All those things I want to do, (updated)

Remember that one post I did about carrot cake? No well, you don't have to check it out if you don't want to, unless you want to have a recipe for it. I decided to update my bucket list and if anyone wants to help me fulfill any of them I would not object to company and I will blog about it and put up pictures. Like pennies, I collect them and you can collect them for me and then just help out my life long dream of having a lot of pennies. I'm up to $15 in pennies at last count.

1. Parasail
2. Go to Australia
3. Get Married
4. Have kiddos
5. Go to South Africa and swim with sea turtles
6. Make a recipe famous
7. Go to Vegas again
8. Go to Alaska
9. Scuba Dive
10. Pyramids at sunset
11. Ride a camel
12. Travel to over 30 countries:25 so far
13. Travel to over 100 cities outside of the U.S.: 75 so far
14. Travel to all 50 states: 24 so far
15. Go white water rafting again
16. Learn to snowboard fully
17. Jet-ski in Hawaii
18. Own a house near a lake
19. Dance with my father at my wedding
20. Go skydiving
21. Race a sports car
22. Fire a gun
23. Go Zorbing
24. Oktoberfest
25. Test drive a Ferrari
26. Go bungee jumping
27. Visit the Acropolis
28. Visit the Pantheon
29. Visit the Parthenon
30. Visit the Great Wall of China
31. Start a blog
32. See Steve Irwin’s Zoo (modified since his death)
33. Ride in a hot air balloon
34. Take a canopy tour
35. Visit the Fjords of Norway
36. Visit the Great Barrier Reef
37. Visit Niagara Falls
38. Visit Easter Island
39. Go to Stonehenge
40. Try oysters
41. Try escargot
42. Try caviar
43. Heli-snowboarding
44. Snowboard into a different country(Austria to Switzerland)
45. Hang Gliding
46. Collect a  100,000 pennies: 1500 so far
47. Actually finish making a blanket
48. Learn to sew
49. Drive at 100+ mph
50. Get tattoo 

Beer Bread

I turned 21 a little over a week ago. I bought my first drink yesterday, it was a deliciously tequilay frozen strawberry margarita. Today I went and bought some beer to make a recipe I saw on a blog. It was for beer bread. Thanks to a lovely class at school where we did nothing but learn about beer and taste it, I know what kind of beer that I like. I love the hefeweizen by Paulaner which is a brewery based in Munich, Germany.
Jacqueline is the blogger over at Bake it with Booze where I got the idea to make this here bread. She even said that she wanted to try it with a hefeweizen. Since I love hefeweizens I decided to make it with that kind of beer.
Let me tell you, this bread is super easy and takes maybe ten minutes at the most (I'm accounting for distractions such as the neighbor coming over) to actually prepare it. There is no time needed to let it rise and I only got one bowl dirty (which means that I used my hand to stir and just wiped out my measuring stuff). It has a deliciously crunchy outside and super moist inside. It is awesome. I love it.

Ingredients: 

3 cups flour 

1 tablespoon baking powder 

1 teaspoon salt 

1/4 cup sugar 

1 12-ounce bottle or can of beer 

1/2 cup (1 stick) melted butter

Preheat the oven to 375. Mix all dry ingredients together in a med-large bowl. Pour in the beer and mix until just combined. Pour some of the melted butter not much enough to coat the bottom of a loaf pan; swirl to coat the bottom thoroughly. Spoon the batter into the loaf pan. It will be lumpy in the pan and it doesn't matter. Pour the rest of the butter over the top of the loaf, giving it a good coating. Bake for about 50-55 minutes, until the top is golden brown. Let the loaf cool in the pan for about 10 minutes, then eat, if you feel like, or let it cool even more and then enjoy later.

Wild Animal Sanctuary

This is yet another post not about baking, but I don't care. Today was a really cool day. My family, (aunt and uncle, grandparents and my parents) and I went on a trip up the this Wild Animal Sanctuary. It is this place that rescues carnivores such as lions, tigers and bears. (most recently the Bolivian Lions. All of these animals were kept in different conditions and most had never lived in the wild. They were rescued and brought to this sanctuary. People can go pay $10 to walk on this platform and observe them from a height that does not put stress on them. It was pretty cool to see these animals that actually looked pretty happy.
There were a few different bears in different enclosures that liked playing in the tubs of water.

Twenty-One

Today is my 21st birthday. I have waited for this day to come since I moved from Germany back to the United States. It has been three long years since Germany.
I was excited to go out this morning to one of my favorite breakfast places. We got there and it was packed. I decided that I was too hungry to wait in line to be fed. We went to a different place.
I wanted to get a mimosa with breakfast. They would not give it to me since my drivers license it vertical instead of horizontal. Dumbest reason to refuse a customer. They aren't going to get my business ever again and I'm not going to recommend it to a friend.
Some of my friends tease me about my birthday cake because there were a few years where I made my one birthday cake. This year I requested a Dairy Queen ice cream cake and so I got a Strawberry Cheesequake one. 

After that my mom took me shopping for a present. I wanted to get a new bike because mine is pretty old and doesn't like to be functional. That is why she had to take me with her to get my present. I am short, thus making it difficult to find a bike that works. But we found one that I love! Its pretty and blue, see.

I then went to visit a friend and we went and got tattoos. Not matching ones. I got a whisk and a spoon because I love baking and its a part of who I am and now is a part that other people can see, sorta, I guess. My friend also bought me lunch/dinner at Sonic. It was delicious.
 

Now I'm ready for bed and its not even 8:30. I almost took a nap while A.J. was tattooing my leg.

Finals

This week is been not really hectic, but interesting. I've been jamming as much information into my brain as I possibly can, and I have had a headache all week, well since Sunday. I have four finals total, three that are on the same day and I'm a little worried about, but whatever happens happens and I won't be able to change the outcome. I've done my best at trying to prepare for them. My study break photograph is for this contest.

My cat Lexi feels that studying is a waste of time or that I need to pay attention to her more, I don't know I can't read her mind or speak cat language. Whatever her reason for interrupting my studying it was a nice break.

The Mess

Let me tell you that I make a mess every time I bake something at home, so it happens quite frequently. Tomorrow is the last day of clinicals for my mom, the teacher. I typically make her something to take to the nurses on the last day. Since I made the ultimate brownies, my mom wanted me to make them for the nurses, which brings me to the mess I made today. It has to be the mess of all messes.
For whatever reason I let my dad convince me that all the ingredients (I doubled the recipe so I could make four small pans), would fit into my 5 qt mixing bowl of my kitchen aide. He was really wrong with that. since I doubled the recipe it needed a dozen eggs and 8 cups of sugar, which I put into my bowl and allowed to mix which almost overflowed. I then took the largest mixing bowl that we have and put the flour and cocoa powder in it and filled that bowl up. I spill a bunch of cocoa powder in the process of trying to get it all mixed together. I eventually use the top off of a cake saver as a bowl and that was almost full of brownie mix. One thing that I have learned is how to mix things by hand with your hand, by this I mean sticking your hand into the batter and mixing it. The spatula I was using felt like it was going to break and its my favorite spatula, so I used something that is a lot harder to break.
After I am done actually making the brownies and putting them into the oven I start cleaning up. My mixing bowl (the one off my kitchen aide) was on the counter and got elbowed off. I tried to save it with my leg, since I didn't want to dent the bowl or the floor, it ended up getting some batter all over my leg and on the floor. Next I try to put away the ingredients. I have this habit of throwing my cocoa powder, it belongs on the top shelf of the cabinet, I'm too lazy to get the stool and put it away. Today the cover wasn't all the way on the container, so when I threw it and missed the cap came of. I spilled about half the container on my self, and everywhere else. Do you know how hard it is to clean up cocoa powder? It doesn't really like to be vacuumed up or mopped up. Its a bitch to clean up. I am pretty sure that this is the worst mess I've made in the kitchen, or in a long time at least.


Here is the recipe in case you want to make your own mess with it.
I got it from the website Like They Do. 

Brownies

• 1 1/3 Cup All Purpose Flour
• 2 Cups Cocoa Powder
• 2 Teaspoons Salt
• 6 Eggs
• 4 Cups Sugar
• 1 Teaspoon Vanilla
• 1 Pound 8 Ounces Unsalted Butter, melted
• 12 Ounces Chocolate Chips

Ganache

• 4 Ounces Chocolate Chips
• 2/3 Cups Cream

Method

Brownies

Sift together the flour and cocoa powder. Add the salt. Reserve.

Whip the eggs and sugar to ribbon (light in color and thick). Add the vanilla.

Fold the flour mixture and butter alternately into the whipped egg. Add the chocolate chips.

Pour the batter into a parchment lined (or buttered and floured) 9×13 pan and bake at 350° for 35 minutes, less for a sheet pan.

Let cool.

Ganache

Place the chips in a bowl. Bring the cream just to a boil. Pour the cream over the chips and let sit for a couple minutes. Whisk the mixture together.

I use butter and flour on my pans since I pour the ganache onto the brownies in the pans.