fifty

Before I get to the heart of this post, I'd like to mention that this is my fiftieth post here and thank all of you readers for following along in my adventures in the kitchen. Yay!


One of the hardest things about growing up, especially during the holidays, is negotiating what to carry with you from childhood and what to make anew. This is the second year I've spent Christmas away from my family - and I've been lucky enough to have my friend's family to take me in for the holidays. It's not the same, obviously, but it is certainly good in its own way.

Making new traditions can be nice, though, even if it's hard to give up that bit of your childhood. This year and last I've spent the night with friends before Christmas (last year it was Christmas eve, this year the eve of Christmas eve). Last year it was full of watching Nightmare Before Christmas, or at least part of it, before we fell asleep in the fort we made in the living room, and ice cream for breakfast.


This year was a little less childish. I woke up early to make the cinnamon roll dough, so that there was time for it to rise while everyone else was still sleeping. I listened to the This American Life Christmas special from a few years ago. I sipped breakfast tea, enjoying. I noticed the early morning winter light, somehow glad to be up before eight on a vacation day. Slowly my friends arose from their slumbers and joined me in waiting for the dough to rise.


Soon I was rolling out the dough, using my fingers to cover it with butter, while C.T. sprinkled the brown sugar-cinnamon combo over it. I kept getting giddy during the process, exclaiming, I'm making cinnamon rolls! (The novelty of baking has still not rubbed off, obviously.) Then there was nothing left but to wait for the rolls to rise a second time before popping them in the oven.


It was a way to carry a piece of my childhood into the burgeoning traditions of my adulthood. It's true, my mother may not have made cinnamon rolls from scratch - but they were still delicious and they were still a tradition that brought us closer together as a family. More than the ingredients, it was the love that mattered, and this is what I'm trying to bring forward into my life now.

I may have gotten up before eight on a holiday, and I may have burned myself pulling the buns out of the oven, but it was worth it. It was worth it because at the end, I had a table full of happy friends gobbling down cinnamon rolls. (Granted, I had to manuever eating my own rolls with an ice pack on my right hand, but luckily said happy friends were sweet to me, getting me more when required.) The cinnamon rolls were the focus, but really, I think it was the love behind them that was important.

Don't get me wrong, though, these cinnamon rolls were delicious. These three couldn't even wait for me to finish serving before digging in!


Cinnamon Rolls
adapted from Bon Appetit

DOUGH
1 cup milk
3 tbsp butter
3 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1 packet active dry yeast
1 tsp salt

FILLING
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp cinnamon
1/4 cup butter, room temp.

Melt the butter for the dough and mix it with the milk. In a large bowl, add a cup of flour, and the sugar, egg, yeast, and salt. Mix well, until all elements are combined. Add the rest of the flour until incorporated into the dough. It should start to pull away from the bowl. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead until smooth. If the dough feels sticky, sprinkle some flour onto it.

When you're done kneading, put just a splash of oil into a bowl, enough to very lightly cover the dough. (I used olive oil, since that's what was available, but since you're using only a very small amount, I don't think it matters too greatly what kind of oil you use.) Cover the bowl and let rise until doubled in volume. This took about an hour and a half for me, but depending on your surroundings, it could be a little less or a little more.

Mix only the brown sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. Grease some pans to put the rolls in.

Punch down the dough and move it to a flat, floured workspace. Roll it out and smear the butter all over the dough, following that with sprinkling the cinnamon-sugar mixture on top. Start to roll with the long side, making sure to keep it even. When it's all rolled up, cut the dough into segments. (If you're like me, the very ends will only have a little mixture, if any - you can throw these out, or take whatever mixture spills out of the others and sprinkle it on top and bake them, too.) Place the rolls onto the greased pans.

Let the rolls rise until about doubled in volume again - it might be a little harder to tell, but this should take about 40 minutes. Preheat the oven to 375F. When the rolls have risen, bake for 20 minutes. Let cool for as long as you can stand it, or as long as your friends will let you. Warning: it probably won't be long.

Vanilla Icing

3 tbsp milk
1 1/4 cup confectioner's sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla

Whisk the ingredients together until a creamy icing starts to form. You may need to add a little more milk or sugar, depending on the consistency you want.

photo...tuesday?

Hello, dear readers. I don't have a recipe for you today, so I figured since Friday is Christmas (already!) I would do a photo post early. Next week I'll have a special Festivus recipe for you, so stay tuned for that. Have a good holiday, everyone!

(As always, more film shots here.)

photo friday: sunrise, sunset

(As always, more on my flickr. Including more film shots!)

the last holiday cookie post

I used to be a picky eater. I'm sure I've mentioned this here before, because it's part of what makes this whole me-cooking-phenomenon so crazy. Luckily, I am also pretty polite, which is what finally started to force me out of that habit. I would be invited over to someone's house and it's not like I could refuse to eat what they served. That would be rude.

This was tested, of course, in Italy - where we wound up eating things like wild boar, hunted in Naples. I ate a lot of meat in Italy, actually, which is especially funny coming up on the two-year anniversary of becoming a for-realsies vegetarian. (My whole life I have been mostly-vegetarian. See above, re: picky eater. In addition to the moral issues with meat, I really just don't like the taste of it.)


Anyway, that's neither here nor there.

Oats were one of those foods I was picky about. To be blunt: I did not like oats. Oatmeal? Yuck. Granola? Pushing it. Oatmeal cookies? No, thank you. Clearly I came to love granola - another victory that can probably be chalked up to living in Italy, though I'm sure it also has to do with needing to rely on the granola in the cafeteria when there was nothing else to eat. Ah, college.


But oatmeal still kind of grosses me out, and by association, I can't remember the last time I had an oatmeal cookies. Until I decided to make them for my holiday tins. I realize this seems crazy. These were certainly not my favorite cookies, but I think they have made me reconsider oatmeal cookies.

Peanut Butter Oat Cookies
adapted from here

The original recipe calls for about 1/2 cup of the oats to be ground, in a food processor. I don't have one of those, so I winged it and just threw them in whole. It seems to have worked out. But if you have a food processor and would like to grind some oats, have at it!

3/4 cup peanut butter
4 tbsp butter
1 tbsp honey
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
2 eggs (room temp.)
1 1/4 cup rolled oats
3/4 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Mix together peanut butter, butter, honey, sugar, vanilla, salt, and baking powder. If you're using a mixer, this should only take a couple of minutes. I, however, hand-mixed and it might have taken a little bit longer (though not much). Add in the eggs one at a time, making sure to beat well after each addition.

Fold in the oats, followed by the chocolate chips.

Place the dough in about-tablespoon-sized drops onto a baking sheet. Bake for 10 minutes, rotating the sheet halfway through.

Let cool, and enjoy!

photo friday: sneaky snake

That's right, two sets of alliteration! Ha!

this legacy of baked goods

This past Sunday, four of us gathered for the third Friendsgiving - the smallest group yet, but possibly the best Friendsgiving. (I mean, we went to the playground and had a snowball fight. You can't get much better than that, right? Exactly.) There was tofurky, mashed potatoes, green beans, a squash/cranberry dish with brown sugar, and pumpkin cheesecake. Not to mention the cookies and wine I brought because I was afraid the cheesecake didn't turn out. (It did.)



None of that is what I am here to talk about.

Yesterday I received in the mail a note from my grandmother, thanking me for thinking of them and sending a tin of baked goods. She mentioned that she doesn't herself bake so much anymore, and it struck me just how much things change. I never would have thought that I would be the one to carry on this legacy of baked goods, and yet here I am, baking and writing about it every week.



As I mentioned last week, I also gave bags of treats to my friends - because honestly, what was I going to do with all those cookies? Even if I wanted to eat all of them, they would have gone stale before I got to half of them. (Of course, despite this, I have made two additional batches of those cookies. They're so good.) These three friends all happened to be at Friendsgiving (funny, that) and maybe some mention of chocolate peanut butter cups came up.

Later, though, in discussing why on earth someone would have a thermometer for making taffy, I brought up the fact that it could be used for other candy-making endeavors, as well. This earned a "but who makes candy at home?"



To which I slowly raised my hand.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups
adapted from here

I didn't keep very good track of how many cups I was making, and so the peanut butter is what the original recipe calls for. I certainly did not measure out the peanut butter, rather just scooping it into the cups. Also, I went through a lot of peanut butter over the Thanksgiving holiday, making all these treats, so I really have no idea how much I used for these alone. Use your best judgment.

12 oz. milk chocolate chips
1/2 cup peanut butter

Melt the chocolate down - you can do this in a microwave, obviously, but since I lack that particular appliance, I used a bowl set over simmering water. Using a small spoon, or a tiny pastry brush if you have one, cover the insides of miniature baking cups. (Remember you will need the rest of the chocolate to seal the cups later. Don't use all of it now!) Place in the refridgerator to chill. Depending on the temperature of your fridge, this should take about 20 minutes.

Fill the now-firm cups with peanut butter and cover with the remaining chocolate. Place back in the fridge to chill - again, this should take around 20 minutes, depending on your fridge. The chocolate should be firm.

photo friday: lomo

I've fallen pretty hard for this lomo film. Check out the rest here (it was hard to choose which to post)!

practically a saint

On Thanksgiving, while everyone ate big meals with their families, I baked - for my family, yes, but not with them. Five types of sweets and a couple cups of sugar and peanut butter later, my mother and grandmother have received the first Christmas tins I have ever sent. (Yes, I realize that it is only the first days of December. What can I say, I got the idea in my head and couldn't wait.)



It's hard to say exactly how this idea came about, where it came from. All I can say is that one day, it was there, and it refused to go away. Thanksgiving, the idea said, what better day to spend baking? So I collected recipes - some that have been written about here already, sugar cookies and peanut butter cookies - and some that I had been wanting to try for a while. I made a big trip to the supermarket. I made index cards of the recipes so I wouldn't have to haul my laptop into the kitchen.

And then, on Thanksgiving, I made four different kinds of cookies. I started baking early in the afternoon, armed with all my ingredients, my fairly-new baking rack, and - my saving grace - parchment paper. (Seriously. I already had to do some dishes between each batch, but at least I didn't have to rewash my cookie sheet each time! ...Possibly I should get another baking sheet, yes.) By about 5 or 6 o'clock, I was kind of done with cookies. One more, I decided, and the final treat I'll save for tomorrow.



Thank goodness I did. That final batch of cookies was to be my pièce de résistance, the star of the bunch. I tried one. Then another. If I may say so myself, they were kind of amazing. Somehow I managed to part with them, putting them in tins for my mother and grandmother, even saving some for my friends. (I know. I am practically a saint.)

Daniel pretty much instantly declared them the best of the goodie bag and when I spoke to my mother after she received her batch on Monday, she said they were the clear winner, though she took care to mention the other ones were good, too. Over the weekend, tins sent and bags given out, I kept eyeing the one bag I had yet to give away and knew what had to be done.



...so I made another batch on Sunday.

Buttermilk Cookies with Lemon Zest
adapted from Orangette

These are pretty much the perfect cookie, for me. They're sweet but not cloying, the sort of tender and delicate cookie that leads you to eat perhaps too many of them. Really. Just make these. You won't be sorry.

for the dough:
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp lemon zest
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
6 tbsp unsalted butter, room temp.
3/4 cup sugar
1 medium-to-large egg*
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup well-shaken buttermilk

for the glaze:
3/4 cup confectioners sugar
1 1/2 tbsp well-shaken buttermilk
1/4 tsp vanilla extract

* I got my eggs from the farmer's market, and they're labeled 'medium' - I just used one of the larger ones.

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Whisk flour, lemon zest, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl. In a large bowl, mash the butter until it smears easily. (I like to use a wooden spoon because of the control it gives me. You can try an electric mixer if you like!) Add sugar and cream the two together. Add in the egg and beat well. Add vanilla, repeat. Mix in a third of the flour mixture, then about half the buttermilk, flour, buttermilk, flour. Be sure to incorporate each well before adding the next step.

Place the dough in drops on the baking sheet. Bake for about 15 minutes.

While the cookies are baking, prepare the glaze by whisking together confectioners sugar, buttermilk, and vanilla. The original recipe calls for sifted confectioners sugar - I tried it sifted and unsifted and there wasn't too much of a difference, though sifting is kind of fun. Make sure there aren't any lumps of sugar, though, in the finished product.

Let the cookies cool on the sheet for a little bit, then transfer to a wire rack if you have one. Brush (or spoon) the glaze onto the warm cookies. Wait until the glaze has set, then enjoy!

photo friday: film

From my first roll off the Nikon N80, more here.

gratitude

Unlike certain others of my friends, I've never been a huge fan of Thanksgiving. It's fine, but it's no Halloween. It hasn't been a family holiday since I left for college, at least in the traditional sense. Greensboro was a long way from Florida, and it never made sense to travel such a long way for such a short time. (I suppose I probably inherited my lackadaisical attitude about Thanksgiving; no one in my immediate family has seemed enthusiastic about the whole ordeal.) I've had the big dinner with the family of friends - driving down to Atlanta with my freshman year roommate, or having a friend's family take me to a cafeteria in Greensboro. I've spent Thanksgiving alone in a dorm room.


Two years ago, I had my first "Friends-giving" (also called Friend-Thanksgiving) with Daniel, Jo, and some of our GSO friends who were similarly in town for the holiday. This was before cooking sunk its claws in me, so my contribution was wine-bringing and bread-crumb-making. The three of us wound up in the same city after Jo & I graduated, so we brought the newly minted tradition of Friend-Thanksgiving with us. This really just meant that we all had two Thanksgivings in three different places, between the five of us that participated.


And this year, for the third year in a row, we will have Friend-Thanksgiving. And for the first time, I am responsible for something other than wine! That's right, this year I will be making my pumpkin cheesecake again. Which is why there's no recipe here today. But don't you worry, I have Other Holiday Baking that I am doing, which is kind of hush-hush right now, so there will be all sorts of goodness in the coming weeks. I'm excited.

(I realize I don't actually talk about gratitude in this post, but suffice it to say I am so grateful for these people who have welcomed me into their families for Thanksgiving, and who have joined with me to form our own little families, and also - of course - for my own family, even if I haven't shared Thanksgiving with them in a while.)

photo friday: remembering summer

(Still waiting for film. The rest of summer can be found here.)

perfect as a Sunday can get

Sundays, I think I've mentioned before, are usually one of my least favorite days. Sundays are days full of goodbyes and gearing up for the long haul of the workweek. This past Sunday, though, was pretty much as perfect as a Sunday can get - four of us went for the best pizza in the city, then walked it off at the Zoo, and three of us continued to play a whole bunch of Mario Kart and eat a delicious dinner (which is not what I'm going to talk about, sorry, I was too busy playing Mario Kart).


Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures from the day, though not for lack of cameras. We averaged a camera per person, with 2 SLRs, a baby Holga, and a digital. Three of those were mine; yes, yes, I know, I am some kind of monstrous fiend. My goal was to use up my second (!) roll of black and white film that came with my N80, and so I never really thought to pull out my digital camera.

It's funny, shooting with film again after so long with the instant gratification of digital and Polaroid has made me think about things totally differently. I've been forced to consider light and how that will effect the outcome of the photos, about ISO and aperture and other things that I am really still just learning about. It has also forced me to be patient - every roll of film I've shot so far has needed to be sent to the labs, which they say takes two weeks but is really more like three, in my experience. So I wait.


And in the meantime, I bake.

Bread, mostly, this weekend. I attempted a pumpkin ale beer bread, which smelled fantastic but was not exactly what one might call delicious. I'm not sure if it was the recipe (which seemed fairly complicated) or me, but either way, I ended up with most of a loaf of bread in the trash. C'est le pain. Luckily, I had a back-up plan.


Perfect Sunday Rolls

These really deserve a better name than that, but what can I say? I'm not great at naming food. Anyway, these are fantastic. I kind of couldn't stop eating them. I imagine they'd be good with pretty much any kind of dinner, though they, uh, also make a pretty good breakfast (with some Nutella!).

1/4 cup warm water
1 cup hot water
1 package (2 1/4 tsp) active dry yeast
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter
2 tbsp sugar
1 1/4 tsp salt
1 large egg
2 3/4 cup all-purpose flour

Combine 1/4 cup warm water and yeast in a small bowl for about 5 minutes, or until dissolved.

In a large bowl, mix the butter, sugar, and salt. I find it's easiest if the butter is room temperature or softer, especially for this next part. Pour 1 cup hot water over the butter mixture and stir until dissolved. Let cool a little (by the time you're done stirring, honestly, it should be cool enough) and stir in the yeast.

Add in the egg, beating until fully mixed, then pour in the flour until a dough starts to form. Transfer the dough to an oiled bowl, cover with tin foil, and set in the refridgerator for 2 to 12 hours. (I left mine in there for about 5 hours.)

Punch down the dough and divide into as many rolls as you'll want. Shape into rounds and place onto baking pan to let rise for 45 minutes.

Preheat oven to 425°F.

Bake for about 18 minutes. Move to a rack to cool.

photo friday: blue

I know, I've moved on!

winter is coming

And so are all the winter illnesses.

Oh, dear reader, I am fighting (what I figure is) the common cold. I don't know about you, but when I start to get sick, all I want is to be taken care of. Since I've moved away from home, I am the one who has had to take care of me. This has taken a lot of different forms in the past: early in my college career it was drinking absurd amounts of Juicy Juice (100% vitamin C, plus childhood nostalgia) until I moved on to the Odwalla juice that was more readily available on campus, then in Italy it was gallons of Earl Grey and blood oranges (again with the vitamin C, you'll notice a trend).


So when I woke up on Sunday with the sniffles, I knew what had to be done. I got dressed and went out into the gloriously-near-70° weather, trucking myself to the grocery store. Unfortunately, my beloved blood oranges are not as easily found here as they were in Italy, but my 5-lb. box of clementines works just fine. Better, in fact, since I am rarely in the mood for a full-sized orange.


I also got the only kind of soup I really genuinely like and would buy for myself (I know, this might make me some kind of monster), namely, creamy tomato & basil. This might be because it is a nearly perfect vehicle for animal-shaped cheese crackers. I'm pretty sure these are key to feeling better, actually, because treating yourself like a little kid while you're sick seems like a pretty good way to go. Plus, they are delicious.

And so, in lieu of a recipe today, I give you my not-so-secret cough remedy. I don't remember where I heard about this, only that one night when I was coughing so hard I could barely lie down, let alone go to sleep, it was the only thing that helped. And that is: drinking a cup of hot water. Just heat up some water like you're going to make tea, except instead of steeping tea, drink it. It works wonders, I swear it.

photo friday: fall, part III

More fall, because I am a fiend. For fall. And alliteration.

a good feeling

It was granola.

That was when I really knew I was in deep. I mean, what kind of a weirdo hippie makes her own breakfast cereal? This kind, obviously. More than that, it was the first cooking project that seemed maybe beyond my ken. Sure - I had looked at recipes and it seemed simple enough, but still. Granola? That didn't seem like something someone (like me) should just be able to make, willy-nilly.


I was wrong, of course.

And that's what I'm learning: with enough patience, nothing is necessarily out of my ability range. Don't get me wrong, I am by no means claiming to be good at everything. After all, remember this? I'm still just starting out at this cooking thing, slowly learning to experiment in the kitchen. It's a good feeling.

Unfortunately, I haven't been in the kitchen much lately. I've been swamped at work so when I get home I'm either too tired to cook or I've gone to hang out with friends. And, still being swamped, don't have much time to write this very blog post! But don't you worry, dear reader, I've still got granola for you.


Granola

3 cups rolled outs
1/2 cup raw almonds, chopped
2 tbsp sugar
6 tbsp mild honey
2 tbsp vegetable oil (I use canola)
1/2 cup bittersweet chocolate, chopped
pinch of salt
dash (or two) of cinnamon

Preheat oven to 300°F.

Combine oats, almonds, sugar, cinnamon, and salt in a large bowl.

Warm the honey and oil together, whisking gently until the honey is loose. Pour over the dry ingredients and stir well.

Spread the mixture over a cookie sheet. Bake for 10 minutes. Stir carefully and put back in for another 10 minutes. When done, remove and stir again. Let cool.

Transfer to a large bowl and stir in the chocolate. Store in an airtight container.

photo friday: fall, part II

favorites

Fall is my favorite season (if you couldn't tell by that last post) - every year it brings a welcome reprieve from the oppressive heat of summer. Fall and winter were the main reasons I couldn't make it in Florida; I don't do well in heat. Especially not Florida heat, which is humid but which also never really leaves. The joke is that there are two seasons in Florida - hurricane season and not.

Besides the cooler weather, though, fall has the added benefit of being the season wherein many of my favorite activities take place. Mostly I mean Halloween, which is hands down my favorite holiday. Even lackluster Halloweens are still great - the time two years ago when it was on a Wednesday and my dear roommate Becca and I dressed up to go to Buddhist meditation stands out. (Though really, any time you get to dress up and go out in public is a-okay by me.)


It's also the season of pumpkins - which means the season of my favorite beer (pumpkin ale) and my favorite pie (pumpkin, obviously). I honestly did not realize I liked pumpkin so much until this year, actually. Apparently I'm really into it. You can probably guess what this recipe is going to involve.

One of the main reasons I started this blog was because I hated my job so much. There were no real upsides to that job, other than that it did pay me. It slowly got worse and worse, and then luckily I managed to escape. But it did give me one thing - every month a company newsletter was sent out and every month I read it, not because I really cared what was going on in the company, but because I was so eager for something to do that wasn't work. (Or, because I had nothing to do and needed to look busy, else be sent to the file room. Oh, that wretched file room...) There were, however, also recipes in those newsletters. Most of them weren't great - or not appropriate for a vegetarian - but one grabbed my eye what must have been a year ago.


Pumpkin Cheesecake

That's right. It's like combining my two favorite desserts: pumpkin pie and cheesecake. I'm pretty sure that's a no-fail right there. I was a little surprised at how easy it was to make cheesecake, too. Because of the pumpkin addition, it feels a little healthier to eat than regular cheesecake.

filling:
16 oz. cream cheese, room temp.
3/4 cup sugar
15 oz. can pumpkin
1 1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1/4 tsp salt
2 eggs

crust:
1 cup graham cracker crumbs
1 tbsp sugar
4 tbsp butter, melted

Combine the ingredients for the crust and spread over the bottom of a 9 inch springform pan. Let chill in the refrigerator.

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Beat the cream cheese and sugar together until blended. Mix in pumpkin, spices, and salt. Add in the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Pour over the crust in the springform. Bake for 50 minutes.

Chill for as long as you can stand it (overnight is best).

photo friday: fall

(I know, I know, but I can't help myself when it comes to alliteration.)

den of vipers

I entered college with a pretty firm idea of what I planned to do there: I would major in English and International Studies, and then go into government, making change from the inside. Needless to say, things did not exactly go according to plan.

Within a few days of my first semester, before the first class had even met, I dropped my International Relations course because the book was too expensive. I discovered the Buddhist meditation group, met Eric, and the following semester I took a class he taught called "Oracles, Augury, & Divination." There was no turning back after that: I was a Religious Studies major. It wormed its way into my heart quickly; looking back, it makes perfect sense, since I was the sort of child who read encyclopedia entries on different religions for fun. (True story.)


At the end of every semester, there was a department party. I don't remember a lot of details - like the first one I went to, for instance - but what shines through is a feeling of belonging, of togetherness, of home. I remember attending one at John's house before he retired, driving with two dear friends only a few weeks after I had been dumped. I remember winter parties at Eric's on-campus faculty housing, hot mulled cider ladled out into mugs. I remember being a senior myself and finding myself surprised that I had to make a speech with the other seniors. I remember crying at the end of my speech, and getting blamed later for setting the trend.

However, there was also the baked brie. I can't tell you how popular this stuff was, except to say that when the dish was brought out, we all promptly stopped socializing with each other to shove our faces full of this cheese. Suddenly we would be ravenous.

I made this for one of Josh's potlucks, before this cooking thing really sunk in - though a step up from all the college potlucks I went to, where my offering was usually boxed macaroni and cheese (I know, I know). The technique works well with camembert, too; we used butter and almonds for that one.


Baked Brie á l'Eric

Best served with a crusty bread, a baguette. I'm not sure if this is exactly how it was made for those department parties, but it's still pretty tasty. Also, my pictures are a little deceiving - I didn't quite get all the rind off, because I was in a hurry. It's not a big deal, since the rind is edible, but still. Luckily this - like most everything else I post here - is pretty easy.

wheel of brie
maple syrup

Pre-heat oven to 325°F. Scrape the rind off the top of the brie and cut a cross (or an X, or a T, you get the idea) into it. Pour maple syrup on it. Bake for approximately 10 minutes.