Happy (and bubbly and fluffy and delicious) New Year!

Hello from the ice and snow!!

It's been a crazy, crazy week, started with a blizzard, ending with, well, the end of the year! I hope everyone who got nailed like I did is safe and digging out of the snow without too much trouble. One day, I'll regale you all with the harrowing tale of my trip home from work on Monday...once the emotional scars heal ;)

So this week's recipe is for Champagne Chiffon Cake. Ooh! Ahh! I can taste the bubbles!!!

Being that tomorrow is New Years Eve, and my roommate just pointed out that if I post this NOW as opposed to tomorrow, it may give some of you the inspiration to try this delicious recipe for your own New Years celebrations!!

In my quest for the perfect New Years Eve sweet, I stumbled upon this recipe from the brilliant and talented Nicole over at Baking Bites. I modified the recipe, admittedly by happy accident...I forgot to add  two tablespoons of sugar into the egg whites... oops, what can I say, I'm a novice. But, in my defense, my army of taste testers didn't seem to miss those two tablespoons a bit!

 So, in keeping with the theme I seem to have going, I have yet another kind of amusing story to go along with my finished, and surprisingly beautiful end result. It began with an adventure to procure the Champagne needed for the recipe ( Left my ID and had to recruit a friend to accompany me to the liquor store) and ending with the realization on the way home that I do not possesses a flour sifter!! ( Make shift sifter? fork holes in a paper cup. I swear, it totally worked.)  So as a result... I am highly considering sub titling this blog "this misadventures of a penniless baker"

(Apologies for the lack of photos in this weeks post as well, but I did manage to get a few decent ones of the final product!)

Champagne Chiffon Cake ( Adapted slightly from bakingbites.com- Thank you!)

2 1/4 cups sifted cake flour

1 1/2 cups super fine sugar

1 tbsp baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup champagne

5 tbsp vegetable oil

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

7 large egg yolks

7 large egg whites, at room temperature

Preheat your oven to 325

In a large bowl, combine the cake flour, sugar ( reserving two tablespoons for later) baking powder and salt. In a separate bowl, combine the champagne ( make sure it's a champagne you enjoy, as you'll definitely taste it when the cake is finished!) vanilla, vegetable oil and the egg yolks. Pour into the dry ingredients and whisk until smooth. 

Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, add in the remaining sugar as it gets foamy and gently fold into the batter little by little until all of the egg white is combined thoroughly into the batter. If you're not me, you'll remember to add those reserved two tablespoons of sugar. just so you know... according to my roommate, it tastes A OKAY if you forget. Like I did.  

Pour the mixture into an ungreased tube pan and bake for 50 to 60 minutes. I recently purchased a wilton silicone tube pan and LOVE it.  When finished, the cake will spring back when it is gently pressed, and a fork or toothpick comes out clean. 

Here is my end result!!

So there we have it! I am pleased as punch to announce that the cake was a huge hit at work ( I love my co workers and their willingness to try pretty much anything I march in with on any given day!)

Stay tuned for some exciting news about Sugar Town in next week's post! Until then, have a safe, healthy and happy New Year.

Peace love and Sugar,

Jamie

Baking entertainment background noise of the week : Gilmore Girls Season 6- Hater's gonna hate but I loved all 7 seasons ;)

Bubbles anyone?

Okay y'all! so here's the sneaky peek preview post of what's to come this Friday :)

SO, think New Years Eve!

What goes hand in hand with good ole new years eve? ( besides Dick Clark, I am so not skilled to make a cake in that legends likeness...yet. Just give it some time)

I'll see you guys on Friday morning!!! For those of you facing the "Snowpocolypse" like me, How are you doing?? I am a little baffled at the snow outside right now! Stay Warm, and if any of you guys have good blizzardy type snacks to share, I'm all ears!! 

Finally, I'd love to connect with any and all of you on FoodBuzz or Bakespace, my user ID is SugarTownSweets 

Peace  Love and Sugar,

Jamie

a Tale of Two Kitchens...

So, I find it only fitting that, this being my first authentic post, that there would be a slightly hilarious story to go with it. 

I called this post a tale of two kitchens, because this weeks baking projects spans two New York City Burroughs, and two very different kitchens. 

Allow me to explain.

I have the luxury of working in a building that has a industrial sized kitchen in the basement. It's used for our cooking classes, and It's been a great help to me when taking on big baking projects. So, with permission, after my work day had come to a close this wednesday at 6:00 I was set to work til my heart's content in the big ole kitchen, until about 8:30 p.m.

Now, if any of you know anything about baking, you know that being under a time crunch is the worst! However, I powered through, and worked at lightening speed, snapping picture after picture of the process.

Until I realized I forgot to take some very important photos. 

But no matter you see! because 8:30 crept up on me, I put my treats away, did the dishes, and came home...yknow, because I had baking to do when I got here ;) So I got lucky, I was able to snap the missing photos ( and almost forgot again, HULLO exhaustion!)

So this week's offering is what I affectionately refer to as SugarTown Coffee Cake. I'd like to personally give thanks to The Pioneer Woman for the recipe initially, but in the year that I have been making it, I have tweaked a few things within it.

Recipe

3 cups of all purpose flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 teaspoon of ground  cinnamon ( or nutmeg, the texture will not change, but I prefer ground cinnamon)

2/3 cup of butter, softened ( about a stick and a third)

2 eggs

1 cup of sugar ( I used organic cane sugar for the first time the other night and LOVED it)

1 cup of whole milk 

whisk the flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon/nutmeg and set aside

Combine the butter and sugar until creamy. Add the eggs in one at a time. Mix well, scraping the sides of the bowl frequently.

alternate adding the dry mixture and the milk, but be sure not to overmix when doing so- or else your cakes will come out a bit on the chewy side, and goal is light and fluffy!

Pour the batter into greased muffin tins and bake at 350 for 25 minutes, or until golden brown ( I always fork test mine just to be sure)

To make the coating:

Melt two sticks of butter either on the stovetop or in the microwave amd combine copious amounts of cinnamon and sugar in a seperate bowl ( I stopped measuring this part long ago)

dunk each little cake in the butter, and give it a good roll into the cinnamon and sugar mixture, shaking off any excess! 

(this picture cracks me up. it's like an army of cinnamon coated soldiers converging on the uncoated!! "Come, join the sweet side!")

(Recruitment mission accomplished.)

My own finished product...

I love love love this recipe and I am so very grateful to have found it, and had the opportunity to tweak it a little bit! I cranked out 10 dozen batches this past week, and was really excited to hand them out as gifts yesterday at work. ( I even got a present of my own that I'll share more about in the coming weeks!)

Big thanks to Pioneer Woman for helping me along the way!!

what are your Christmas plans this year!? This afternoon, I'm headed to the movies to catch "It's A Wonderful Life" on the big screen, and then going out for Chinese ;) Merry Christmas Everyone!

Peace Love and Sugar,
Jamie

And We're off!

 Hello all!

So here we go! I am so excited to start this new baking adventure with all of you! My goal is to have my first real live  baking post up by christmas eve next week! In the meantime, please follow me on twitter @SugarTownSweets!

A sneaky peek into the first blog post... 

sugar

and spice

 and everything nice!

Peace love and sugar!

Jamie