Cinnamon-Roasted Almonds

You know those nuts you can get at carnivals and festivals, the warm, sweet, crunchy nuts that you can smell a mile away? Well, after blowing six bucks for a small bag of roasted almonds two days in a row, I decided enough was enough. And since, conveniently, we had a pound of raw almonds handy, why not give it a shot?

Found a basic recipe on allrecipes.com (love this site!) for Cinnamon-Roasted Almonds. Since there were a ton of user comments, I made some variations right off the bat. And after tasting them, I'll have a few more changes to make for next time.

First off, I decreased the almonds from 4 cups to about 2 1/2 (essentially doubling the coating, so you could keep it at 4 cups and just double the coating ingredients if you wanted to make more). I also increased the cinnamon from 1/2 tsp to 1 tsp. I also baked them for 1 1/2 hours instead of 1 hour, attempting to achieve maximum crunch.

The verdict? Delicious! Make sure you let them cool most of the way before sampling, as they will be fairly chewy until the coating has had a chance to harden.

My suggestions for next time: cut the salt in half (to 1/8 tsp), use brown sugar instead of white (or maybe half and half), and up the cinnamon (1 1/2 tsp maybe? or 2?). I'll try it again and let you know how it goes!

Chocolate Guinness Cake

I wanted to make something special for my husband Nate's birthday, but he's not a big dessert guy. He is, however, a huge beer fan (he even brews his own, of course). We planned quite a gluttonous feast to celebrate the big day, so I was looking for something that wasn't too rich. I found a delicious-sounding recipe for Chocolate Guinness Cake with a cream cheese frosting. Now I don't have the best track record of making cakes from scratch, but I was determined to eventually get it right.

Guinness is a stout, which is a dark, heavy beer with lots of body and flavor. It has some chocolately undertones, so it seemed like a good choice to use in a chocolate cake. The recipe was actually fairly easy, although it left some room for guesswork. There was no indictation of how long to beat the batter after the flour was added, but from my experience cake batter should be beat for a few minutes until it is lighter in texture. Incorporating a lot of air will keep the texture light; otherwise you end up with a dense brick. I beat mine very well and was satisfied with the results.

The cake was slightly dense, but not very sweet. The smooth, sweet cream cheese icing really balanced this out though. The recipe recommended spreading the icing on the top of the cake only, so that it would resemble the head (foam) on a glass of Guinness. I took it a step further and copied the traditional shamrock ouline that bartenders create in the head using the tap. It was much appreciated by the connaisseurs in the crowd :) I would definitely make this again!

Bubble Bath

Since we have our own soap business, we already had some of the ingredients for bubble bath on hand, but really they wouldn't be difficult for anyone to procure. I found a simple lavender bubble bath recipe using 1 qt distilled water, 1 - 4 oz bar grated castille soap, 3 oz vegetable glycerin, and fragrance/color as desired. Traditional castille soap was made using 100% olive oil, but more and more frequently we see castlle soap defined as made primarily with olive oil, supplemented with other vegetable-based oils. So I cheated a little (feeling lazy?) and grabbed a bar of Central Coast Lavender (Union Street Soapworks). I used a standard kitchen grater, but I recommend using the smallest holes your grater has (smaller pieces will likely dissolve easier than mine did). I mixed the flakes with the distilled water, which you can get at any grocery store, and then added the glycerin (you can also add your fragrance and color, if desired).

Glycerin is a natural byproduct of the soapmaking process, and is the moisturizer that sets homemade soap apart from commercially-produced bars. Believe it or not, the commercial soap producers extract the glycerin (the best part!) and sell it off to make a higher profit, leaving only a dry cake of chemicals for consumer use. Yuck. However, since making your own soap for the sole purpose of obtaining vegetable glycerin would be a monumental waste of time. We get ours at Majestic Mountain Sage, where you can also purchase the fragrance or essential oil of your choice.

Since my lavender soap was already scented and colored, it yielded a light-scented, pale purple bubble bath. I tested it out last night, and it worked pretty well. I added it kind of late in the bath-filling process so it got a little dilluted before a lot of bubbles could form, so next time I'll add it at the beginning.

Now I have a natural way to enjoy my bath, and it was SO easy to make!