Succulents and sweets

I was lucky enough to have this weekend off. Other than the regular errands of grocery shopping, laundry and whatnot, I had no plans. I spent this weekend relaxing at home and working on a couple of projects.

This is the first weekend we have had of real spring weather. I like spring, but I lament the coming Summer, because it means nothing but misery in this neck of the woods. I was anxious to get some stuff planted while the weather is still agreeable. There were two things in the way. The first being a serious lack of funds, and the second being an uncertainty of where I will be living in the immediate future. It would be a shame to spend all that engery planting a lovely garden and then having to leave it behind.

I made do by using two cheap, old planters I had lying around the patio. I planted two different typed of tomatoes. Hopefully they will do better this year, than last Our patio doesn't get much sun, so the plants tend to suffer. By being in containers I can move them around to take full advantage of the small bit of sun we do get, and I can also take them with me when I move.

A lovely shot that includes our spool table and a rail road spike I found.

I was at my Mom's house a few weeks ago, and was going through a lot of old stuff. There was a lot of the standard baby stuff. Also, random things that I had thrown away but my mom salvaged, thinking I might want it some day. There was also a small amount of stuff that I had asked her to keep when I moved out back in 2004. This was very exciting. One of my best finds was a turtle planter. This planter lived in the yard at the house I grew up in. One day I brought it into my bedroom and declared it mine. When my Mom saw the planter she said "It is hardly crazed!" I learned that night that crazed has another meaning that I did not know about. But it was funny thinking that she was amazed that the turtle had kept its sanity all this time.
I decided to plant some succulents. I am terrible at keeping plants alive, and succulents seem to be very forgiving. I have also been becoming fond of them lately and was excited to have an excuse to buy some.

Looks pretty sane to me.

I was overly ambitious when buying succulents and I bought more than could be crammed into this tiny shell. I was left with one left over succulent and no place to put it. Luckily I had a plethora of left over mason jars from last year's canning.

Not the best shot, but you get the idea.

After having a lovely time greening up my space, I knew I had actual work to do, and I was dreading it. I had to practice making a 5 inch wedding cake. It has been going only so-so thus far, and I was beginning to get nervous. I am happy to say that today was a great success. I made a lemon cake and slapped on some cream cheese frosting I had in the freezer. It looks beautiful. One of the cakes broke in half, the cream cheese frosting was a runny, weird consistency from being frozen and I left the cake at weird angle in the fridge last night, causing it to be all slopey and uneven. With all those things stacked against me, it still turned out super cute.

I know. So darling. And my little $6 cake plate- best purchase ever.

If it is this cute now, imagine how fantastic it will turn out when I am making it up to my usual baking perfectionist standards.


Since I have no excuse to eat an entire top tier of a wedding cake by myself, I will be making a second attempt at cake balls tonight. I will be so happy after this wedding is done. I am burnt out on baking. It is just getting too warm. I do think my newest obsession will be popsicles. I already make a mean limber de coco. I do think it is time to expand my repertoire.

I'm still here

Jeez Louise, it has been almost a month to the day since I last posted. My blog is still a newborn and already I am neglecting it. Just like I do in The Sims...

Anyway, much has been happening.

On the home front, Eric and I both had terrible, awful colds at the beginning of the month. I wore myself out running around, and eventually it got the better of me and I had to stay in bed for three days. Eric had mid terms and finals while he was sick. But he really is the epitome of awesome, because he got all A's.

On the baking front, I had my first wedding consultation with one of my coworkers sisters. It was wildly successful. I am so happy to be making cupcakes for their big day. And I couldn't ask for nicer people to have for my first wedding clients. In addition to cupcakes, I am also making a small wedding cake for them to cut for photos and whatnot. This means brushing up on my fondant skills, so there has been lots of practice there. I made a few new cupcakes for them to try out, and I will be posting those soon.

On the job front I have my most exciting news. I applied for a higher position, and they made me an off, which I happily accepted. This new position includes salaried pay instead of hourly, and also four weeks of vacation a year. This is a big improvement over what I have now. This feels like such a grown up job. My goal was to be in this position by the time I was 27, so I ended up two years early. To say I am stoked is an understatement. The only downside is that I am not sure where I will be working yet. I have been assigned a district that is absolutely huge, and includes my home town.  Upside, seeing my family. Downside, actually moving back there and having nothing to do except go to The Walmart. Not Walmart, but The Walmart. Things are very, very up in the air right now, which takes me way outside of my comfort zone, but it is all very exciting at the same time.

Coming soon, two new recipes and perhaps cake pops.

Oh the one other thing. I finally saw Black Swan, like a year later. I am an old lady who hates kids these days and they are always out in droves at the movies, or the talkies, as I call them. It reminded me of Carrie with more lesbians,and less talk of dirty pillows. Also, I have not seen Avatar, but recently a friend described it as being exactly like Fern Gully, only the blue people rape everything with their braid/tails. Now I feel like I have seen it without having given up three hours of my life. I win!

Conveneience store cupcakes-redone part two

As fun as it was to revisit a cupcake idea I had previous done. I was much more excited to try out something new. Snowball cupcakes. They would look just like those little pretty pink cakes that I always thought would be better than they actually tasted, only these would be tasty, or at least that was my hope.

For number eight, I used the same chocolate cake recipe and filling as I did for number seven of my 26 before 26 quest.

One of the things I was looking forward to was dying my coconut. I had never done this before, and even though shaking a container full of food coloring and coconut may not be everybody's idea of a good time, I was jazzed. The first time I dyed my coconut, it was too red. Not a red red, more of a Sarah Goldfarb red. A strange dark pink/orange/red combo. Luckily I  had just enough to do over. The second time around they came out a very lovely and dainty shade of pink.

By the time it came to the frosting, I was pooped. I thought about making something from Martha Stewart, or numerous other places. Seeing some recipes prepared with fluff, I had bought some at the store on Monday when getting all my supplies. What I didn't get was cream of tartar, which just about all of the other recipes called for. So on Thursday night after work, it was decision time. I could go to the store again, or make some fluff butter cream. The more I thought about it, I didn't want to mix my fluff with butter. I liked fluff how it was, and I wanted a very marshmallow-ey taste.

I decided to use the fluff in it's natural form. Each cake was topped with a big mound of fluff, and then pretty, pink coconut shavings were mushed into it.

They were lovely. The picture of perfection. It did not last long.

By the time I put them all away in the fridge, I noticed the fluff was sliding. I was worried because I was all out of the good coconut and there was not incomplete coverage. I wasn't sure if I wanted to take them to work anymore, but I needed enough to feed everybody. I decided that having the pink coconut look more like a garnish than a thick, plush blanket of coconut goodness was still good enough.


The next morning I woke to an awful sight. I wasn't terribly surprised. I went to bed feeling uneasy, and when I woke up before my alarm, I actually got up to check on my cakes instead of savoring those last 10 minutes of sleep. When I looked in my fridge I saw that more than half of the fluff was all the way off of the cupcakes, dripping down the sides of the liners, onto the tray and even on to the innocent chocolate cupcakes below.

With zero time to waste, I scraped the fluff off of all the cupcakes, ditched the cute little aluminum liners and set them in some ill-fitting pastel ones. Yuck. A frantic search on my iphone lead me to this recipe from Paula Deen. I love Miss Paula. She loves butter and her teeth are a frightening shade of white. Plus there is this, which makes me laugh while creeping me the fuck out. This is like the salad fingers of our time.



Anyway, I got down a double boiler I had bought at a thrift store a few months ago and got to work.

I honestly don't know where I went wrong. Maybe it was the pan, maybe the mixer, maybe the corn syrup. The double boiler makes it almost impossible for water to get in and ruin the party, but perhaps that is what happened, because the entire thing seized up. The beginning of the recipe is very much like swiss meringue, which I have no problem with. But this was not happening. When I hit the seven minute mark, my sugar was still grainy. Not just a little grainy, but super grainy. I kept going on, hoping it would fix itself. After about 12 minutes I gave up. The frosting had a terrible texture, but was tasty. I ended up putting it on the cupcakes. It wasn't very good at all, but I think I was bothered by it more than anybody else. The silver lining is that these were covered in so much Sarah Goldfarb red coconut that the gritty texture kind of blended in with the texture of to coconut.

I would like to say that they looked better in person, but yeah.. nope.

They definitely weren't the lovely, light pink beauties I had imagined, but I am just happy that they made it to my break room. This will be one to revisit, but not for a long while.

Convenience store cupcakes-redone part one.

I barely made the cupcakes in time to commemorate my coworker's farewell. With preparation every night after work and an emergency frosting do-over in the morning, I was very tired by the time I was done. And cranky. Still, overall I am pleased with how they turned out.

I ended up doing variations of pre-packaged cake foods. The first one to be completed was the classic chocolate Hostess cupcake. My very first time making cupcakes as an adult was when my work was doing a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society Relay for Life. We had a bake sale, and I thought cupcakes would be the perfect thing to bring. One of the types I made was a variation of the chocolate Hostess cupcake. It was fun to revisit it four years later. They turned better this time around, but looking back on it, I am impressed with the effort I made the first time around. I had never made anything other than a packaged cake mix, and I remember messing that up at least once in my youth. But still I went balls out and made chocolate cupcakes from scratch, filled them, covered them with ganache and topped them with a white swirl. I didn't even know what ganache was.

So here is number seven on my quest to complete 26 cupcakes before my 26th birthday.

They got a little roughed up on the way to work.

I used this chocolate cake recipe from Kevin and Amanda. I don't follow any blogs religiously, but this is one I am always coming back to. Full of great ideas, plus Kevin, Amanda and their dogs seem so cute and likable.

The cream filling recipe was from Retro Desserts. I found it though Baking Bites.

For the ganache I used my old standby of 9oz semi sweet chocolate with 8 ounces of heavy cream. I topped it off with a royal icing swirl. This was my first time making royal icing. It made way, waaaaay, more than what I needed, so it felt a little wasteful, but I had to have the swirls. I ended up going with this recipe from Alton Brown.

Overall, these were delicious. The chocolate cake was nice and moist, the filling was creamy and the ganache was smooth and shiny. You can't really beat that. They were very, very decadent. I would say that they are so rich that you really can't finish one by yourself, but that would be a lie. But they are so rich that I could share half of one with somebody and not feel gypped.

These were wonderful -a little time consuming, but not incredibly difficult. The other cupcake totally made up for how easy these ones were. The tragic tale will be highlighted in number eight of my quest for 26 before 26.

Getting ready for my week

Is it really only Tuesday? The first week of the month is always crazy busy at work. This week, I am making the banana cupcakes for a birthday, and two extra special cupcakes for a send off to somebody at work. To add to the craziness, Eric's grandparents are coming to see him on Thursday, his dad is coming over on Friday, and on Saturday we are driving out to Pinon Hills to see his mom and step-dad, perhaps after a trip to Ikea.

With my commute, I haven't been getting home each night this week until around 7:00 at the very earliest. I have to get home, get cooking, and then clean everything up that night, instead waiting for Eric to do all of the dishes after school.

Monday I went to the grocery store to get everything I needed. And today I got a few of my ducks in order.

They don't all match, but the only reason they are even in plastic containers is because I ran out of ziplock bags.

This is turning out to be a busy week.

Banana Cupcakes-Three Ways

I made these for a coworker who was thinking about ordering some banana cupcakes for his mom's birthday next month. I whipped up a small batch, and a few different frosting options.

So, I present to you number six on my quest for 26 cupcakes before my 26th birthday.

I frantically made these on a work night, so I have no action shots, but here is the finished product. Crooked shot in a poorly lit, and boring kitchen. But check out that cutesy little cake plate! My bestie and I went to Marshals last week where I picked this up for $6. I almost didn't because my tiny apartment is crowded as it is. But I am so glad I got this, as it now has a permanent place in my heart. It is just so dainty and twee.

Not to toot my own horn, but these were easily the best banana cupcakes I have ever had. I love fake banana flavor in runts, and laffy taffy, but artificial banana has no place in cupcakes. And these cupcakes are pure squidgy banana heaven. The front left is topped with peanut butter frosting. The back one is a mixture of butter, cream cheese, and some toffee I made on the stove top, I dd this because I ran out of honey when trying to make a honey cream cheese frosting and had to find something new. It was good, but not great. The right is frosted with nutella frosting. So good.

I have a confession to make about my cupcakes. When I started out baking a few years ago, I was intent on making no shortcuts. Everything from scratch, all the time. But recently I have starting using something that cuts the work in half..

.. boxed cake mix.

I know, I know... I am feeling very brave to admit this. But occasionally I will use a box cake mix instead of measuring all the dry ingredients, sifting them, creaming the butter and sugar and all that jazz. There are some cakes I absolutely will not use a mix for. But for certain cupcakes the finished products are almost identical whether you make it all from scratch, or use a box mix to help you on your way. This is one of those recipes.

Whenever I use a boxed cake mix I always follow a few basic rules to get the most out of it

1. Use room temperature ingredients. This is a must when baking from scratch, and it is not to be ignored when using a boxed mix either. You are already saving time, so you will have a little bit to spare to make sure everything is at the right temperature.
2. Never use water. If the cake mix calls for water, I use buttermilk. But on occasion I have used coconut milk, or regular 1 % milk. Buttermilk will gave your cake a nice crumb, and is the main component to not having a boxed cake taste. If you don't keep buttermilk on hand, just add a few teaspoons of white vinegar to some milk and let it sit for a few minutes. I wouldn't do this in a recipe that is based on the flavor of buttermilk, like buttermilk pie for instance, but it works great for cakes.
3. Play around with your recipe. Because the cake mixes are so cheap (you can find them for under $1 on sale), and so quick to throw together, you don't have to be timid about your baking. If you want to try something new, you can even halve a recipe and just use half a bag of mix.

With a box of yellow cake mix sitting in my pantry for inspiration, this is what I came up with for banana cupcakes.

Ingredients:

• 1 box yellow cake mix (I use Pillsbury if at all possible, I think it comes out the best)
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 3 eggs
• 5 ripe bananas. When I say ripe, I mean what most people refer to as overripe. Lots of black specks, but no obviously mushy or gross parts
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 3 tablespoons brown sugar (give or take some)

Directions:

• Melt the butter in a saute pan, then slice your bananas and throw them in there with the brown sugar. Cook them for a few minutes until your kitchen smells like delicious caramel and bananas.
• Place the bananas in a stand mixer and beat on high for a few minutes with your paddle attachment. This will break down the bananas and help cool them more quickly. Let your bananas reach room temperature before continuing. I ended up sticking mine in the freezer for a few minutes.
• Mix the milk and eggs in with the bananas, them add the cake mix.
• Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes. My oven is crazy, so your times may vary.

The peanut butter frosting was the most successful. Together with the banana cupcake, it has made it onto my list of cupcakes that I am creating for coworkers who want to place orders as The Elvis Special. I thought it was cute.

 For the peanut butter frosting:


Since I was making such a small amount, I didn't measure at all. I would guess that I used about 1/3 cup peanut butter, 1/2 cup butter, 2 Tablespoons milk, and 1.5 cups powdered sugar.

• Cream together equal parts of peanut butter and softened butter. Make sure the butter is very soft, and that you cream them together well.
• Slowly add in the milk, and then powdered sugar until everything looks creamy and delicious.

These cupcakes were heaven. Go get some bananas and make them today. You can thank me later.

26 before 26

As you may recall, part of the reason this blog came into existence is that it was on my 25 before 25 list. I started it less than a month after my birthday, so it almost counts. Never mind the fact that there are several other things I did not accomplish and I only thought of 24 things...

So now I am issuing a new challenge to myself, 26 before 26. However this will not be a list of personal goals or experiences I wish to obtain by my next birthday. Instead, this is all about cupcakes.

My dream is to one day get out of the rat race and get into baking as a career. I imaging quitting my job and taking a job for less pay and worse hours at a little bakery somewhere, and then eventually, opening my own. More work, more stress, less money, but hopefully a little more joy in what I do for a living. Right now this is just a dream, but while I am waiting for the day to come when we are at a place where I can quit my job, I am going to practice all I can.

26 cupcakes may not seem like a whole lot to do in a year. One new cupcake every two weeks. However, living in the Inland Empire, it is hotter than Hades in the summer, I cringe at the thought of turning on my oven, so I tend to get my sweet fix from homemade popsicles, so there is never a cupcake in sight.

Each new recipe will get its own special post from now on. I could start over at number one right now since I don't have pictures of all my past creations for the year, but spring is just around the corner, so there is no time to lose.


The list so far-

1. Lavender cupcakes with vanilla swiss meringue buttercream
2. Vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream
3. Red Velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting
4. Strawberry cupcakes with nutella frosting
5. Carrot cake cupcakes with spiced cream cheese frosting

I am on my way. I have two new cupcakes to try next week that I am very excited about, as well as a banana cupcake a little later this week.

One thing is for sure, I will be loved and hated by my coworkers for the onslaught of cupcakes coming to our break room soon.

In bloom

I had a very lovely Valentine's day.
I spent the day at my mother in law's flower shop where I used to work before my current job in banking. I had a very nice time arranging flowers, chatting with Sandie and making friends with one of the customers. Because I don't work there anymore, I actually enjoyed seeing all the flowers and wasn't sick of them by the time I went home. Sandie graciously gave me a package of roses to do with what I wanted. I went to Trader Joe's to go through the sad remains of left over flowers from the Valentine's Day rush.


I made two arrangements from the flowers I picked up from Trader Joe's, but with no filler I decided to do something different with all my red roses, and I made a kick-ass bridal bouquet.  I wrapped it with this really pretty cherry blossom printed ribbon I had lying around from the last time I made a diaper cake.

It was sweet.

Unfortunately this style of floral arrangement is meant to be carried, not precariously balanced in a vase. It is very top heavy, which my poor husband found out when he brushed by it and it toppled to it's doom.
Fortunately not too much harm was done, and my bouquet has been transformed into a pave style arrangement which now sits on my coffee table where I am sure it will be admired by my husband and his friends tomorrow as they clear it off to make room for their Magic cards...

Red Velvet Valentine's Day Cupcakes

In honor of Valentine's Day, I wanted to try my hand at making some red velvet cupcakes. After scouring the interwebs for the most delectable looking red velvet cake, I decided to use this recipe from the fabulous Bakerella, with a few modifications. Namely, upping the cocoa and vanilla, and substituting some of the oil for butter. I think it is my southern genes coming through, but it pains me to make a cake with no butter.

Here is what I ended up using:


Red Velvet Cupcakes
 
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
2 Tablespoons cocoa
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 eggs at room temperature
1  cup oil
1/2 cup butter
1 cup buttermilk
1 Tablespoon vinegar
1.5 teaspoons vanilla
3/4 ounce of red icing color- the super concentrated stuff. It's not pictured below I added the rest of that little bottle before moving on to the icing color. If you just use the regular food coloring, you will need about two of those little bottles.

• Cream together butter and sugar, add oil and mix for a couple of minutes until it is all nice and combined.

• Sift together your dry ingredients to get them nice and fluffy. I usually do this over a paper plate to make for easy pouring. 

• Add buttermilk and vinegar to the mix, then add the eggs one at a time.

• Add the vanilla, followed by the dry ingredients and food coloring. Mix until just incorporated.

• Scoop out your mix into lined muffin pans. If you are more careful with measuring than I am, you can probably get 24 cupcakes out of this batter. I ended up with 23.

• Put your little ruby colored cakes into a 350 degree oven and let them bake for about 10 to 15 minutes. My oven is terrible and always runs hot. So you may need to cook them a little longer if you are lucky enough not to have an oven from the 1970s.

Holes in my little cupcakes from repeated toothpick testing- sign of a very impatient baker!

 

• Let these cool in the pans for about 10 minutes before moving to a wire rack to cool completely.
• When I took them out I noticed that the oil had soaked through the liners, making them appear translucent. Next time I will add a bit of apple sauce in place of some of the vegetable oil and see what happens.

Cream cheese is the traditional frosting choice, but you could always do a butter cream or whatever suites your fancy. Whipped cream would be really delicious with these, since they are so delicately flavored. I opted for cream cheese, because it is my absolute favorite frosting. Ever.

I don't follow a strict recipe for cream cheese frosting. It is extremely forgiving. I have had it break on me only one time, and that was a sad, sad, day. This is the frosting I used for these cupcakes-

• 8 ounce brick of cream cheese, slightly softened,
• 5 ounces of softened butter
• a little more than a teaspoon of vanilla. 
• Enough confectioner's sugar to hold it all together, somewhere between 1.5 and 3 cups.

Mix together cream cheese and butter until smooth and creamy. Add your vanilla and then slowly add your sugar until the frosting reaches your desired consistency and sweetness.  Don't forget to sift your confectioner's sugar. Little clumps in your otherwise dreamy frosting are no bueno.

Serve as is or you can give your cupcakes the glam treatment. I added fondant hearts (my first attempt at fondant anything) and sugar pearls. I also added some cupcake wraps I fashioned out of clearance scrapbook paper.

These cupcakes came out so moist and delicious. I think they are even better after sitting in the fridge overnight. Go make some for your honey. If you are without a honey this Valentine's day, make them for yourself, and then you won't have to share any, which is good, because I know you won't want to.

Why, hello there.

Starting this blog is number one on my list of 25 26 things to do before my 25th 26th birthday. January and my 25th birthday came sooner than I expected. This is better late than never though.


I love stumbling through blogs and finding great design ideas and recipes. I am completely entranced by all the lovely blogs that inspire me to have more design, more style, more lovely and luscious things in my everyday life. Hence the title of my blog. I hope to put out some ideas of my own and document beautiful moments of my life. Here is what you can expect.

• Projects/ideas/finds/inspirations for design on the cheap very cheap. I love home decor and fashion projects you can do yourself to satisfy your craving for designer niceties when you only have a ramen-noodle budget. I am excited to share what I have found with all of you. Even if all of you ends up being just my mom and best friend, who are the two people I know will read my blog.

• Recipes -mostly desserts. More than that, mostly cupcakes.I love baking. Love love love. And I have the physique to prove it. Yes, I know that cupcakes are played out. I simply cannot help myself. I loved cupcakes before they became uber-popular and will continue to love them until I move on to my next baking obsession. Plus, cupcakes are distant cousins of the muffin so that makes them okay to eat for breakfast, which is awesome.

• Snippets of my personal life, hand selected to make my life look much more fanciful than it really is. I think all bloggers who post about their personal life do this. But at least I own it.When I look at a really nice blog, I often think, "Wow, that person's life looks beautiful, like a fancy pants perfume commercial." Nobody's life is perfect, but when you take the really good parts and put them on display, it makes your life appear glamorous, beautiful and somehow larger than it actually is. And who wouldn't want that?

If you are a friend or member of my family who wants to see what I am doing without picking up the phone, looking at my facebook, or waiting until the three times a year we see each other (Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, and Christmas) then welcome! If you are a random person who enjoys looking at my life as well as the luscious and lovely things I  have to share, welcome as well! 


Prepare yourself for the very first non-introductory post, coming soon! I will be posting something that is actually timely and relevant to current happenings and holidays. This is very uncharacteristic of me, which should be obvious by my failed 25 before 25 list. Enjoy!