My First Win and The Crazy Things I Do

So, first up on the menu, I need to tell you all that I am now an award winning cupcake baker. So you can rest assured that all the recipes I post here are safe and will not kill you.

What is this award that I won? Well, let me tell you! I won the sweets category at the Comfort Food Challenge at the house I live in. Please don't ask me how many entries there were in the sweets category, because then I might have to tell you that there were only 4. Oops. Me and my big mouth.

The deathly white apparition on the left is me, just fyi.

But really, it was a for-fun competition and there were lots of awesome people and awesome comfort foods there.

This is my entry:

I made 3 different kinds of mini cupcakes: a breakfast one, a lunch/dinner one, and a dessert one. I was going to make 4, but alas, time was not on my side, so I had to settle for chocolate drizzled on the plate to disguise the missing 4th cupcake. And no one said to me, "Gee Leanna, your plate looks dumb with only 3 cupcakes on it," so I must have succeeded on my mission.

From left to right, we have a French Toast cupcake with Maple buttercream frosting and crispy bacon on top, a Cheddar and Herb bread with goat cheese topping, and a classic Red Velvet Cupcake with cream cheese frosting and a pecan on top.

Let me describe them for you using one word for each:
Yum.
Yum.
and
Yum.

Let me tell you, if you've never had a cupcake with bacon on it, get your butt away from the computer right this second and go make one. It will change your life. Forever.

I have plans to do individual posts for each of these recipes, so hang tight for a week or two while I get my act together. I ended up going off-recipe a bit and didn't actually write down any of the changes I made, so I'm still not entirely sure how I'll put the posts together. It'll happen, though. Just don't hold that breath of yours.

So that's it for the first part of the post. Now onto the second part, which I shall entitle:

This is SO Not Worth 10% Extra Credit.

Right now I'm on Day 4 of a one week long extra credit assignment for my Globalization class. The assignment? Live on $2 a day. I don't know how many of you have been grocery shopping lately, but what this loosely translates to is "Eat Top Ramen for a week".

Actually, it's not that bad. I went to Fred Meyer's and bought all my food at once and actually got a fair amount. And by fair amount I really mean:
-7 Packages of Top Ramen
-4 Packages Instant Mashed Potatoes
-3 Cans Tomato Soup
-7 Cups of Yogurt
-1/2 Dozen Eggs
-1 Box of "Spread" (I don't know what's in it, nor do I want to. It was cheap and I bought it).
-1 Loaf of White Bread
-6 Bananas. This was my one splurge item... I really love bananas and couldn't imagine going a week without them. I had $1.26 left in my budget and they ended up weighing in at $1.22. I took this as a sign from God that I was supposed to buy them.

What I did NOT buy:
-Coffee
-Milk
-Tea
-Juice
-Any other liquid

We're allowed to drink water for free, but no other liquids unless we buy them. This sucks. I don't like water. I never, ever just drink water, and literally had to write myself a note to drink some today so I wouldn't forget to drink like I did yesterday. It occurred to me last night as I was getting into bed that I hadn't gone to the bathroom since I woke up in the morning. TMI? Yes. But now you know how awful I am at drinking water.

This honestly is a lot harder than I thought it would be. In reality, it's enough food and I've never been hungry, but I'm having a hard time mentally. No, I'm not going crazy. But I am finding myself craving to eat all the time, just because I know that I can't. And the other day I was waiting at my busstop, which is next to McDonald's, and I was just itching to go in and get something.

DID YOU READ THAT? I WANTED MCDONALD'S!
I was so ashamed.

The hardest part though, at least so far, is definitely the coffee. I wanntttt coffffeeeeeee. The second my week is over, I'm going out and buying a Venti mocha at Starbucks. Yeah, it'll probably cost the equivalent of my entire food budget for this past week, but the heck with it. I. Want. Coffee.

Obviously on this budget I can't afford to make cupcakes, but rest assured I'll be back on that ASAP. I've got like a gazillion new recipes that I've bookmarked, so be expecting a lot of yummy things to come your way soon.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes

I'm not happy with how this cupcake looks. Not happy at all. Everyone has said they look fine, but if you knew the picture I had of them in my head before I started, you'd think these are pretty ugly, too. But looking at the bright side, they at least look better than these guys, which were my first attempt at a peanut butter frosting:

Haha! Look at how boring and ugly these ones look. Thankfully, is was at this point that the decorative bug took over me.


I have something to tell you, though. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this before, but just in case you missed it:

I hate peanut butter.

Yes, 'tis true. I can't stand the stuff. My mom says even when I was a baby I'd just spit it right out when she gave it to me. Some people get offended when you flip them off; I get offended when you eat a PB&J within 20 feet of me. The smell... oh, the smell! I couldn't imagine anything worse than being forced to eat peanut butter. May it never be.


So why, then, am I making Chocolate Peanut Butter cupcakes? Well, despite my hatred for PB, I recognize that a majority of the population does not share my distaste for the stuff... in fact, many of them quite like it. And I happen to live in a house with 10 other people, several of whom have said that I should make a peanut butter cupcake. *Sigh* I do it for the people, friends, I do it for the people.


And indeed, the people were pleased. I've gotten several compliments on these guys, so even though I haven't eaten them myself, I feel confident enough in them to share the recipe with you.


Chocolate Cupcakes

Adapted from How Sweet It Is

Makes 24 cupcakes

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1/2 cup cocoa powder

2 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup milk

1 cup heavy cream

1 cup butter, melted

4 tablespoons sour cream

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a bowl, whisk egg and brown sugar until smooth and no lumpsremain. Add milk, cream, butter and vanilla, and mix until combined. Stir insour cream. Sift dry ingredients together and add to wet mixture. Mix untilbatter is smooth. Line a muffin tin with liners and using a 1/4 cup measure,add batter to each cup. Bake for 15-18 minutes. Let cool before frosting.

Peanut Butter Buttercream

Adapted from How Sweet It Is
1 cup peanut butter
5-6 cups of powdered sugar

1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

2-3 tablespoons of milk

3/4  cup butter,softened

1 pinch of salt

Cream butter and peanut butter together in the bowl of an electric mixer. Add 5 cups of powdered sugar and mix well. Add milk and vanilla extract. Mix until frosting is smooth. If too thick, add more milk; if too thin, add more powdered sugar.

Chocolate Ganache
6 ounces chocolate chips
1/2 cup heavy cream


Put chocolate chips in a bowl. Heat heavy cream on medium high until it comes to a boil. Immediately pour cream over chocolate and stir until completely mixed. Set aside to cool and harden.

When I did my ganache, I didn't wait long enough for it to harden and it was still too soft to pipe. I envisioned it being a pretty flower on top, but I ran out of time (I had the have the cupcakes ready at 7pm) so I went ahead and just dumped a bit of the ganache on top and a little pile. Totally not as cute as I wanted it to be, but oh well. I would definitely recommend making the ganache first, so that way it'll have plenty of time to stiffen up while you're making the cupcakes and frosting. 


Also, I really wanted to put a peanut on top. How cute would that have been? But like I said, I was out of time and I didn't have any peanuts, so it didn't happen. If I ever make these again I'll definitely plan ahead for that and get some at the store.
Enjoy! Unless you're sensible, like me, and don't like peanut butter, in which case I'm sorry. You can rest assured that my next recipe with have no trace of the wretched stuff in it. 

PS. They also make great goofy eyes. 

Just sayin'.

Strawberry and Vanilla Cupcakes

Making these cupcakes was quite the up-and-down adventure. Things started out well enough... I whipped up the batter pretty quickly and stuck them in the oven, but then things started to go down hill. I made a vanilla frosting I found online and it pretty much sucked. It was runny and gooey and was an awful consistency. I tried adding more powdered sugar, but I eventually realized that it was just not going to work and chucked the whole batch. Frustrated, I turned to Google to find a decent "vanilla buttercream frosting" and printed the first one that didn't call for whipping cream or more than 4 cups of powdered sugar (I'm almost out...). Thankfully, it turned out very well and was perfect for frosting. When I had my first bite, all my frustration with the frosting melted away and I literally did a little jump. Seriously, these are yummy cupcakes.

Let me just say, before I got into cupcakes I thought that frosting would be really hard. Not so. You just throw a tip on the bag and squirt away. As long as you have a steady hand, you'll be fine. Pretty frosting isn't nearly as difficult to create as it looks like. 

In all honesty, these cupcakes taste a lot like a muffin. I suppose the line between muffins and cupcakes is pretty thin anyways, but the cake itself has a rather muffin-y quality to it, and the chunks of strawberry only add to that. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, I'm just "keeping it real", as a person more hip than I might say.

StrawberryCupcakes
from How Sweet It Is

Makes approx. 18 cupcakes

1 and 1/2 cup sugar

3/4 cup butter

3 eggs

3 teaspoons vanillaextract

2 and 1/4 cups flour

2teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 choppedstrawberries* 

2-3 tablespoons milk,if needed 

*I used 1.5 cups but thought they could use a bit more, so I've upped it to 2 for this recipe. If you really like strawberries, definitely go with 2 cups. For a lighter strawberry presence, only use 1.5 cups. 

Preheat oven to 350degrees F.

Beat the butter and sugar together for about 2 minutes until fluffy. Add the eggs and vanilla extract, mixuntil combined. Add flour, baking powder and salt with the mixer and mix until combined. Add in chopped strawberries and beat for 1-2 minutes until the strawberries break down. If the batter is too try, add milk 1 tablespoon at a time until the desired consistency is reached.

Divide your batter evenly, filling each cup about 2/3 full, andbake for 20-23 or until a tooth pick inserted in the center comes out dry.

VanillaButtercream Frosting*

from Savory Sweet Life

1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks), softened

3-4 cups powdered sugar

1/4 teaspoon table salt

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

2-4 tablespoons milk 

Beat butter for a few minutes on medium speed. Add 3 cups of powdered sugar and mix well until the sugar has been incorporated with the butter. Add vanilla, salt, and 2 tablespoons of milk and beat for 3 minutes. If your frosting needs a more stiff consistency, add remaining sugar. If your frosting needs to be thinned out, add remaining milk 1 tablespoons at a time.

*I had just enough frosting for my 18 cupcakes. If you are planning on doing more frosting than I did, you'll need to add more to your recipe. 

Frost cupcakes as desired. I used the Wilton 1M tip. Garnish with sliced strawberries.

And the final step: devour. You'll be glad you did. 

Ridiculous

Oh friends, so I have such a treat for you today! No, you don't  get one of those delicious cupcakes I showed in my last post. You get to see this picture of me in this ridiculous dress:

 You're welcome.

I got this dress from a neat thrift shop in Portland. Yes, it's kind of horrific as is, but I was really attracted to the print and couldn't pass it up (it was only $5, after all).

The problem with the print, though, is just that there's way to much of it. It's a busy, busy piece of fabric, and  an entire dress made of it is a nightmare. So I did the sensible thing and reduced the amount of the print by over 50%.

And voila:

Earrings and Ring: Handmade --- Top and Skirt: Thrifted --- Shoes: Seychelles via Amazon

 Now I have the fabulosity of the print in a pint-sized version of the original piece. It's a great, floral, summery piece that I can wear with a variety of tops and accessories...

... and all it took was a pair of scissors. Somewhere in the world, the old lady that owned this dress before me is rolling over in her grave.

Well, the time is drawing near for me to move out and on to the big cit of Portland! School starts on Monday, so I'm starting to get my stuff together. The only catch is that I don't actually have a place to live yet... I looked at a few places but they didn't work out. I have one more place to look at this Friday, so I'm super hoping it will work, or I may have to live in a box on campus. Hey, the rent would be a great deal, no?

I just hope wherever I end up living will have a semi-decent kitchen so I can keep up my new-found fascination with cupcakes. Look at what I made today:

Ghirardelli Chocolate Cupcakes with White Chocolate Ganache.

Get. In. My. Belly.

My New Love:

So within the past week, I've made 3 different kinds of cupcakes. The first batch was Irish Coffee with Whipped Cream frosting. They tasted YUMMY, but they were kind of ugly. So ugly that I couldn't bring myself to take a picture. OK, so maybe they weren't actually that bad, but in my head I had envisioned them much prettier, so when they came out only looking so-so it was a major disappointment. So no pictures of these ones, unfortunately.

Batch two was Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter frosting. I don't like peanut butter at all, but my family was coming home from  a long trip that day and they all like peanut butter, so I did the "noble thing" (in my dad's words) and made a frosting that I wouldn't like. I wasn't too noble, though, as I did leave 3 un-frosted for myself. These are what they looked like:

The cake part tasted decent enough... not quite chocolate-y enough, and they sunk a lot after taking them out of the oven, so I don't think I'll be using the cupcake recipe again. The frosting was quite good, though, or so I was told since I didn't have any. Or maybe they were just all lying to me to be nice. I think I didn't wait long enough for the cupcakes to cool before adding the frosting because it was a lot more firm in the bowl and kinda got a bit melty looking on the cupcakes. Lesson learned.

My third batch is the one that I'm most excited about, solely for the fact that they actually look a teensy bit as awesome as I hoped they would. I mean, seriously, just look at them:

Cookies and Cream! With Oreo cookies in the cupcake, the frosting, and on top! What's not to love? The frosting is so good. I just made these this afternoon, though, and haven't even any of them yet, so I don't know if the cake part it OK. I followed the directions exactly so I can't imagine why they wouldn't, but I can't determine whether they're winners or not just quite yet. But man are they cute. Almost too cute to eat!

So yes, this is what I've been doing with all my time instead of dressing up and taking pictures. Now you know.

Cupcakes, Anyone?

Top, Purse, Necklace, Owl Ring: Forever21 --- Belt: Thrifted --- Skirt: Etsy/pegasusvintage --- Shoes: Kohls --- Wire Rings: Handmade

I just realized that this will be my 3rd post with the word cupcake in the title. Does that make me obsessed?
The first post with the word cupcake in the title was just about me feeling like a cupcake in that particular skirt.
The second post with the word cupcake in the title was about how I was eating a cupcake when I heard that Osama bin Laden was dead and that I will remember that cupcake forever.
And today I have the word cupcake in the title because today is baby shower day at work, and that can only mean one thing:

Yeah, cupcakes.

HOLY PAC-MAN CUPCAKES!

This is by far, one of the COOLEST things I have ever seen in my 23 years of existence.

[via]

Made by the very skilled hello naomi.