Tribune Tavern: Oakland's News Gem!

Last Friday, I discovered a wonderful little place just down the street from Paramount Theater in Oakland. When I say 'down the street', I mean four blocks. And, when I say 'little place', I mean a booming restaurant.

The Paramount - The Best Show in Town!

Tribune Tavern calls the old Oakland Tribune building home - and rightly so. It's just the kind of place you can picture journalists of olde visiting in their slim off hours. The menu is a hit, promoting healthier options for almost any kind of classic American food. I wanted a Coca Cola, I got a Mexican coke - can't say I've ever been happier!

Like a 3D typewriter key - T for top-quality!

The front room is a bar - loud and hopping. If you aren't all for loud and slightly obnoxious, I'd head for the back room which is more restaurant than bar and where your ears will gladly thank you.

A hopping bar for journalists and their audience

We - my father and I - were in a bit of a time crunch, just before catching Mary Poppins at the Paramount. We even told the waitress this, and I really think it made a difference in service. Our waitress was attentive and, despite some computer issues near the end, extremely helpful.

Food, Drinks, and Spider Lights

I got a burger - classic American fashion. This was one of the best burgers I ever had. It was cooked just right - medium well - and the bun was even lightly toasted. The fries were a bit lacking - probably healthier but not as fun - despite adding salt on top and dipping in ketchup.

Burger, greens, sauce, ketchup, fries... Ready for the feast!

The meal was great and we made the movie just in time to see the newsreel. I even had some burger left over for the next day - two meals in one! ... 5 stars

Anything Goes Rainbow: December Birthday Done Right!

       My little cousin has a late December birthday, literally three days before Christmas. To separate the holidays, my aunt usually plans his party for the beginning of December. This year, I happened to have a day off from school the week before his party. My aunt makes beautiful sugar cookies for almost every occasion, so I took this chance to learn her ways. The theme this year was kind of a rainbow hodge-podge of "anything goes".

Rainbow icing plus rainbow sprinkles... Oh the color combos!

       My aunt's sugar cookie recipe is adapted from Our Best Bites, which is a lovely little cooking blog. However, she made a few changes to the original recipe. The modified recipe follows:

• 1 cup real butter at room temperature
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon almond extract
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 C flour, lightly spooned into measuring cups and leveled (don’t scoop it!)
• 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Mix butter and sugar until fluffy (about 2 minutes). Whip the egg separately and then add in. Mix in extracts until fully integrated. In a separate bowl, whisk the floor, baking powder and salt. For the flour, do not scoop with a cup. Spoon it out into the cup and then level off the excess with the smooth side of a knife. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and mix well. The dough will start to ball up on its own when it's well mixed.

A real mixer totally helps, just by the way

       After the dough is completely mixed, roll it into a ball and then cut the ball in half. Semi-roll out each half and cover them in wax paper. Put each dough-pancake flat in the fridge for about 30 minutes to an hour. This way it's easier to roll out later and quickens the process.

       After chill time, work the dough over for a little while to warm it up. Don't roll the dough too thin or too thick - it should be about 1/8 of an inch.

The dough should be just a little thinner than this

       We had plenty of hands to help us with the cookie cutting. We had three shapes for the cookies: a T, a 6, and a star. We made about 18 cookies of each shape - totaling 54 cookies.

My little cousin, Thaylo, and our cousin, Alise, helping out

       Preheat the oven to 350. Bake for 8-12 minutes. If you prefer your sugar cookies chewy go for about 8 or 9 minutes. If your prefer more crispy or crunchy, go for like 10 to 12 minutes.

       For the icing, my aunt also uses the Our Best Bites recipe for glacé icing. The great thing about this recipe is you can use it for glazing or for piping, depending on how thick you make it with the powdered sugar. The icing recipe follows:

• 3 3/4 cups powdered sugar
• 6 tsp half & half 
• 6 tsp light Corn Syrup (6T is equal to 1/4 C plus another 2 T)
• 1 tsp almond extract

Mix the icing all together and then separate into different bowls for each color. We made orange, red, blue, green, and purple icing. Stir each occasionally to keep them from crusting over.

       This is wear things get messy, so roll up your sleeves. First, pour each sprinkle variation you have into its own bowl. Using your finger, spread the icing over the cookie, going just barely over the edges of the cookie. Immediately after, use your clean hand and sprinkle your sprinkles over the cookie (pun fully intended).

       While this project took much of the day, it was a ton of fun. I got to work with my little cousins, and make some of the prettiest cookies I have ever made. Thank you to Our Best Bites for the recipe, and to my aunt and cousins for a super fun day! Happy Birthday, Thaylo!

       Stay tuned for more from the College Kitchenettes! Christmas comes early with a snow day and some geek treats next week! Happy Holidays!

Southern Hospitality: Lucille's

       My goodness, it has been a long time since our last post! We haven't done much cooking or baking, but we have been to several interesting restaurants near us. I'm going to focus on the more recent, because that makes more sense to me.

Adorably satisfying Southern hospitality

       There's something about Southern food that is just amazingly comforting - like you're surrounded by family. Considering half of my family is from the South, you can see my connection. Recently, Lucille's set up shop near my school and I'm a real sucker for barbecue - especially authentic Southern barbecue.

       The drinks were served in mason jars - very Southern - and the artwork of note was jazzy. There was a New Orleans vibe, a Jazz Age atmosphere. It helped that the music was awesome jazz. All of the art was different: different media, different people, but it all focused on music.

       Instead of boring California sourdough with butter, we got biscuits. Biscuits and cinnamon butter, which was the most delicious and unhealthy thing of my life (probably not true). I had to be quick with the picture before they were all gone.

       I ordered a classic burger, with everything, and fries. The fries were perfectly crispy, but the burger was a bit underdone, though still delicious. Overall, I give 4 stars for atmosphere and 3 stars for food. That's 7 out of 10 - and a great choice!

       Stay tuned for more from the College Kitchenettes and watch for new subscription options for our upcoming newsletter - starting in 2014! Stay tuned on Facebook, Pinterest and Tumblr!

Creative Cupcakes from Trader Joe's!

Hey blog buddies! That was me talking like Davey Wavey, the flamboyant YouTube blogger extraordinaire. Anyway, a few days back, I decided I wanted to make cupcakes, especially because I had noticed an abundance of chocolate lurking in my pantry. There was just something so enthralling about a chocolate-cakey flavor, coming in cute and joyful little cups of dark, cakey sponginess. 

not even weird though

 But, I could never settle for plain old boring cupcakes! Conceptually, I knew I didn't have any fancy schmancy baking ingredients, but having set my mind on weirdness, I hunted around my kitchen in search of originality. Lo and behold, I found some awesome stuff! Tidbits of creative peanut butter, in individually wrapped pouches! Coconut flakes! Spiced Carribbean chocolate! Graham crackers... marshmallows? So, I had decided on four different flavors of cupcake: peanut butter, s'mores, coconut, and plain ecstatic chocolate. It was at this point that the adventure began. And I'm sorry, I don't know why this is highlighted, I've tried everything in my power to stop it.

Oh, and I also apologize for not taking photos of the batter - I really couldn't hold a camera while I was making it because the camera would have gotten covered in chocolatey mess, dooming it to a chocolatey death because I was too busy cooking.

I carefully lined my cupcake pan with twelve paper thingys. I put a layer of batter in the bottom of each cupcake hole, followed by the middle layer of filling, and then the final layer of cake batter on top. I went about this cake batter endeavor in a precautious manner, careful to not spill anything. Each bottom layer filled the cupcake tin a third of the way. The toppings I used were peanut butter, coconut flakes, and chunks of high-end Caribbean chocolate that was accompanied by graham crackers. The latter topping was used to create a delicious s'mores concoction.

They came out of the oven and everyone devoured them in three seconds and they tasted wonderful! Peanut butter was by far the prettiest cupcake, resembling a piece of candy, except even prettier. I dubbed it the Reese's Peanut Butter CupCake. Apparently, one JifToGo®  pouch can fill two cupcakes with peanut butter. Also, I am apparently capable of advertising for Jif®. Reese's® as well.

The S'mores cupcake definitely tasted the best, despite lacking marshmallow, but a spot of milk in a martini glass did the trick. 

Conceptualized: Reese's Peanut Butter Cupcake

You can't really see the chocolate in this s'mores cupcake below, but there are chunks of delicious, melty, spicy chocolate sprinkled around the top, accompanied by graham crackers, which may or may not have turned brown from being in chocolate cake.

Oh, and the coconut ones were pretty good.

#GlassofTheRightStuff

Until next baking (or cooking) time! Something is making me sense especially festive brownies on this blog in the near future. ;)

Happy 4th of July: Patriot Lemon Cake Pops

       Basically, I just had to give cake pops another try - and I am SO glad I did! These cake pops are amazing, maybe even more amazing than store-bought ones. I AM NOT KIDDING AROUND HERE! I like food; I know good food when I have it!

       To start off with, you want all of the ingredients for a classic lemon cake. I sort of improvised here from what I knew to be cake ingredients and what I knew to be lemons.

INGREDIENTS (Makes about 24 pops):

• 2 sticks unsalted butter
• 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
• ½ tsp baking powder
•  ½ tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp lemon zest
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 large eggs plus 3 large egg yolks
• 4 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 1 cup low-fat buttermilk
• 1 1/2 boxes Baking chocolate, semi-sweet
• About 2 cups of icing

       Since this is an improvised recipe, I decided to be more detailed in this post. Now, you too can make perfectly awesome pops!

       First, preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Prepare (butter, flour, or grease) a 8-by-8-inch cake pan - or any size sheet cake pan, really. It will make sense later, I promise. In a medium bowl, mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar. Put the butter out to soften as you work.

       In separate bowl (or bowls), use a grater to make lemon zest from your 4 lemons. This part will take some time, especially if your grater is anything like mine, where the grater sort of holds the zest instead of just dropping it in the bowl Once finally done, add the zest to the main mixing bowl. Then, slice two lemons in half and juice them. You can buy a juicer at most grocery stores and any cooking store. While juicing, I found it extremely practical to hold a strainer between the juicer and the small bowl. That way, if any seeds or blechy unwanted stuff fell out, the strainer would catch it and I wouldn't have to fish it out of the juice. When you have the proper amount, add juice to the main mixing bowl.

       Mix in buttermilk and eggs well. Now, you can add your softened butter. Mix by hand for two minutes to chunkify the butter and then use an electric mixer on low (or setting 1) to smooth the dough.

       As soon as the dough is smooth - give or take a few lumps - bake for 35 to 45 minutes, or until toothpick inserted into middle comes out clean. Let cool in the pan for 15-20 minutes, while you prep your icing. I used store-bought royal icing, which requires microwaving for about 30 seconds.

       Once cooled, break your cake into chunks and toss them in a large bowl. Don't actually toss food in your kitchen - you'll have to clean the mess up later. In the large bowl, start breaking your cake chunks down into crumbs. Gradually add icing to the chunks until you've made a matter similar to dough. Roll your pseudo-dough into balls with your hands, or use a round ice cream scoop (very effective).

       Let your cake balls chill in the fridge for at least 3 hours, or even overnight. Before taking any cake balls out, start melting just one block of chocolate (about 1-2 oz). Using this small bit of chocolate, dip a cake pop stick in the chocolate and then insert into cake ball. Repeat until all cake balls have a chocolate-inserted stick. Stick the balls back in the freezer for at least 15 minutes while you start melting the rest of your chocolate.

       I used Baker's baking chocolate, but it's much thicker than chocolate like Hershey's chocolate chips. If you want a thinner layer of chocolate around your cake pop, use Hershey's. If you are a chocolate lover and dig thick chocolate, grab Baker's chocolate.

       Once the sticks have set, pull out about 8 or 9 cake pops at a time to dip. Dip each and set on a wax-paper covered platter or plate or sheet. Once dipped, you can decorate as you please. After dipped and decorate, switch out for another 8 or 9 pops. Repeat until all pops are dipped and decorated. I used red, blue, and silver for my pops. It came out looking like fireworks, which was perfect.

       It's sort of a long process, but it's totally worth it! These babies came out perfectly moist and delicious and lemon-y. These were a totally triumph over our first cake pop attempt. Now, I know - and you know - exactly how to make perfectly moist and chewy cake pops.

       Stay tuned, next week and beyond, for more awesome recipes and kitchen crazy! Don't forget to check us out on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. Share the yummy with your friends on Pinterest, Reddit, Facebook, or via email!

The College Kitchenette Hiatus is Over!

       As the College Kitchenettes are in college, this last month has been especially busy! Our semester has been winding down (although, really more like winding up), and we made it through final exams! We are now out, free to enjoy the summer and the baking adventures to come!
       As a matter of fact, I had my first summer baking adventure recently on a trip to Berkeley, California.

The ever-stunning Spun Sugar in Berkeley, California!

       Like most bakers, I absolutely love cooking shops. On the way to IKEA, I stopped by a small baking shop called Spun Sugar. If anyone hasn't been there, it's amazing. Go look, I'm not kidding. They've got everything there!

• Cookie Cutters
• Cake pans
• Baking chocolate
• Sprinkles
• Liners
• Frosting tips, dye, and bags
• Cupcake containers
• And so much more!

Yes, they even have THESE!

       I thought I must have died and gone to heaven. I spent a good amount of money, too. I got some couplers, some liners, and some amazingly awesome cookie cutters. I would have bought more but I was saving for IKEA as well.

Mah loot - it's beautiful!

       Stay tuned for more baking adventures, and more amazing concoctions, with the College Kitchenettes. We'll be back soon with all new recipes!
       Don't forget to share the yummy on Facebook, Reddit, and Pinterest! Also, check out our newest poll: What's your favorite summer dessert?