Lil Cakes 2

I have noticed something about red velvet cake. People either love it or they hate it. It is one of my favorite cakes. I love the flavor. It's not as sweet as other cakes which makes it so you can pile on the frosting and sugar sprinkles (something Henry is very good at *see below). And there is something so awesome about taking a blah tan-ish mixture and turning it bright red. It's just fun. Martha Stewarts Red Velvet cupcake recipe was by far the best red velvet cake I have ever had. I was not a purest with this one. I did not make cream cheese icing, because I don't really like cream cheese icing, and I didn't add walnuts. I made a fluffy vanilla buttercream and topped it with sprinkles instead.
Henry's take on red velvet is below. He feels that there really is no such thing as too many sprinkles on a cupcake.

Cakes

In my dreams I own a cupcake shop. It's tiny, with wood floors and brick walls. I imagine those old glass and wood cases full of layer upon layer of different cakes. There would be frosting shots for icing enthusiasts and naked cakes for weirdos that do not like frosting (like my hubby). So fun!
I have a deep and sincere love of the cupcake. I love it for its built in portion control. I love it for its super handy holder that can also serve as a frosting scraper should one get too much frosting (pfh, as if). I love how it perfectly holds one candle and for its inability to hold 32 candles (going on 33). It is a perfect model, never takes a bad picture. But most of all, I love it because it doesn't hold me down to one option. Make a cake, that's all you've got. Make cupcakes and you may have sprinkles or no sprinkles. Chocolate icing..yes please. Or maybe vanilla. Add a filling, if you like or turn the whole thing upside down and dip it in something rich and prepare to unbutton your jeans. I love cupcakes.Martha Stewart has a cupcake book and it has become my new bedtime story. I daydream about what cupcake coma I will enjoy next. I have to admit I have only made 2 recipes from the cookbook and both of them were okay. Not the best cupcakes I have made, definitely not the worst (so sad to remember those neon-red red velvet cakes I made 2 years ago, sitting so perfectly red in the trash can. Tasted like a wet sponge dipped in cardboard).
My idea is to try one of Martha's cupcakes each week Her cookbook has 175 recipes and I will not do all of them. Ahem, Ginger and Banana....no thanks. But I think I will try any of them with ingredients that do not make me want to hurl. Then I will take a pic and put it on this blog. I do recognize that this is not an original idea and no, I am not trying to create my own baked goods version of Julie and Julia. I don't have that kind of time.
In these pics are MS version of coconut cupcakes. My thoughts: too buttery. They almost tasted like bread. The frosting was good though. I think I'll try it again with less butter and more coconut. Coconut cupcakes are my favorite. Or maybe red velvet. No, german chocolate.

A Chocolate Send Off

I made chocolate cupcakes tonight for my coworker Shawn. Her last day is tomorrow and she loves chocolate. There is a whole lotta chocolate going on here. At first I was thinking I should have made a double batch so that everyone could have 2, but after trying my "test" cupcake I can't imagine that someone could eat more than one. They are fantastically rich.

This is a new recipe. I planned on topping the cupcakes with a chocolate ganache icing. Ganache is the really smooth chocolate in the center of a truffle and it makes a fantastic icing. But I couldn't get it to set up. So I put it in the fridge and threw together a chocolate buttercream. After icing all the cupcakes and wrapping them to store for the night I opened the fridge and found a bowl of perfectly set ganache . So, it looks like I am going to be making some more chocolate cupcakes tomorrow night. Anyone have a birthday this weekend?

Cupcake training

I took a cupcake class tonight at the Merc.
*First let me just say that if you like to cook and you live in Lawrence and you have never taken a class at the Merc you are really missing out. This was the 4th class I have taken and they have all been great. It's really inexpensive-$10-$15 for Merc members nearly that cheap for non-members too. While we were in this class we signed up for a class in May called "Cooking with herbs from your garden". Oh, I can't wait.
*Second, I don't mean to toot my own horn but I left the cupcake class thinking that my cupcakes are better then the ones from the class. Everything she made was buttercream which is normally fine with me and her icing was so light and delicate, but it was all butter, it tasted like flavored butter. And her cakes were too dense and also too buttery. And it isn't just that my tongue has not tasted butter for a while, my friend in the class and my Mom both thought that the butter flavor was too much.
*Third, I learned how to make a fabulous raspberry icing with a so so so good chocolate cake.
*Fourth, I feel pretty confident that if I took the time to make some cupcakes I could probably sell them pretty easily. The chef said cupcakes are all the rage now, which always seems to be my luck...I feel like I have found something original and unique just before everyone else finds it and it gets played out. But I still might give it a try, I mean I live in Kansas, we are always months behind the trend.
*Fifth, I ran into my old best friend Megan at the class. It was slightly awkward as it always is when I see people I used to run with. I am just not good at the overly friendly high-pitched "Ohmygoshhowareyou?Ialwaysthinkaboutyouandmissyousomuch" stuff. While all of that may be true, I tend to lose interest in those conversations quickly. And, inevitably they lead to the "What are you doing now?" question which I totally despise because I am really not doing anything interesting. But it was good to see her and she looks really happy which made me really happy. Plus, I am fat. I hate running into people that knew me pre-baby or as I like to call it during the BSM era (before stretch marks).

Anyway, I promised Henry that we could make cupcakes this weekend since I had to miss out on bedtime tonight. I think we do a vegan version of those chocolate cupcakes with raspberry gauche. I will post a picture.

Caffeine High

I’ve had 4 cups of coffee this morning and a coconut egg-which is no where near as good as a coconut nest, the best Easter candy on the planet, but I cannot find coconut nests anywhere this year...the green one, not the chocolate one. Anyway, between the coffee and the sweets I feel great this morning.

For the past few months I can’t stop listening to the news. I have NPR on pretty much all day. It’s funny because when I was a kid we carpooled with my neighbor Gina and her Mom would always drive in the morning and listen to NPR the whole time and I hated it. Now, I am that person! Crazy.

This weekend I am going to makes some cupcakes. I found some cute ones in Martha Stewart to use as inspiration. Henry is pumped, he loves helping.

This weekend I am also going to try to get some fabric to recover my dining room chairs. I am totally incapable of picking a fabric. This is my inspiration-

But I cannot seem to find anything like that in the stores but I found these, which aren't bad. What do you think?-Wait, there’s more. I just signed up for the Douglas County Aids Walk. If you want to make a donation or walk on our team (it's only 1 mile) let me know. :) {no pressure}

One more thing, thanks for reading my blog. I have been all over the place lately, feeling under the weather and grumpy. I am feeling a little better now so hopefully my blog will be a little more fun soon.

Yeah, that's right

Had kind of a rough few weeks so tonight I decided to do a little cupcake therapy. I did a "cookies and cream" version. They turned out really rich and yummy (the pictures, on the other hand, turned out no so good).

I took Friday off because my list of things to do before Tuesday is oh so very long....but squished into a mosaic it looks totally delightful so I am not complaining. The peppermint marshmallows turned out great so Friday I will do round 2. This batch is going on my White Elephant (with left overs to be dipped into chocolate and given to Wade's coworkers on Monday) Christmas party on Saturday with two snowman mugs from Target and some hot cocoa. Plus I have two wreaths to make. The ornament one is for my Mom and the gumdrop one is for me, if I can find gumdrops (help!). I am not finished stringing my cranberry and popcorn garland and if I don't get that on the tree soon the birds aren't going to have anything to snack on in January. Plus I am working on a stocking for my friends daughter. It is like the red one in the center photo. There is cookies to decorate and cupcakes to bake. If you are in the mood for Christmas crafts come on over to my workshop, I could use more elfin hands :)

Happy Holidays my blogger friends.

Things that make me happy Thursday

Cupcakes are the most versatile food. You can dress them up or dress them down. You can bring them to a kid's birthday party or serve them at a wedding. Make um for a holiday or just for the hell of it. They are fun for grownups and kiddos. They make people happy. That is why I love them. Well, that and there is just something so very lovely about having a tiny cake in your hand that you can eat without utensils and that will most likely leave icing on your nose.
For me some days are just cupcake days...it's like people that can sense when it is going to rain, I can sense when a cupcake needs to be made. This weekend is a cupcake weekend. I am leaning towards the chocolate cake with coconut icing ones in the picture above because they are just about the most delicious cupcakes on the planet. I think this time I will add some chopped almonds on top to make them officially "Almond Joy Cupcakes". But there are other options. One of my cupcake cookbooks has a recipe for Top Hats which are chocolate cupcakes with a huge swirl of marshmallow icing on them that are dipped in a chocolate sauce that hardens as it cools...HELLO! Yup, that one is on the list. And I still need to figure out my failed red velvet recipe. Either way cupcakes and Laura will be together this weekend and if that doesn't make me happy then nothin' will.

*Side note: A couple of people have emailed me asking where I get the cupcake papers for my cupcakes. I get them here. They are called Nut and Party cups. Enjoy!

Birthday-o-ween

As a kid I always wished that I had an October birthday. For starters my birthday is in August so I never got to bring birthday treats to school. Second, it just always seems like it would be so fun to have a birthday costume party. Henry's birthday falls so close to Thanksgiving every year that I imagine it might be sort of hard for him to have birthday parties when he is school age...maybe we will have early birthday parties over Halloween instead....

Well, these cupcakes are for my Mom. My parents spent the weekend in Chicago celebrating her birthday and so to surprise her and do something for the woman who is always doing something for everyone else, I put made these and left them on her kitchen counter with a bunch of sunflowers. I had Henry do a quality control on the cupcakes before we took them to Gigi's house. His analysis "Henwe like cupcake. More please. Nother Mama?" Fingers were licked as well as arms and shirts, so I think we were good to go.

Cupcakes

I found a way to combine two of my favorite things-cupcakes and knitting.....

Random and what not

So I am really digging this whole vegan thing. I feel great, have more energy, and have no guilt about what I am eating. Tonight we had sweet and spicy tofu, broccoli and brown rice and for dessert I had vanilla flavored almond milk. Unfortunately, I have not been good 100% of the time. Two reasons- 1) Laziness/inability to get to the grocery store 2) A bit of fear about the response I will get from my mother (especially when I tell her that I am likely to take Henry over to the vegan side also). I just don't even want to have that discussion.

On to my current other obsession, cupcakes....Okay, so just yesterday I was talking to Wade about getting a cupcake tattoo. It's nerdy, sure, but tattoos are fun and I love cupcakes so it seems fitting. Tonight I was searching for more vegan cupcake recipes and found this. Not only was I surprised to find someone with a cupcake tattoo (although I don't know about putting it on my hand) but I also LOVE the veggies on her fingers. Seriously, I am thinking of an all food half sleeve ;)
I dig this one, minus the stars, cherry and pink icing (I would probably do orange, big surprise).

Birthday cupcakes

This was my second attempt at vegan cupcakes, it turned out a little weird, kind of jello-ish...but the favor was yum and nothing is more fun than squirting in those two bottles of red food coloring. And since it is vegan you can eat all the batter you want, and I did :)