Easy, homemade Lacto-fermented Sauerkraut

Sauerkraut is a food that I have grown to appreciate as an adult.  When I was younger, my parents would eat it and I thought it looked disgusting.  I was a kid and kids are weird that way....  

I've expanded my food preservation skills into making fermented pickles, pickled jalapeños, and pickled yellow peppers, so this year I decided I'd try sauerkraut as well.  After lots of googling, I opted for lacto-fermenting, because it took less time, less salt, and I happened to have plenty of whey in my homemade yogurt container.

You'll need:

I large, firm head of cabbage (or two smaller heads), finely chopped (a food processor with shredding capabilities would be really useful here)

2 Tablespoons of sea salt

1/2 cup of whey.  (If you don't have any sitting around, you can buy a large container of plain yogurt and strain it through cheesecloth and you should end up with enough whey)

You can also add one shredded carrot and/or one finely sliced onion if you want to, but for my first try I wanted to stick with the basic recipe.  

Place shredded cabbage in a large bowl (this is my big popcorn bowl)

Add salt

Add whey

Use your hands to "massage" the cabbage several times over the space of a half an hour or so, until the texture changes from crisp to wilted.  You can use a potato masher for this if you don't want to use your hands, but hands work better. (Ignore the giant bags of cereal in the background)

Place cabbage and liquid in a large jar.  Press the cabbage down firmly so it's packed tightly, and is below the level of the liquid.  You can add a little water if you need to to make sure the cabbage is covered, but it shouldn't be necessary.  I used a half gallon mason jar. 

Place a plastic bag in the jar and fill it with water, making sure that the bag spreads out inside the jar.  This acts as a weight to hold the cabbage below the level of the liquid.  

Place a lid on the jar.  I just used the ring, and let the water bag be open at the top, but you could tie the bag off, and put a solid lid on the jar too.  It doesn't make that much difference.  I just wanted to leave plenty of room for the sauerkraut to expand- and my very full bag of water did end up spilling down the sides of my jar a little.

Place the jar in a corner of your counter, away from major heat and direct sunlight.  

Now wait.

And wait....

My kitchen was a little on the cool side, so what was supposed to take three days took two weeks to get to where I was satisfied with the taste.  After the time was up, I divided the kraut into three pint jars and put it in the fridge. 

Now I just need some bratwursts.  

Update:  Got some hotdogs... They were good.

Roasted Chili Peppers

Check out my tutorial for roasted chili peppers (I used Anaheim Peppers from my garden) at Feminist Mormon Housewives. 

Greek Quinoa Salad

Here's another food post (and I'm annoyed that I repeated myself- apparently it is so crucial that you make the quinoa ahead of time so it can cool, that I had to say it twice).  I've got to learn to proof-read better.

Anyway, this is a tasty one, so you should go buy the ingredients and make it THIS SECOND.

Greek Quinoa Salad at Butter with a Side of Bread

Another Food Post

Clearly I need to post about gardening stuff more often, because now I have two food posts in a row.  I've been a bit sidetracked.  My beans and corn never came up.  At least not more than a handful of plants.  I'm not sure if birds ate the seeds as they sprouted, or if my hand watering just didn't go deep enough and the seeds were too dry to germinate.  I replanted beans in one bed, and got a couple of pumpkin plants to fill in the other bean bed.  I also replanted the corn bed.  Then I bought soaker hoses so hopefully they'll water more deeply than my spraying-with-hose method.

In good news, the winer squash plants are growing like crazy, and I have several more jerusalem artichoke plants up.

The thing that has kept me the most busy for the last few days has been the cherries.  So far I've been juicing and dehydrating them, but I'm still planning on freezing some for smoothies and pureeing some for cherry fruit leather.  Hopefully I'll get a post up soon on the cherry harvest.

Back to the food: I'll be contributing semi-regularly to the blog Butter, with a side of Bread.  My most recent post is Spinach Chicken Pasta Salad. It's a really good light summer dinner, or a great dish to bring to a potluck or BBQ.

Guest post at Butter with a Side of Bread!

Check out my guest post at Butter with a Side of Bread today and learn how to make easy peach slurpees.

Peach Slurpees

Lemon Mother's Day Cake

While my husband took care of dinner, I decided to make a cake.  Inspired by the meyer lemon my friend gave me from her parents' lemon tree.  (Oh to live in a climate that could grow things like lemons.)

The cake recipe was pretty straight forward, and I didn't get any pictures.  It's a Lemon Cake from Martha Stewart.  I used lemon zest that I had in the freezer so I could save my one lemon for topping the cake.  While the cake was baking, I thinly sliced the lemons, picked out all the seeds, and combined them with 1/2 cup of sugar and 1/2 cup of water.  Bring to a boil and simmer for 25 minutes, then use a slotted spoon to move the lemon slices to a piece of wax paper.  The remaining syrup gets a little more lemon juice added to it, then poured over the cake while still warm.  Then put the cake in the fridge to cool so you can frost it.

The whipped frosting recipe also came from Martha Stewart.  I don't think I whipped mine quite long enough- it was more meringue-like that I think it should have been, but it was very good.  

All it is is egg whites and sugar and water.  Heat over double boiler to 150 F.

Transfer to mixing bowl and whip until stiff, glossy peaks form.  Add 2TBSP of lemon juice and whip just until the lemon juice is mixed in.  

Spread on cake.  :)  I didn't frost the center layer of this cake.  It didn't need it, and the cakes themselves were a little on the fragile side and it was easier to stack them without worrying about a middle layer.  Next time I might try making a lemon curd for the middle- but with the lemon syrup poured onto the warm baked cakes (poke holes with a fork to help it not run off the sides) this cake is plenty sweet and lemony.

Top with candied lemon slices.  

It may be different if you whip the frosting longer, but the cake was very reminiscent of a lemon meringue pie.  

Mint Chocolate Cake

I made this as a pre-wedding wedding present for my friend, and actually made two since mint chocolate cake sounded like something I needed to eat as well.  It worked out nicely to have one cake to experiment with as far as frosting it.

I used two german chocolate cake mixes (for most basic cakes, cake mixes are as good as any made from scratch recipe I've found, my great grandmother agreed with me…) and baked them in four 9 inch round pans.  One set of cake pans have a removable bottom making it easy to get cakes out.  My other pans are tradition round cake pans, so I use coffee filters flattened in the bottom along with cooking spray, and the cakes came out perfectly.

Once the cakes were cooling on a rack, I started making the mint mousse.  I based it off the strawberry mousse recipe I love to use.  Instead of pureed fruit, I used whole milk, two or three drops of green food coloring, and 7 drops of peppermint oil to mix with the gelatin.  Once that began to thicken, I folded it into my whipped cream.  I think next time I will use cream, as this mousse was very light and airy, which went well with the heavy chocolate ganache, but I think cream would make it a little more finished.

I chilled the mousse in the fridge for half an hour and then spooned it onto my two bottom cake layers (I still only made one recipe of the mousse, because the original cake it was meant for had more layers, and there is plenty).

Carefully place the top layer on the mousse and chill cakes.  

While the cakes are chilling, you can start on the frosting.  I used my standard buttercream (which means I whip a stick of softened butter until it's light and fluffy, then start adding powdered sugar and a little milk until I get a consistency I'm happy with.  For this cake I only used a couple tablespoons of butter and instead added in a block of cream cheese.  I think for the amount I made, I could have used two blocks, but the frosting turned out minty and smooth without an overpowering cream cheese flavor.  I added five or six drops of green food coloring- I wanted a pale green color- and 7 drops of peppermint oil.  

After I frosted the cakes, I put them back in the fridge and started on the ganache.  I tried a new recipe, and will be using it in the future.  

• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 3 1/2 ounces dark chocolate, finely chopped (preferably 70 percent cacao)
• 1/2 ounce (1 tablespoon) unsalted butter, softened
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I doubled the recipe. I actually ended up using a 4 oz bar, and then another 4 oz of imdividally wrapped ghirardeli mint dark chocolates.  The mint chocolates gave the ganache just a hint of mint, and it was amazing.  

I had a hard time piping mint frosting onto the top of the cake and had to take the bag apart, thin the frosting and start over with a new bag, and in the second attempt, the frosting was softer that I would have liked it, but I didn't want to stop and try again, so I just went with it.  

To top it all of I used my cheese slicer to shave Andes mints over the top of the cake.  

I wouldn't say it's my most beautiful cake (mostly because the soft frosting didn't stand up well enough on the top, and it's slightly off center), but the pale green is lovely against the chocolate ganache, and the whole thing was incredibly delicious.  

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How to make the best pie crust ever.

In a mixing bowl, add 2lbs (about 8 cups, if you don't have a scale) of flour.  Half white flour, half whole-wheat. Add 1 TBSP of salt and mix.

Roughly chop up 1 lb of lard.  Yes lard.  It makes better crust than butter or crisco.

Add the lard chunks a few pieces at a time to the flour/salt.  I put my shield on for this since the lard pieces tend to make flour shoot up out of the bowl.

Mix until you get the consistency of "peas and cornmeal".

Add 20 TBSP of cold water.  (1 1/4 cups)  Mix for a few seconds.

Dump the dough onto a clean surface and form into a wheel.

Plastic wrap is better, but I didn't have any.  Wrap up the wheel.

Put it in a bag, get as much air out as you can, and put in the fridge.  Let it sit at least 24 hours.  I made my crust on a Monday, and will roll it out for pies on Wednesday.  Letting it sit makes for a very forgiving, easy to work crust.  

When you're ready to use it, take it out, cut it into 8 pie wedges.  Each wedge can be formed into a wheel when you're ready for it, then rolled out.  Keep the other pieces covered while you work with one to keep them from drying out.

Here's the recipe in an easier-to-print format…

Perfect Pie Crust

From Reclaiming my Inner Pioneer at http://isagoodone.blogspot.com

Ingredients

2lbs (8 cups) of flour.  Half white, half whole wheat.

1 lb Lard

1 TBSP salt

20 TBSP (1 1/4 cup) cold water

Directions

1. Mix flours and salt.  
2. Roughly chop lard and add piece by piece to the flour mixture.  
3. Mix until you have the texture of peas and cornmeal. 
4. Add water and mix for a few seconds.
5. Form into a wheel and place in plastic airtight bag in the fridge for at least 24 hours. 

Makes 8 single crust or 4 double crust pies (or whatever combination adds up to 8 single crusts).

  

What do I do with 80 pounds of chicken?

For the last several years, I tried really hard to only buy farm-raised meat.  After watching a few too many documentaries highlighting to horrible conditions of factory farmed meat, I was done.

In practice, what has happened is that we've pretty much stopped eating chicken, aside from the occasional cheat with a costco rotisserie chicken.  We tried raising our own meat birds, and buying them from a local-ish farm.  But in the end, they always ended up being so expensive that we just couldn't afford to eat chicken very often.

I'm giving up.  At least for now.  After reading several positive reviews of Zaycon Foods, I decided to give them a try, and ordered two cases of chicken.

I picked up my chicken today and got to work.  This morning I made sure to set out all my supplies.  Clean jars (with lids and rings ready to go), trays and wax paper for freezing individual breasts (then I'll put them all in gallon sized freezer bags), a cutting board and scissors and a knife.  I also had a big bowl for scraps, and disinfectant wipes for just in case.  I also put 1/2 cup or so of water into each quart jar.  I've read instructions that say to top off the jars with water after, and instructions that say that chicken creates it's own liquid so adding water is unnecessary, and I've read that the chicken doesn't always create quite enough liquid, so adding a little is helpful.  I went with the latter.

Two big drippy boxes of raw chicken breasts.  The breasts were large and had some fat that needed to be trimmed off, but were really not too bad.  I cut them in half, trimmed them up, and cubed them for jars or just left them in individual breasts for freezing.

Add 1 tsp of salt to each quart.  (I used canning salt because regular salt will cloud the liquid in the jar, but for chicken, I really don't think it matters, it ends up cloudy looking anyway...

Usually when I wipe jar tops, I just use a damp rag, but chicken is slimy, so I opted for a disposable paper towel and vinegar.

Add lids (I put mind in water, bring it to a boil, let them boil for a short while then put them on).

Add rings, and place them in your pressure canner.  Make sure to follow the instructions that came with your canner.  I bring the canner to a boil, put on the lid, wait for a steady stream of steam, then set the timer for 10 minutes.  After that I add the weight/stop to the lid and watch until the pressure gets to around 13 pounds psi.  Then I set the timer for 90 minutes.  I'm a little neurotic and checked the three canners I had going today every few minutes to make adjustments to the heat to keep the pressure in the right range.

Once the 90 minutes is up, turn off the heat and wait until the pressure gauge reads zero.  DO NOT REMOVE THE WEIGHT OR THE LID BEFORE THAT.  It sucks out the liquid from your jar, and also, will hurt you.  Once the pressure is gone to zero, carefully (you may want to wear an oven mitt just in case) remove the weight and the lid and using a jar lifter, move the jars to a safe place to cool down.  When they're cool check for seal, and any that don't seal should go in the fridge (I'd say reprocess them, but really, after 90 minutes, there's no way I'm redoing that for one jar that didn't seal.  We'll just eat it up this week).

I didn't take any pictures of the chicken that went in the freezer, because of slimy raw chicken juice everywhere, but I canned 40 pounds of chicken, and froze the other 40 pounds.  I used trays and wax paper, stacking them up so they'd all freeze individually to make them easy to put into bags later.

In the beginning of to 80 pounds of chicken, I cut really carefully so I didn't waste anything.  Toward the end I got a little sloppy.  I gathered up all the fatty chicken scraps and put them in the crock pot, covered them with water and stuck in some veggies that I happened to have on hand.  The crock pot is pretty full, and I haven't quite decided whether to make a huge pot of soup and eat it right away or try adding carrots/celery/onions and canning chicken noodle-less soup.  

All in all- it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, and now I have a shelf full of canned chicken and a freezer full of frozen chicken breasts.

Tempura

My Mister decided to make sushi for dinner on Sunday, and we thought it would be fun to invite friends over.  With company coming, we needed something besides sushi to fill everyone up, so I decided to try something new.  Tempura veggies.  

Image Credit: http://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-tempura-fried-vege-138702

I've never made them before, so I started googling and found a couple of recipes that looked promising, and combined them a bit and came up with this:

The key to good tempura is the batter. You want it to be light and runny you aren't making fish sticks.

1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup cornstarch

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 egg

2/3 cup ice cold seltzer water or gingerale

Put the egg in Ice Water and mix with chopsticks. Don't mix it perfectly. Dump all of the dry ingredients in. Give it a few choppy mixes with chop sticks. Don't attempt to blend all of the items together. It has to be lumpy for a true tempura texture. Dip and then fry until golden brown.

Enjoy!

I doubled the recipe so we'd have plenty, and it was just barely enough to fry a good sized zucchini, an onion, a sweet potato and several mushrooms.

Once I had the recipe I needed a little more understanding of the How To, and found this website that walked me through all the steps (it's also where the picture came from since we ate ours up too fast to take a picture):

1. Prepare Vegetables
You can tempura fry just about any vegetable you have in the kitchen. In this case we used mushrooms (halved), onions (peeled and sliced), sweet potato (peeled and sliced into rounds), and broccoli florets (from the freezer, no preparation required!).

Other suggestions might include: Bell peppers, carrots, cabbage, green beans, snap peas, cauliflower, baby corn.

2. Heat Your Oil
Bring the oil in your deep fryer or Dutch oven/cast iron pot to 360°F. Some electric fryers only allow you to increase the temperature in specific increments, so if that's the case, go for less temperature and longer frying time for root vegetables and a higher time for things like broccoli that won't require as long of cooking.

3. Prepare the Batter
In a medium to large size mixing bowl, add the rice flour and seasonings (if you wish). Next add the club soda, ensuring that it is cold before mixing. You're looking for the consistency of pancake batter. It should be loose enough to coat things easily, but not drip off completely on the way to the fryer. If the batter is too thick, add club soda or ice water 1 tablespoon at a time until mixture loosens. If too thin, add rice flour 1 tablespoon at a time until it comes together. Bubbles are good, lumps are bad, make sure to mix thoroughly!

4. Coat the Vegetables
Most vegetables can be tossed in the batter bowl ahead of time and allowed to sink a little to coat each one. It's far easier than hand dipping, which means of course that you have one batter covered hand the entire time (not always awesome). Toss items in and help them sink or roll to be coated with the batter. A flat whisk works wonders for this.

5. Fry the Vegetables
Next, lift vegetables out of the batter with your whisk (a fish spatula or large slotted spoon can also work out with success) and allow them to drain slightly, scraping the back of your whisk on the side of the bowl to remove excess. Drop vegetable pieces into the oil one at a time, ensuring that they don't touch. Most everything will immediately sink to the bottom (although mushrooms float). Use a spider strainer or long handled utensil (like a metal skewer) to loosen them and keep them moving. This will allow them to cook evenly on all sides. Cook root vegetables for 4 minutes and all others for 3 This time might differ if your oil is at a different temperature.

6. Remove From Oil
Remove your freshly fried pieces from the oil with a spider or the basket the unit comes with (though truth be told, we like to use the spider no matter what we're cooking in). Place them on a few layers of paper towels to allow remaining oil to drain. Give them a light sprinkling of salt and allow to cool slightly.

7. Return Oil to Temperature
Before dropping in your next load of veggies, make sure your oil comes back up to temperature. If it doesn't, things can get a little soggy and although they'll still be tasty once removed from the fryer, they will be a little greasy instead of crispy and chewy.

8. Repeat
Continue repeating steps 4 through 7 above until all of your vegetables have been coated, fried and hopefully enjoyed! This is a great way to entertain — simply tell people you'll provide the oil and ask them to bring a few of their favorite vegetables and gather round the table! Fry, nibble and chat away and let the good times roll!

Additional Notes:
• On Club Soda: Try tossing your club soda into the freezer while your oil heats up. It will be enough time for things to chill without freezing, allowing you to have perfect tempura pieces coming out of your fryer for longer! The colder the batter, the crispier your crust and less soggy your veggies will be!

Grilled Flatbread Pizza

I planned on making pizza for dinner tonight, and since zucchini week(s) is in full bloom, I thought I'd recreate this delicious zucchini parmesan pizza.  Then I saw a link on another blog to flatbread with creamy red pepper scallion spread.  I wasn't interested in the spread or the salad (I wanted pizza!), but the flatbread and the grilling sounded amazing.  And it was.

I followed the instructions from the blog on the flat bread (except I doubled it):

• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 cup warm water
• 2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for the bowl
• 2 1/4 teaspoons yeast
• 2 cups bread flour (or a little less, see directions)
• 1/2 cup medium grind cornmeal
• 1 teaspoon salt

Add water and sugar to the bowl of a standing mixer fit with a dough hook. Sprinkle in the yeast and let sit for 5 minutes to bloom.

Mix in the olive oil then Add one cup of the flour along with the salt. Mix on low until well incorporated, and then turn the speed up to medium and mix for 3 minutes.

Add another 1/2 cup of flour and the 1/2 cup of cornmeal, and mix well, starting on low and then switching to medium speed. Then add another 1/2 cup of flour, again starting on low and switching to medium. Knead on medium for about 5 minutes. You may occasionally have to get in there with your hands if the dough starts climbing up the hook. It should become smooth and elastic and slightly tacky. At this point, incorporate flour by the tablespoon, with the mixer running. When it starts to seem dry, stop adding flour. This could be anywhere between 1/4 and 1/2 cup. Knead again on medium until it is elastic easy to stretch, about 8 more minutes.

Meanwhile, drizzle about two tablespoons of olive oil into a large mixing bowl. The dough will double in size, so make sure you have enough room. Form the dough into a ball and place in the bowl, tossing it around to coat with oil. Cover the top in plastic wrap and put in a warm place. Let dough rise for about an hour, or until doubled in size.

When dough has doubled, fire up your grill. Keep the flame high and close the lid. If you have a thermometer, it should be at about 500 F.

Somewhere around this point I gathered all my toppings and sliced the veggies (thinly!) I also discovered as I was cooking that since my zucchini was a little on the big side, the slices weren't cooking much, so I took them off and grilled them directly on the grill- do this on a cooler part of your grill while the first side is cooking.  It helps to have all the toppings on a tray so they can be easily and quickly transported to the grill.

Punch the dough down, give it a quick knead and tear it into 4 equal-ish pieces. On a large cutting board, form each piece into an oval that is about 8 inches long and 5 inches across. I just use my hands for this, but you can use a rolling pin if you prefer.

Place the dough on the grill. It should take about 3 to 4 minutes for the bottoms to get grill marks and become firm. If it takes a little longer that’s cool, but definitely check one after 3 minutes.

Here is where I diverged from the original recipe.  When the first side of the flatbread is cooked (I burned mine a tiny bit on the first round) flip it over, turn down the heat a little and add pizza sauce and any toppings.  My favorite combo was the zucchini, eggplant, mushroom, tomato, parmesan cheese and bacon bits.  Make sure to put the grilled veggies on at this point and put a little more cheese over the top to hold everything on.  Close the grill and cook for a minute or two until the cheese is melted and toppings are as cooked as you'd like them.

Remove pizzas from the grill and cut them into manageable pieces and enjoy.  These were incredible.  My Mister even commented on how amazing they were after his first bite, and he doesn't dole out praise like that unless he really means it.  

I think we'll be using the flatbread recipe instead of pizza dough from now on.  The original blog post gives the following instructions for oven baking: 

~ If you prefer to bake the breads, you can do so in a 450 F oven, for 12 to 15 minutes. Place directly on a baking stone for the crispiest results, but a large baking sheet will work, too!

I think I might try it sometime when it's not so hot outside, and just roll it out regular pizza style.

Enjoy!

Cake Idea

I pulled this from the facebook page for the One Hundred Dollars a Month blog, since I can't pin from Facebook, I'm posting this here so I can try to duplicate this cake... I've never used fondant, so I'm interested in how it will turn out.  There's also a tutorial for fondant pigs here.  I love the grass and flowers around the bottom.

Chocolate Oreo Cake

We're going to a friend's house for dinner tomorrow, and I volunteered to bring dessert.  I have fond memories of my parents' friends, the Kelly's, coming to our house for dinner and bringing the most amazing desserts, and since I didn't have much else going on today, I thought I'd experiment a little.  I took three different recipes from pinterest and a google search and combined them all. The recipes are listed at the bottom of the blog post for convenience. It seems a little complicated with three different recipes, but they all came together pretty easily.  You could simplify even more by using a devils food or some other chocolate cake mix instead of the Hershey's recipe.

For the cake, I used Hershey's "Perfectly Chocolate" Chocolate Cake.

It turned out really good, but it stuck to the pan really bad.  I greased and floured the pan, and I still broke the first cake in half with getting it out of the pan.  Next time I'd put a coffee filer on the bottom of the pan to help with cake extraction.

I got the idea of pouring chocolate over a rather lumpy frosting from this mint chocolate chip cake, although I didn't use anything from the actual recipe (this time, it's on my list of cakes, since my kids like mint chocolate chip ice-cream).

For the frosting (including between cake layers), I used Oreo Frosting with Cream Cheese. In the middle layer I left the oreos a little chunkier, but for the outside, I processed them until they were pretty fine.  I wanted to be able to pour the chocolate glaze over the top without having any problems with big chunks of oreo.  For a two layer cake, I doubled the recipe, just to make sure I could spread it thick since it's hard to spread this frosting thin with the chunks of oreo.

Oreo Cream Cheese Frosting

Make sure to get help licking the beater

For the glaze, I used a recipe I found on pinterest that went with a chocolate pumpkin cake.  I'd really like to make the chocolate pumpkin cake itself sometime, or at least pour this glaze over some other brightly colored frosting.  Make sure to chop the chocolate really fine.  Mine didn't melt originally, and I ended up have to rig a makeshift double boiler to melt it all.  I also waited too long to pour it on the cake, so it didn't spill over the sides as evenly as I would have liked it.   That's something that will come with practice, so I see more cakes like this in my future.  The glaze itself was actually really easy.

Chocolate Cake:
1 3/4 cups of all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup cocoa
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil 
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water

Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour two 9-inch round baking pans.

Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour batter into prepared pans.

Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely. 

Frosting: 
8 oz package cream cheese, room temperature
1/4 cup butter, room temperature
3-4 cups powdered sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup crushed oreos

Whip cream cheese and butter until light and fluffy.
Mix in powdered sugar one cup at a time (until desired thickness is reached- I used 3 cups).
Add vanilla extract.

Gently stir in crushed Oreos. (I think it was around 9 oreos total)

Glaze:  

4 oz finely chopped bittersweet chocolate

1 tbsp cold unsalted butter

3 tbsp corn syrup

1/2 cup heavy cream

Place chopped bittersweet chocolate (I used semi sweet, and while I’m sure the end result is a different flavor than the original, it’s still very good), unsalted butter, and corn syrup in a medium heatproof bowl. 

Bring heavy cream to a boil, pour it over the chocolate, and let sit for 3 minutes. Gently stir, using a whisk, until smooth. Let sit for 3 to 5 minutes, until the glaze thickens slightly. Pour the glaze onto the center of the frosted cake and smooth out to the edges to allow the glaze to drop over the sides. Makes 1 cup. 

I topped the whole thing with a couple of oreos cut in half.  Not bad for a first try...

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