I don’t think best friends work for most adults. I don’t really think they work all that well for kids either but right now I am focusing on the adults. A friend of mine basically started a discussion on how we don’t really have best friends. Most of us had concluded that we had someone we called our best friend but they were back from college or even high school days and in reality knew very little about what was actually going on in our day to day lives. And we all concluded that no one we know lived like a Friends episode.

I have this too. The female that most people assume is my best friend still lives in Phoenix. I probably speak to her physically on the phone maybe once a year and we text maybe a few times a month. How is it that this person is expected to be my best friend? It’s a good question and the one that we have been mulling over.

I think one thing that comes into play is that people end up marrying their best friend kind of thing. When you used to run and tell your best female friend all your stuff you find yourself telling your spouse instead…unless of course you are complaining about your spouse. But in some ways that spot gets filled. And while when you were single your girlfriends were there for you, it all really changes when you are in a relationship. And this is why for adults the concept doesn’t work all that well.

It doesn’t work well for kids just for the fact that it just causes super drama. Girls get upset about being left out. Or thinking they were someone’s best friend only to find out that they weren’t when they see them wearing the other half of the BFF forever necklace.

What about you? Do you have a best friend? Or do you have a collection of close friends? And if you do have a best friend are they the same sex as you? If you read the blog you know that most of my friends are guys. Though I do have female friends as well, I just tend to hang with the guys much more.

If you don’t have any friends and want to make some, maybe you should make some bread pudding. Nothing says be my friend like carby-sugary-comforting bread pudding. I used Hawaiian rolls because they are sweeter and just all around awesome but you can use regular dinner rolls. Since the orange and chocolate chip loaf went over so well a while back I thought I would make it into bread pudding form. Glad I did. Share it with a friend today.

Orange-Chocolate Chip Bread Pudding

1 (12 pack) package King’s Hawaiian Rolls (or dinner rolls), on the stale side, torn into pieces

1 cup whole milk
2 cups heavy cream
1 ¼ cup granulated sugar
¼ cup orange juice concentrate
Pinch of salt
2 eggs
3 egg yolks
1 cup mini semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350F.

Grease a 8-x-8-inch pan.

Place bread pieces into pan to cover bottom.

Mix the egg s, egg yolk, sugar, orange juice concentrate and salt in a large bowl. Then stir in the heavy cream and milk. Whisk until fully incorporated.

Pour the custard over the bread layer. Press down the bread pieces until the bread is soaked with the custard. Sprinkle ½ the chocolate chips.

Make another layer of bread. Pour custard over second bread layer. Repeat as many times as you have ingredients and room. Sprinkle remaining chocolate chips.

You will most likely have extra custard depending on how stale your bread is. Don’t feel like you have to use all the custard.

Place pan into another pan that will hold a water bath. Bake the bread pudding for 45-55 minutes until golden on top, and custard isn’t running in the middle. Cool 10 minutes and serve warm with orange toffee sauce.

Orange Toffee Sauce
2 TBSP orange juice concentrate
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup unsalted butter
1/3 cup whipping cream

Stir brown sugar and butter in heavy medium saucepan over medium heat until melted and smooth, about 2 minutes.

Add cream and orange juice concentrate and bring to a simmer. Simmer for about 5 minutes.

Serve over bread pudding warm.

Saying Karma is a very trendy thing to do. I probably hear it almost every day coming out of someone’s mouth. I find it most amusing that most of my friends who say it often are Christians. And well the concept of karma is a religious one coming to us from the Buddhist and the Hindus. And last I checked Christians only get to follow one God’s teaching? I’m not here to get into religion; I’ll leave that for Rick Perry. But I will say that I don’t really believe in Karma.

I don’t really believe in the concept for the fact that #1 I am not a Buddhist or a Hindu and #2 far too many people I know that are good people have many a bad thing happen to them, and yet the people who I think in my life who could really get a good swift kick in the pants seem to continue to skate through life with things just kind of falling into place for them. Or just finding new people to take advantage of.

Instead of doing things to gain good Karma for the day, why not just do something because it’s the right thing to do?

In case you haven’t guessed I’m dealing with someone who if I believed in Karma could use a good dose of it right back at them. And because I am stuck dealing with them a little comfort food is often necessary. I had a few apples left over from my Harry and David Fruit of the Month club and decided to make an apple cobbler. I make a very unusual blackberry cobbler from years ago but had never tried to make any other fruit cobbler out of it. So I thought I would give it a go. It’s messy no doubt when putting it together but seriously yummy! I ate it as my dinner last night and breakfast today!

Maple Apple Cobbler

1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, 1/2 stick (1/4 cup) cut into bits and chilled
1 cup water
1 cup plus 2 TBSP sugar, divided
1/3 cup plus 2 TBSP maple syrup, divided
1 1/2 cups cake flour
1 ¾ tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
1/3 cup milk
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
2 large Honey Crisp apples (mine are from Harry and David), peeled, cored, sliced, and slices cut in half

Preheat oven to 350°F.

In a 10-inch glass pie plate or baking dish melt 1/2 stick uncut butter in oven.

In a small saucepan combine water, 1 cup sugar, and 1/3 cup maple syrup and heat over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until sugar is completely dissolved.

In a food processor pulse together flour and remaining 1/2 stick cut-up butter until mixture resembles fine meal. Add milk and pulse just until a dough forms. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and with a floured rolling pin roll into an 11- by 9-inch rectangle.

Sprinkle dough with cinnamon and scatter apples evenly over top. Beginning with a long side roll up dough jelly-roll fashion and cut into 1 1/2-inch thick slices. (Slices will come apart and be messy).

Arrange slices, cut sides up, on melted butter in pie plate or baking dish. Pour the remaining maple syrup over the dough. Pour sugar syrup over slices, soaking dough. *This will seem weird and the dough may rise up and float, just go with it, it works out in the end. Bake in middle of rack for 45 minutes. Remove from oven and sprinkle remaining 2 tablespoons sugar over cobbler and bake 15 minutes more, or until golden.

Best served warm…I served mine with maple whipped cream as we were out of ice cream.
Serves 6.
Adapted from Gourmet June 1996

I was sitting with a group of mom friends and one of them was mentioning how they wished the housing market was better right now (who doesn’t?). Come to find out she wants to sell her four bedroom home and upgrade. I asked why the heck would she do that? Well we might want another child. I said, okay? You have two. Why do you need a 5 bedroom home? And she went in to how ideally she would really like a 6 bedroom home or at least 5 bedroom and a den. A master bedroom, a room for each kid, a playroom (what are bedrooms for?), and guest bedroom.

Growing up we never lived in anything larger than a 3 bedroom home. My parents now retired live in a two bedroom home (with a tiny, and I mean tiny loft up top…it’s an A frame). There were 5 of us. My mom, my dad, me, my two brothers, and our various dogs and random animals I would beg to have from a turtle to rabbits. My parents had their room. I had mine (I was the only girl…if I had a sister I am quite sure we would have shared a room). My brothers shared a room (and not just as kids…as teenagers as well). They had extra-long twin beds (they were tall boys). The “guest” bedroom was my room when people would come and I would get kicked to the couch. My parents did this because they did this thing called live within your means. You might have heard of it?

Not saying that my friend can’t probably afford a 6 bedroom house, both her and her spouse make good money, I just don’t see why you want to add more finical burden to yourself in today’s economy. I’m not sure when the idea of each child should have their own room. Sharing? Ever hear of that? It’s a good lesson to teach kids.

One thing you will definitely want to share are these caramel apples. This is the first time I have ever made a caramel that used sweetened condensed milk and I LOVE it. It gives it a little dulce de leche flavor as well. So nice. Yes, it’s harder than just melting the Kraft caramels down like we did as a kid with some milk…but it’s worth it. If you have any leftover (I did) you can simply spray a pan with baking spray and pour it in. They set up nicely as just plain caramels!

Mini Caramel Apples

25 mini apples (this is a guess) or 12 big apples (also a guess) as I did a mix of both big and small
2 C brown sugar
1 C corn syrup
1/2 C butter
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Combine the first 3 ingredients. After butter is melted stir in the milk.

Cook to soft ball (230 F degrees). Stir constantly.

Stir in 1 tsp. vanilla.

Remove from heat. Dip apples into the caramel, and then roll in nuts if desired, I used mini chocolate chips.

Let set up on a cookie sheet. Place in refrigerator if needed.

From Your Home-based Mom.com

This was not only a good cake but a good post so we will revisit both. Sixteen Candles is one of the best movies ever.

Oh the movie that gave every teenage girl hope. Hope that the hottest guy in school would leave his well endowed, hot girlfriend for geeky, no body you. Did I mention he is not only hot, but rich and drives a Porsche? Oh yes, this was the modern day Cinderella story that every female teeny bop was waiting to happen. Unless of course, you were the well endowed, hot chic at school…then it was already happening to you (bitch).

That being said, I would never give my undies to a geek. Or anyone for that matter. Now perhaps back then, when my undies were bought by my mother and were ugly (probably the 20 pack from Costco) I might not have cared as much. But gosh darn it, now a days, good looking undies just cost too much to be giving away. Or ripped off for that matter. Granted this did not happen in Sixteen Candles, but it happens in a lot of movies. Sure it isn’t sexy to have to stop to take off your undies, but really, it probably hurts to have them ripped off. And hurts even more if they are La Perla and you paid $45 for them. Now, that hurts. So girls, keep your undies. Or if you do give them to a geek, work out a payment plan with them, and charge interest.

Boobs. Now I am a reasonable person. But for whatever reason, I thought for sure I would wake up on my 13th birthday with boobs. When that didn’t happen, I knew for sure it would be my 16th. For sure. There is a part in the movie where the main character Sam is standing in front of the mirror checking out her lack of bod. Oh how I related to this. When I woke up on my 16th birthday rationally knowing boobs did not grow over night, I still had to look. And look I did, all day. Thank goodness my birthday is in the summer, I would have hate to have been caught starring at my own chest in school. That would have been cool. Not.

Alas I am still waiting on my boobs. Oh sure, from time to time if I gain enough weight I can get some bigger boobs, but then I just get bigger me and so they don’t really look all that hot. So in honor of the boobs I never got and only get when I gain pounds…I made pound cake.

This Brown Sugar Almond Pound Cake is nice and simple…and loaded with calories…3 sticks of butter and 3 cups of sugar. Surely you can pack on some boobs (and stomach, thigh and butt) with this yummy treat….after all “the Donger needs food”.

Brown Sugar Almond Pound Cake with Sauted Spiced Apples

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 ¼ cup almond meal
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 ½ cups unsalted butter, at room temperature
8 ounce cream cheese, at room temperature
2 cups firmly packed light brown sugar
1 cup powdered sugar, sifted
1 TBSP pure vanilla extract
1 tsp pure almond extract
6 large eggs, at room temperature

Spray a Bundt pan, 10-inch tube pan, or two 8 ½ by 4 ½ inch loaf pans with non stick cooking spray (I used a loaf pan spring form and two mini loaf pans).
Preheat oven to 325F.

In a bowl, sift together the flour, almond meal, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl, using an electric mixer set on medium speed, cream together the butter and cream cheese, about 3 minutes. Gradually beat in the brown sugar and powdered sugar and continue beating until pale and fluffy.

Beat in the vanilla and almond extract.

Add eggs, one at a time, scraping down the bowl after each addition.

Switch over to using your hand and a spatula. Add the flour mixture and fold into the batter. Do this until no flour can be seen and batter is smooth.

Spoon batter into prepared pans. Bake until a skewer inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean, 75-90 minutes. For my mini loaves, it took 55 minutes. For the spring form loaf pan it took 70 minutes.

Remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack.

Cake recipe from Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey by Jill O’Conner (if you don’t own this yet, you should!)

While cooling, make the apples.

Sauted Spiced Apples

½ cup granulated sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground ginger
½ tsp ground nutmeg
3 large apples, I used Pink Ladies, peeled, cored, and sliced
1 TBSP unsalted butter

Place the sugar and spices into a medium sized bowl and mix till completely combined.

Dredge the apples in the sugar mixture, turning to make sure they are coated well.

Heat butter in a large saute pan over medium heat. Place apples in saute pan and cook until apples become soft.

To prepare:
Slice piece of pound cake. Top with spiced apples. Spoon homemade or store bought caramel sauce.