Happy St. Patrick's Day!

At my school, we have a class period between second and third periods (deemed “power period”) that is used for remedial and enrichment classes. My power period is Science Olympiad – we prepare for science competitions in different events. And people bringing in baked goods stirs up quite a lot of excitement. Thanks to a dear friend who is quite vocal about his opinions, everyone knows that I bake, and that I was bringing something in for St. Patrick's Day today.

I'm always nervous to take baked goods to school - the ownership of food often attracts, for lack of a better word, moochers.

I climb out of my car, throw my backpack over my shoulder, and gingerly pick up the sweets. Making my way across the overcast parking lot, I glance around in paranoia, clutching my tupperware box of treasure. I make it through first period without event. Then, as I walk to second period, panic. My box! It's missing - what happened to it? I rush back up the hall. My friend David sees me and attempts to give me a hug; I side-step him, apologize, and dash around a group pf people blocking the way. When I get to the classroom, my teacher has left. The second period class is congregated outside the door. I look around in distress, and decide to wait. Still no sign of the teacher. The bell rings; I'm late. I wait around for another minute or so before asking one of my friends in the next class to pick up the box and GUARD IT WITH HIS LIFE. When I get to power period, I see my dear friend over by a lab table, cradling the box under his arm. Sighing in relief, I thank him profusely and place the opened container on the front lab table. People take notice, and within five minutes, everything is devoured. I'm thanked, hugged, and even picked up. I think everyone liked them.

CAKE BALLS! I know I make these too often, but as you can see, no one seems to mind :P

I wasn't crazy about the combination I used. White cake (with green food coloring) and cream cheese frosting. I'm not sure why I thought cream cheese frosting would be a good addition; it totally overpowered the white cake. No one mentioned anything but "yum," though, so I'm led to believe I did okay.


And oh goodness, did I mess up making the cake. I made the white cake batter as usual, poured it into the pan, and began baking it. About 10 minutes in, I checked on it. Wait, why wasn't it green?! The brand new, unopened bottle of green food coloring stared tauntingly at me. Oh dear. I threw open the oven door, dropped the pan on the stove, and quickly mixed the coloring into the steaming, (thankfully still liquid!) batter. Whew.

Baking certainly is a learning process ;P

Hope your St. Patrick's Day was great :)

Anyone for Pi?

As many of you probably know, March 14^th was Pi Day! It was only right to bake a pie ;) I decided to try to make “Crack pie,” which I’ve heard a lot about. It’s made by the Momofuku bakery in New York, which I hope to visit someday, and it’s supposed to be… well, like crack cocaine – addicting as anything. While I did find it notably good (sort of like a pecan pie, without any nuts) I wouldn’t necessarily call it addicting. That’s just my version though – if I could try the one made by Momofuku, I’d be happy to change my mind ;)

I'll admit, I threw this together a bit haphazardly. The recipe was supposed to make two pies, but despite the deliciousness of pie, I think it's unlikely I could eat two. My circumference would pay for it. So I reduced it by half and didn't check my fractions. They seemed about right, though I did forget to add powdered sugar for decoration.

Delicious, ugly pie

And! because I like being a math nerd...

From memory: 3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105

Hope your Pi Day was... er... well-rounded! ;D

(In case you missed it, recipe here)