Massive Cooking Backlog

To be honest, all the recipes I've linked in this entry except for the homemade nutella are baked and generally terrible for you, so this isn't so much a cooking backlog as it is a butter backlog. A few weeks ago I got a Le Creuset dutch oven for super, super cheap on craigslist and the first thing I made was no-knead bread from my new favorite magazine, Cook's Illustrated. Here's the lone photo from the past few weeks:


This is absolutely one of the easiest, most awesome things I've ever made if you can't tell from the photo. Perfect bread with zero effort. This bread is a great template for homemade nutella -- as long as you're not expecting something as smooth as commercial nutella, it's great. No hydrogenated oils and 3x more hazelnuts than commercial nutella. And speaking of Cook's Illustrated, the latest issue has something of a holy grail for me: the best yellow cake/chocolate icing recipe ever. I know how embarrassing that sounds, but it's my favorite kind of cake and it's great to finally have a recipe that works so well.

A couple other recipes I can recommend: chocolate cinnamon bread, which is just a stupid name for amazing spiced brownies. This took way, way longer to bake than suggested. Making it in a 9x9 worked much better than a loaf pan, and this would probably work best of all. I think the key to this recipe is grinding the whole cloves and cinnamon sticks in a spice grinder. Finally:

equals maple bacon cupcakes. I was invited to a potluck put on by some foodies who have a weakness for pork-y desserts, so I decided to step up to the plate. Yes, collecting bacon drippings was pretty gross for me, but I have to admit they were delicious, if sort of breakfasty.