Pumpkin Rolls

Oh, man.

Once again, I’m doing Sugar High Friday, and this month’s challenge was to make anything with a center that is different from the outside. I decided to do pumpkin rolls, only instead of the traditional cream cheese filling, I used glorious Nutella instead. I did this for a couple reasons — 1) Nutella is delicious and I haven’t had it in a very long time, and 2) I really didn’t feel like making a cream cheese filling.

There were, of course, a few stumbling blocks on the way.

I actually intended to bake this thing yesterday, on my day off, but a horrible, terrifying tragedy occurred, leaving me unable to make the pumpkin roll until today.

I…

…couldn’t open the can of pumpkin.

Before you point and laugh at me, just hear me out! I’ve never used a can opener in my life! And just look at this thing! If you’d never used a can opener before either, and you were all alone, with no one to help you, you too would start sobbing hysterically as you hit the can with a hammer.

…Okay, maybe you wouldn’t.

I tried and tried and tried to get the can open. I tried stabbing it with a knife, but my arms were too thin and weak to pierce the aluminum. I tried flipping it upside down and rubbing the can vigorously across the counter, hobo-style. Didn’t work. I beat on it and beat on it, and only made slight dents.

I finally gave up after about half an hour, although even when my back was turned, I could still feel it… watching me… judging me…

I waited until later that night for my dad to get home so he could open it for me, which he did, laughing at me the entire time. I stored it in some tupperware in the fridge and vowed to conquer the pumpkin roll the next day.

That day would be today. I mixed together all the ingredients, tra la la la — then, because we are out of Pam, I had to flour and butter the jelly roll pan, which I have never done before. And when the roll came out of the oven, there was a huge spot of flour on the bottom.

I made the executive decision to do nothing. I know the flour will be eaten at some point, and a DD: face will be made, and I have not the time to care for such things.

I rolled the pumpkin cake thingy into a dishtowel and let it cool off. It was actually kind of neat. Steam was, like, coming out through the towel.

After it cooled, I put it in the fridge for a bit, then unrolled it. And then, the coup de grace —

NUTELLA. It’s pretty much just as good as I remembered. Although I’m not so sure it goes so great with these pumpkin rolls. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s delicious — but the peanut butter consistency makes it difficult to cut when you’re serving/eating it.

And, of course, when I rolled it back up, there was a huge crack. Why can’t most of the things I make be pretty, ever? Sigh. I loathe my clumsy hands. I also didn’t roll it up tight enough.

But look at the Nutella on this knife instead. Yum.

I also like to employ my own method of cleaning:

So, after it sat in the fridge again for a little bit, I had a slice. And it was all right. A little bit too pumpkin-y for my taste, though.

And I don’t feel like posting the entire recipe here, so you can just find it at the Joy of Baking website.

Mini Chocolate Chip Cookies

Yet another baking disaster, thanks to my Chocolate Chip recipe book. I swear to God, whoever wrote those recipes either is magic and can make dough with just butter and sugar, or she forgot some ingredients, or I am just an idiot (most likely option), but whenever I try to make cookies with a recipe from there IT IS NOT DOUGH and I have to add eggs and then it all goes to shit. I AM NEVER MAKING COOKIES FROM THAT BOOK EVER AGAIN.

…Anyway.

I decided to participate in Sugar High Fridays again, even though I am only an amateur and my stuff will look sad and pathetic compared to everyone else’s, but oh well. The recipe I picked was these little cookies called “Melting Moments” that are apparently popular in Australia and New Zealand. They’re basically two plain tea cookies with some filling smushed between them.

Well, I tried, man. I had to buy corn starch and cake flour to make these, and, like I said before, no dough. Only powder. Just like last time with the cheesecake bars. So, I cracked an egg in there, and that seemed to work! I was all “Oh yeah, I’m awesome, fixing other people’s recipes, what up”, until I got cocky and decided to add a second egg.

Yeah, that might’ve been where I went wrong.

The dough was way too wet after I added the second egg, so I couldn’t form the dough into balls and it kept sticking to my hands. So I had to plop it on the baking sheet instead.

The recipe said to leave them in there for thirty minutes, so that’s what I did. And they came out looking like this.

When they were supposed to look like this:

They did taste good — exactly how you’d expect them to taste, anyway — but they looked like crap, and the second batch didn’t look any better (they actually looked worse), so I basically said “Fuck it”, and went with my back-up plan — mini chocolate chip cookies.

Now that is dough, goddammit.

My cookies are always such a hit, I figured this would be a good alternative. And mini chocolate chips would probably be super cute, I thought. And they kinda were. I just wish I knew why my cookies always come out flat.

(and yes, that is a Wolverine bobblehead in the background)

A couple of the cookies were too big for my liking, so I was forced to eat a few. You know, for the integrity of the photos.

Yum, gooey, gooeyness.

(full list of Sugar High Fridays here)

Cupcakes With Brown Butter Frosting

Original post can be found here. Also featured on Cream Puffs in Venice.

The day after I made my Brownie Sundae Cake with Chocolate Chips, I came upon this challenge at 17 & Baking — to make a dessert involving browned butter in some way. I figured, hell, why not — so I browsed through recipes on the Internet and decided that the easiest one for me to do would be regular ol’ cupcakes with buttercream frosting — only with browned butter instead, obviously.

I watched videos on YouTube and read about a dozen different recipes in the meantime. It looked simple enough, as long as I didn’t burn the butter.

But, knowing me, of course it wasn’t that simple.

I made the cupcakes from a mix first, and they came out pretty good. No problems so far…

But then I had to begin browning the butter. My mom insisted that she provide assistance, although she had never browned butter before either. (“It would never even occur to me.”) So, I chopped up the butter, plopped it in, and….

Well, it fizzed, and we stirred and stirred and stirred like the recipe said, and… it wasn’t turning brown. It didn’t smell nutty like it was supposed to.

It did eventually turn sort of brown, but it didn’t really smell like anything (not to me, at least), and when I put it in the buttercream, the buttercream certainly didn’t taste nutty either. Those videos were totally not helpful. Nor were the various websites. They all made it seem like it wouldn’t take ages for it to brown, so you had to take it out as soon as it turned brown. IDK, we probably did it wrong somehow, but I’m not sure what happened.

It still tasted good, though. BUT SO SUGARY JFC. Seriously, if I had more than one of these I think I might go into a diabetic coma. But it would be a delicious coma.