SMB - A Gotta-Know Baking Acronym

It's no secret I love to bake. Any excuse will find me toting treats to work so A and I don't eat too many sweets. I made a big leap in my baking experience by finally trying out SMB. Swiss Meringue Buttercream. The end-all of decorating icing. Besides fondant, but we'll save that for another time.

From my reading, I knew many people found SMB to be difficult to make correctly. Then I stumbled upon a blog whose author swore it was not difficult. When one of my coworker's birthdays came up, I took the leap. And I'm pleasantly surprised to say, it was not hard! There are multiple steps and you have to pay attention to what you're doing, but my first attempt turned out delicious! It's less sweet than traditional buttercream. So if you don't like tons of sickly sweet icing, this is up your alley.

Since SMB is the king for decorating, I also tried a more difficult icing style. And it worked out too! A double-win!

The cake itself was a dark chocolate I've made many times. I LOVE it. Super moist and so scrumptious.

I can't get enough of the ruffles! Coworker J's favorite color is blue, but I didn't know what shade, so I chose this fun sky blue/turquoise blend.

The best part of this ruffle icing: I could mess up and it was no big deal. Just keep going!

If you're hesitating at trying Swiss meringue buttercream, don't! I promise it's worth it!

No Longer Chicken About Chicken

For Christmas, I gave A a subscription to Top Chef University, an online set of cooking courses taught by Top Chef contestants. Ever since we got into cooking shows like Iron Chef, Chopped, and MasterChef, we have been expanding our culinary skills. One thing we had not tackled was breaking down a whole chicken. You could say we were "chicken" about it. (Sorry, couldn't resist!)

Thankfully Top Chef University had a whole video on how to accomplish it. First, we bought our (unlucky) chicken and rinsed it clean.

Then we got down to business. By "we", I mean mostly A. However, the photos end here because I jumped in to help. It was not as easy as Chef Kevin Gillespie made it look! We own a very good chef's knife yet had difficulties getting through the chicken.

But we eventually succeeded and threw all the gross parts and bones into a pot to make our own stock. How fancy!

Now we have frozen cubes of stock just waiting to enhance our future meals!