake in D.C. The cupcake itself wasn't all that great, it was a white cake with white icing, neither had much flavor and they were cold and hard like they had just been taken out of the refrigerator.

Okay, I need to go off topic for a second here. Cupcakeries are popping up all over the country. I've been to a quite a few, I love to see how people decorate and what flavors they come up with. My favorite one so far is Magnolia Bakery in NYC. Any way, these places are all over and there is some major competition, not to mention the price. If I'm paying $3.50 for a cupcake, it better be fresh and moist, not cold and hard.

Okay, back on topic. The cupcake and icing weren't all that great, but drizzled on top was this salted caramel sauce that was to die for. I wanted to make it. So I got online and researched how to make caramel.

I decided to make use of the caramel in a cookie.

For the base, I used the Chocolate Crackles cookie from the Martha Stewart Cookies cookbook, the only difference I made to the recipe is that I didn't roll the cookies in powdered sugar.






I made the dough first because it has to be separated into four discs, wrapped in plastic and placed in the fridge for at least 2 hours.


While the dough was in the fridge, I tackled the caramel. It took me three attempts, the first time I overcooked the caramel, the second time I put in way too much salt. But I didn't let it stop me, I was determined to make this caramel work.

After doing some reasearch, I decided to go with the dry method.


I put 1 cup of sugar in a heated, heavy sauce pan over medium-high heat. I was a little nervous, I couldn't believe it was so easy as to just let the sugar cook.


And then I noticed along the edge the sugar started to caramelize.


It started to darken and bubble.


I took it off the heat and added 6 tablespoons of butter

and 1/2 cup heavy cream.


In the end I added 2 teaspoons of salt. Next time I'm going to add a bit more. I don't want it to overwhelm the sweetness of the caramel, but to enhance it with a salty/sweetness.

And after sitting for a while, it was a wonderful color and just the right thickness.


I debated on the size of the cookies. Should they be bite-sized or two bites-sized. So I made them in both sizes. Bite-sized is best. These are the kind of cookies that you should just pop in your mouth.

I rolled the cookies into small balls and then used my index finger in the middle to make the indentation.


I baked them for at 350 degrees and after 10 minutes, I pulled them out and used the back of a 1/4 teaspoon to redo the indentation. Then I put them back in the oven for 4 more minutes.

After they were pulled from the oven, I immediately put them on cooling racks and spooned about a 1/4 teaspoon of caramel in each cookie.


They didn't all turn out perfect, some of them had cracks that caused the caramel to drip off the side. Others were the perfect size and had the perfect little pool of caramel in the middle.


I made the last minute decision to melt semi-sweet chocolate and drizzle it over the top of the cookies. It didn't add much to the flavor, but I thought it made the cookies look prettier.

Overall, the cookies were good.

I am not the biggest fan of dark chocolate, but if you are, you will like these cookies. I think next time, I will make the cookies out of shortbread, still use the same caramel and chocolate drizzle.

Catching Up

So, I've been "politely" reminded by a few people that I haven't updated my blog in a while. I knew when I started this blog, that it would take some time and effort to keep it up, but time slips by fast.

My last entry was at the end of August and a month and a half has passed. What did I do in that time? Well, I took a couple of trips. The first was a road trip I took with my cousin to visit her brother who was stationed at Ft. Drum. It was a beautiful trip through Pennsylvania and New York.We had the chance to attend a Deployment Ceremony, to see off the members of the 10th Mountain Div., who are heading to Afghanistan.

We got to see Sackets Harbor, a battleground during the War of 1812,
and we drove to Syracuse, Cooperstown,

and all around the North Country of New York

and up to the 1000 Islands region.

It was a lot of fun and I am so glad I had the opportunity to go.

A little over a week after that trip, I took a solo trip to Annapolis, Maryland. Why? Why not? I had never done anything like this, taking a trip all by myself, and I loved it! The day I arrived there it was raining and miserable, so I went to the mall and got my nails and hair done. Then I drove around and ended up at a big yarn store, flipping through patterns.

The next day was beautiful. I parked my car off Main St. and walked for miles. I explored the waterfront,
the side streets and the shops. I took a tour of the William Paca house and garden
and discovered Capital Teas, my new favorite tea shop.

I had planned on getting lunch at the Reynold's Tavern, to have a tea there. But I was so lost in my explorations, I forgot to eat. I did have dinner there when I met my cousin, who drove over from Virginia, before we went on a ghost tour of the town.
The next morning I went to the National Harbor, just south of D.C. to check out the American Market. Overall, I had a fantastic trip and, since I didn't get a chance to do and see everything I wanted to do, I have more to do when I visit next time.



On the reading front, I didn't have as much time to read as I would like because of my crafting and baking. I read Mockingjay, the third and final book in Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games series.
Collins kept the action going strong in Mockingjay, I couldn't put the book down and I finished it in less that 2 days. Katniss Everdeen is a strong, flawed character and you can't help but root for her to succeed. As a fan of Gale over Peeta (I just never saw the chemistry between her and Peeta) I was glad this book was more Gale centered. There were more twists and turns in this book than the previous two, I loved the direction Peeta took, and the hidden world of district 13. Overall, I really enjoyed the Hunger Games series. While waiting for the release of Mockingjay, I was as excited for the book as I had been waiting for the release of each Harry Potter book. What Katniss did in the end was satisfying, but I was little disappointed in the outcome. Not because it was poorly written or depressing, but because, as a fan, I was hoping for a different outcome.

I also read The Magicians by Lev Grossman.
A friend had mentioned this book to me and I was a little hesitant as to whether or not I wanted to read it. To me, it sounded like a Harry Potter rip off, a group of students sent to a magical school and how they live as wizards in a world of normal people. But it wasn't.

The Magicians follows Quentin Coldwater, a 17 year old high school student from Brooklyn. One day, on his way to meet with a man who could help him get into college, he is lured into a magical place where he is given a test. Of course he passes and is entered into Brakebills Academy for magic. He spends the next few years learning, making friends and finding his first girlfriend, Alice. One of the things Quentin and Alice have in common is their love of the Fillory books, stories similar to the Chronicle of Narnia series. Only the first half of the book is spent on their magical education and it is quite different from Hogwarts. The real story begins when Quentin and his friends graduate. What does a young Magician do once he is out in the real world with all this power? Where do they go? How do you find an even balance in life knowing how powerful you are and yet having to blend in with normal people? This imbalance spirals into excesses of drinking, drug use, and sex. One day, a former classmate of theirs shows up with the promise of being able to take Quentin, Alice, and their friends to Fillory, the fictional land of their childhood.

The Magicians can't compete with Harry Potter (really. what can?) but it tells an entertaining story with flawed, compelling characters. I love the questions it raises about the blurred line between what is real and what is fictional. What if these fantasy books, like Narnia or Fillory, are based on real places but what happens there is so unbelievable, they are thought to be fiction. It was certainly an entertaining, interesting read. I wasn't too crazy about the ending, but I think that's because it so obviously hints at a sequel.

I am currently reading, Battle Royale by Koushun Takami, another book recommended by a friend.
After she and I both read The Hunger Games trilogy, she read Battle Royale before passing it on to me. It tells the story of a large group of 15 year olds who are taken, without their or their parents' knowledge, to a hidden place where they are forced to battle to the death. Their parents are told of their children's part in the battle only after the bus carrying the kids is on it's way to the battle and the location of the battle is only made known after the battle is finished and a winner declared. I am only about a third of they way through Battle Royale and it is already darker than The Hunger Games, yet I can't put it down.



I have been keeping busy knitting as well. I finished a scarf from a pattern I found on one of my favorite websites, Knit Picks. The yarn I used came from a local yarn shop, Knitter's Dream.
It's called Sherbet and was spun and colored by the owners daughter. I am normally not a yellow and orange person, but Linda had a shawl on display in the store knitted from this yarn and I couldn't look away. I caved and bought it. The pattern calls for the scarf to be blocked, which would flatten the scarf and make it easier to see the design, but I like the skinny scarf look for this one and I decided to keep it that way.

I received an early Christmas gift of a beautiful, black leather jacket. Last time I was in Knitter's Dream, I fell in love with this red and black yarn, it was also spun and dyed by Linda's daughter and red and black were my college school colors.
It is a self striping yarn, but I am knitting it with 2 strands, so it is coming out variegated rather than striped.
I didn't want anything lacy or too feminine to wear with a leather jacket so I found this pattern online and I am about 2 squares into it.

I am currently working on a gift, which I can't show now since it is a surprise and another scarf for myself. My next projects include a pair of mittens for myself, stockings for my cousin's children, and another gift. I'll be sure to update more often.



Baking has also kept me pretty busy the past couple of months. For the second year in a row I took part in the Harrisburg Cupcake Cup.
I wasn't very gung-ho about taking part in this, I couldn't do the recipe I wanted to do because it contained alcohol and I had to register as a professional, even though I don't consider myself one. So I ended up going up against several actual bakeries and a few other people like me, who just baked for themselves.

I entered a recipe I made up for strawberry and cream cupcakes.
I knew from the beginning this wasn't going to go well for me. The competition was the day after I returned home from my trip to Annapolis, I got home about 4 hours later than I had planned because of traffic around D.C. I went to the craft store and found they didn't have the liners I wanted and when I started baking, I discovered I didn't have enough sugar. It was a day of bad omens. But the cupcakes turned out nice and they tasted great. I came in 6th out of 12 in the professional category, beating out 4 bakeries and 2 bakers.

The month of September also brought about my Goddaughter's second birthday. We celebrated it in early October and I made her cake. Darby loves her baby dolls and so a baby doll cake was requested. I took my Wilton Wonder Mold Pan and went searching for a doll, rather than a Barbie type figure, to use. While wandering around A.C. Moore, I found a doll that is used to crochet air freshener covers and she was the perfect size and cute enough to be a baby doll. I went with pink and made her as girly as I could.
When Darby saw the cake, the first thing she said was "My baby", so I think it was a sucess.

In the coming months I have plenty of baking planned and crafts to make, so I will be sure to update more often. I promise.

Knitted Breast Cancer Awareness "Ribbons"

I am always looking for small projects to carry with me, something quick and easy to make. When it's something meaningful or something I can give as a gift, all the better.

Every October we see more and more pink to raise awareness of breast cancer. I love this easy and new way to show your support.


All you need is yarn, double pointed needles, matching thread, and pin backings. Buttons are optional, but I liked the detail they added. I chose this yarn because it has a very pretty sheen to it. It's thicker than finger weight, but not quite sport weight.

I-cords are very easy and quick to knit and, as I play around with them, I'm finding more and more uses for them. I didn't measure the length I just knitted until I folded it into a ribbon shape and liked the size.

For the "ribbon" on the left, I used size 3 needles and for the one on the right I used a size 4 needle. For both, I casted-on 4 stitches. These are very easy to customize, using different thicknesses of yarn, different sized needles and number of stitches. They can be any size you like, play around with them.



When the I-cord is the length you like, fold it into a ribbon shape and sew it in place. I sewed it in place while sewing on the button and pin backing. And there, in less than an hour, you have a pretty, new way to show your support to an important cause!

Another wonderful thing about these knitted "ribbons" is that you can make them for any meaning just by changing the color of the yarn:
Yellow = Support Our Troops
Red = AIDS Awareness
Purple = Domestic Violence Awareness
Orange = MS Awareness

So the next time you're looking for a quick, easy, meaningful project, pick up some double pointed needles and make a knitted "ribbon".

Now For Something Completely Different: Jasper Fforde, Part 1

(Author's Note: It has been a while since my last post and that is because I decided to do a post on my favorite author, Jasper Fforde. I thought I could fit it all into one post, but as I was working on this, I discovered that I couldn't stop. When it comes to Jasper Fforde, I could talk for hours and write for pages. So I decided to spilt the post into different parts, the future segments will be about The Nursery Crime Division and Shades of Grey.)


So without further ado, here is Part One:
Thursday Next.

Anyone who has spoken to me for more than five minutes about books (or anything, for that matter) knows I am a huge fan of Jasper Fforde. I hate to use the word "obsessed" because of the negative connotation (naming my new Ford Focus "Jasper the Ford" does not constitute an obsession), but, yeah, I'm obsessed with his work. However, before you judge me, I dare you to read his books and not get drawn in to his totally unique, clever, funny, creative world. Jasper Fforde brings us something completely new in his writings and he does it with characters we all know and amazing new characters he creates.

There was a period of time in my teens when I read, non-stop, five to seven books at a time and it was at some point in those years that Jane Eyre was swept up in my cyclone of reading activity. I don't remember when I first read it but I know I've loved it for years. I have seen every movie version and even the Broadway musical.
Yes, there was a short-lived Broadway musical based on the novel, Jane Eyre, and it was amazing. It was more faithful to the book than any movie version I've ever seen. A coworker of mine is a big fan of Broadway shows and he and I bonded over this particular show, the big difference between us being that he isn't a reader and still has not read the book.

I remember, very clearly, the day he came up to the control room with a photocopied piece of paper. He had found a blurb in Entertainment Weekly about a book called The Eyre Affair and thought I would be interested.

My interest was piqued. On one hand, it sounded like something new and different and it paid homage to one of my favorite novels. On the other hand, you don't mess with Jane Eyre. Like I said, I've seen every movie version and I could tell you what was right and what was wrong with each one. You just don't screw around with such incredible, beloved characters.

But I had to give it a shot.

How do you explain The Eyre Affair? I've gotten at least six people to read this book based solely on my enthusiasm for it because there is no simple way to describe the plot, the characters, or the series that follows.

The Eyre Affair is the first in a series starring Thursday Next. It takes place in an alternate 1985 where the Crimean War is still going on after a century and people take their love of literature VERY seriously. Thursday is a Literary Detective (aka LiteraTec), a bureaucratic officer who polices the very literate world in which she lives. When she was a young child, Thursday visited the museum dedicated to the Brontes and, while reading a page of the original manuscript of Jane Eyre, she found herself transported into the actual story. This was where she first met Edward Rochester.

When The Eyre Affair begins, Thursday is living in London investigating the theft of the original manuscript of Charles Dickens' Martin Chuzzlewit. She is one of few people who can identify the suspect, Acheron Hades, an evil genius. Thursday comes close to capturing him, but is shot, her life saved when the bullet is stopped by a copy of Jane Eyre she has on her. While in the hospital, Thursday is saved when her future self visits her and tells her she needs to go home to Swindon and take on a LiteraTec job.

Swindon is where her mother, Wednesday, lives as well as her Uncle Mycroft and Aunt Polly, her brother Joffy, and her former fiance, Landen Parke-Laine. Where is Thursday's father? It's not a question of where so much as a question of when. Her father, Colonel Next, is a former ChronoGuard agent who had gone rogue and keeps a step ahead of his pursuers by jumping through time.

Mycroft is an inventor, some useful items, some not so much. His wife, Polly, is his biggest supporter and his assistant. When Thursday returns home, he shows her his newest invention, The Prose Portal, which allows people to enter books.

Hades kidnaps Mycroft and Polly and holds them hostage in order to blackmail the literary world with the Prose Portal. When used on an original manuscript, the Prose Portal can wreck havoc on a book. Hades uses the Portal to have one of his henchmen enter Martin Chuzzlewit and kidnap and kill a minor character. At first no one notices, the character of Mr. Quaverly was barely mentioned. When his loss is brought to Thursday's attention, the reality of what can happen when the Portal is in the wrong hands becomes very apparent.

Teaming up with Jack Schitt, an operative with the Goliath Corporation, Thursday tracks Hades to Wales after he steals the original manuscript for Jane Eyre. Thursday has to follow Hades into the book, where he has gone to kidnap Jane. With the help of Edward Rochester, Thursday hunts down Hades.

I don't want to tell you what happens next because I want you to read this book. I could write page after page about what happens and still barely touch on the story and the characters. The relationship between Thursday and Landen Parke-Laine, what happened to them, how they met while serving in the Crimean War. Her brother, Anton, who died in the war. Her father, who appears several times in the book to speak with his daughter.

I didn't even get to mention the Will-Speak machines that deliver monologues from Shakespeare via coin operated machines set up on the street, the door-to-door Baconians who try and convert people into believing it was Francis Bacon and not William Shakespeare who wrote all the Bard's work, the audience participation performances of Richard III, or Spike, the SpecOps officer in charge of vampires and werewolves. And then there's the return of the dodo (the pet of choice) and Neanderthals (the cheap labor of choice).

All of that is in one book, The Eyre Affair.






Which is then followed by Lost In A Good Book,


The Well of Lost Plots,

Something Rotten,


and First Among Sequels.



These books follow Thursday as she tries to have her husband brought back to life after his existence is erased and her work in Jurisfiction (the policing agency within literature). She begins with an apprenticeship with Miss Havisham (yes, the one from Great Expectations) to learn the ways of the book world and how to read herself into, or out of, any book or situation.

We learn how characters spend their time when they're not in a scene being read or how characters are created from generics. The Cheshire Cat is the librarian of the The Great Library, which holds every book ever written, both finished and unfinished, which includes the Well of Lost Plots, a place which holds unfinished and unpublished works. It is there where Thursday hides from various people while awaiting the birth of her child from a husband who, at the moment, doesn't exist.

Fforde's books are filled to overflowing with incredible stories, sub plots, and twists. The wordplay is everywhere, in the names of characters and what they do, to the point where you find yourself looking for hidden meaning where there is none. His characters are realistic, flawed, and believable. Thursday is independent without being over the top, she's smart but not a know-it-all, she's strong and intelligent, but flawed and relatable. She is someone you'd like to know and talk books with.

You're never quite sure what is going to happen next and you can't put any of these books down until you know. They're all written with a clever humor that never fails to disappoint. One of my favorite moments in the books is while Thursday is living in the book world, it is discovered there is a shortage of the letter "u". To make up for this, it is decided that certain words will drop the vowel, ie: "neighbour" becomes "neighbor", and this is explained away as a "local spelling idiosyncrasy". I am also a fan of the "footnoterphone", the way people communicate in books through footnotes.

Reading the Thursday Next books will take everything you've ever known, or thought you've known, about books and the world of literature and turn it on it's head. All the while, you'll be cheering for this intelligent, independent lead character.

One thing that has stuck out to me is the absolute villany of the bad guys Fforde creates. They are some of the most creative villians you can imagine. In The First Among Sequels, when I read what Aornis Hades did, I actually gasped out loud. I've read a lot of books in my time, but this had to have been the most evil, vile thing someone can do to a person.

As for Mr. Fforde himself, I've had the honor of meeting him twice.


When you really admire someone for their talent, it can change how you feel when you meet them. After meeting Jasper Fforde, my admiration of him only grew. I've gone to two book signings where he gave a talk before the signing. He is as clever and witty as his books, but even better than that, is the fact that he is an incredibly nice guy. He patiently answered every question a person asked while signing, he posed for the above picture while his partner played with my camera (for some reason she really liked my 35mm Canon Rebel SLR). It's really a wonderful feeling to learn someone you admire so much is really a good person.

I feel like I can go on for days, just about the Thursday Next books, but I need to move on. There is just too much to cover in one blog posting. I would have to create a blog solely dedicated to the Thursday Next books to even begin to touch on all they include. So, I'll tell you what I tell everyone about these books:

"Just trust me, read them, you won't regret it."