A (self-) catered affair

I did it! The Volunteer Luncheon was a great success. I had 13 of my office volunteers show up, and they all seemed to enjoy the meal. I made ham and cheddar quiche with spinach salad for lunch, followed by cupcakes and cookies for dessert. I did all the cooking, and a friend from the church volunteered to assist as waitress. It was fun, and I think it is going to become an annual event.

I mean, I've been a little nuts (and obsessed) for the past week or so, but it was totally worth it.

The cupcakes turned out great, once I had the complete recipe for the lemonade ones. I also made chocolate coconut cupcakes. Originally I had planned on filling the chocolate ones with a creme filling, but I didn't have enough time thanks to the lemonade fiasco. But since nobody knew the chocolate cupcakes were supposed to be filled with creme, it didn't really matter that they weren't.

 

I was really pleased with my "cupcake stand." 

Yes, I think I did good. And I think I'm going to go get one of those leftover cookies...

Kitchen mailfunction. Or rather, Baker Malfunction.

I found what I thought sounded like a great recipe for Lemonade Cupcakes.  So I printed out the recipe, and decided to make them for the Volunteer Luncheon.

Unfortunately, I ended up with horribly dense, flat blobs instead of the light, airy lemony confections that I had hoped for. To be fair, they tasted really, really good. But  there is no way that I serve these at the luncheon.

I did think about turning them into a layered dessert, with a sweet cream pudding. But I don't have time to do that right now. So it's back to the drawing board, or rather internet, for more research.

And guess what. It's my own fault (sorta) that the cupcakes turned out the way they did. In my printed recipe, there is no mention of eggs. I had thought that was strange when I was making them, but figured I should trust in the recipe and follow it blindly. Bad decision. Because when you look at the original recipe posted online, there are eggs. Three of them, in fact. Somehow, when I printed the recipe that line was omitted off the bottom of the page.

Luckily I have enough ingredients to try this again.

The countdown has begun

First I overslept. (It wasn't my fault. I was up most of the night because my neighbors were having a very loud party. Which I didn't complain about because it's the first time since I've moved in that they've been noisy. And I know that they can't say the same about me.)

Then I spent the afternoon (if you count the afternoon as lasting from lunch until well after dinnertime) with mom. First we met up with the Stuart knitting group. Afterwards, we went for a "quick" shopping trip looking for supplies.

When I got home, I couldn't resist trying to hook up the Roku that my children sent me for Mother's Day. (There's a long story involved, but I received the package today.) Even though there is only four steps involved (plug the unit into the TV, plug it into the wall, put batteries in the remote, and turn on the TV), I wasn't able to my new Roku to work. For a long-time geeky nerd, I'm not very talented when it comes to the television. I still can only watch movies on the dvd when my daughter is home. (Which is why they bought me a Roku. Since I can handle the computer so well, they thought hooking my TV into the internet would solve my problem and I would finally be able to watch shows alone.)

Finally, having outlasted all possible distractions, I started preparations for Tuesday's luncheon.

Imagination is a wonderful thing!

This is my big thrift-store find - a cupcake display stand. Okay, I know it doesn't look like much more than a huge cup and glass tray. But picture it with cupcakes inside the glass, surrounded by cupcakes on the tray. Trust me, it's going to be great!

Rainbow Cake

It really isn't safe to leave me alone, bored, in a kitchen. I didn't have the ingredients for cookies, or good cupcakes. So I settled for playing with a cake mix.

The result is that I'm still alone in the house, I'm back to being bored, and there is pretty cake.

Food, friends, family.

Before my daughter moved to NYC, she met - and impressed - Lillian. At the time Lillian owned our favorite Cuban restaurant - which impressed my daughter. So when Lillian found out Cari was coming home for a visit, she asked if we could all get together for dinner.

The dinner was marvelous! Cuban pork, wonderfully seasoned, with rice and beans. I provided the dessert - Cherry Rose Cupcakes: chocolate cupcakes with dried cherries that had been soaked in Four Roses Bourbon, with a little more bourbon added to my Buttercream Frosting.

Even better than the food was the company. We laughed, we cried, we laughed a lot more. And everyone had a wonderful time.

I'm so blue

 

You know those kitschy t-shirts, "my parents went to ___ and all I got was this lousy t-shirt"? Well, my daughter went to NYC and all I got was blue m&ms. I would have much rather have gone on the trip with her. (And in all fairness, the opportunity was offered to me. Several times. Unfortunately, finances and logistics of a new job prevented me from taking the opportunity.)

But really. Blue m&ms. Everyone knows that the blue m&ms are horrible. I literally pick them out of the bag and get rid of them before hunting out the good flavors (like green, brown, red...). Sigh.

At least I'm going to get to eat a couple of "real bakery" cupcakes. (Mom was so tired when they got home from the airport, she left the treat from the girls at my house. And naturally they'll be too stale to give to her, so I might as well eat them.)

Monster Pops

Cake pops are NOT my favorite thing. They're yummy, especially after they've have a day or two to set properly. But they are a royal pain to make. I have no idea how Bakerella does all those gorgeous shapes and designs.
 

The important thing is that mom and I had a lot of fun making these together. My kids might be too old to play in the kitchen with me, but at least my mother is still willing to have a little culinary fun together. Although I had to let her lick one of the beaters instead of keeping both of them for myself.

Bourbon Ball Cupcakes

I'm still waiting to hear back on a job interview from earlier this week, and I am not very patient. I want to know NOW what's going on. Not knowing means that I can't really move on and plan anything else. So I decided to cope with the stress by baking.

The Bourbon Ball Cupcakes from the Reynolds website seemed like a good choice. They're chocolate. With bourbon. What's not to like? 

It's an easy recipe. Basically you make chocolate cupcakes using a cake mix, except that you add 2 tablespoons of bourbon to the mix. I used 3 tablespoons because I think that Four Roses is a rather mild bourbon and I wanted it to have a bit more of a kick.

The frosting is a basic buttercream recipe, but with 2 tablespoons of bourbon added and some finely diced walnuts. Again, I added 3 tablespoons because I wanted to be sure to have the bourbon flavor. 

The only other change I made was to dip the tops of the cupcakes in a little bit of bourbon (and let it dry) before frosting them. I had read a tip online (I'm sorry, I wish I could credit the source but I don't remember it) that it helps keep the cupcakes moist if you seal the tops with either alcohol or a simple sugar syrup. I like the little extra flavor it adds. (Try a simple sugar syrup with a bit of lemon juice on otherwise plain vanilla cupcakes - yum!)

Life just seems better with chocolate.

I'm blaming these cupcakes on Becka. She's been asking me to bake some for her for the past few days. So I did a very simple chocolate cupcake, with chocolate buttercream frosting. And a vanilla cream filling, to make it fun.

Better than Hostess's.

I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it. (Mae West)

Tomorrow is Knit in the Park, which is a perfect opportunity to make cupcakes. After a lot of debating back and forth between chocolate cupcakes and margarita cupcakes, including a online vote in the knitting group's forum, I finally decided on making the margarita ones. I think I made a good decision.

I ended up combining two recipes. The cupcakes were made using the recipe on Annie's Eats. This was the first time I've ever actually zested anything. It's a lot of fun. I might have gotten a little carried away, but I think the result is yummy.

After the cupcakes were baked and cooled, I dipped the tops in tequila. This was a suggestion in the comments on Annie's Eats, and it made sense to me.

I tried the frosting recipe on Annie's Eats but trust us when she says that you need a stand mixer, you really do need a stand mixer. After I worked on the frosting for almost two hours of using the hand mixer, my son took it out of my hands and said, "enough." After crying (I was very tired and frustrated at that point) and whining for a little while, I went back online and found a tequila buttercream recipe on Love Big, Bake Often. I honestly think that the buttercream was a much better choice, with or without a stand mixer.

The complete recipe I used can be found on my Family Cooking blog (www.neucooks.blogspot.com) if you would like to try making these yourself. I have a feeling that I will be making them again!

Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all. (Harriet van Horne)

Maybe I do tend to get obsessive with my interests and hobbies. But how was I supposed to resist the beautiful cupcake papers from Bake it Pretty? I think I did pretty good in limiting myself to just the two styles. And the icing kit was almost a necessity.

This package came just in time. I'm going to make cupcakes for Saturday's Knit in the Park, so I'll get to use the pretty papers and the new frosting tips. Yeah!

Happiness is in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort. (Franklin Roosevelt)

I helped my son cook some of the meat he brought home on his hunting trip. We made country-fried vension. It was pretty good. Personally, I would have added more pepper to the white sauce. But I like spicy foods.


For dessert, I made cupcakes. This time I did a white cupcake with pastry cream filling and chocolate buttercream frosting. We've all eaten two each so far, and I think I might need to hide the rest of them. They're really good!

Obsessions and fixations are not really my field. All I know, when the mind really grabs hold of something, look out. (M. Sage & S. Adelman)

I have become fascinated with cupcakes. I find myself searching the internet for new recipes, and adding RSS feeds of cupcake blogs to my list of daily reading. It's definitely getting out of hand.

Today I made Red Velvet Cupcakes with a Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting. I had seen the recipe for Red Velvet cupcakes on the Brown-eyed Baker blog, and thought I would try it for Valentine's Day. (My boss asked me to bring in cupcakes after having one of the cupcakes I made last week. Was I really going to tell her "no"?) But then I saw the recipe for Red Velvet Cupcakes, adding cinnamon to the cream cheese frosting over on the Bella Eats blog. Looking at the two recipes, I realized that they had both taken them from Joy the Baker.

I would have thought that with that many people blogging about the same recipe, it would have been a lot better than they turned out. Maybe I'm not a good judge since I don't really like Red Velvet Cake, but I think that the cupcakes turned out too dry. I like a moist cupcake, and these are very crumbly. Both my children liked them, but said that one was enough for dessert. I did really like the Cinnamon Cream Cheese frosting; the only problem was that even after doubling the recipe I didn't have enough to cover all 24 cupcakes.

I'm still going to take the cupcakes into work tomorrow. And then I think I'll start looking for the next recipe to try.

Relax, and have a cupcake

Some days, you just need a chocolate cupcake.

And sometimes, you need something a little more special. Like a chocolate cupcake with cream cheese filling and coconut butter cream frosting. All from scratch, of course.

The excellence of a gift lies in its appropriateness rather than in its value. (Charles Dudley Warner)

Thursday Challenge
"Food"

I have cupcakes! Lots of cupcakes! There are 48, to be exact. And although they're all chocolate, the really cool thing is that each one is different. Best of all, they're all mine. I don't have to share. And I don't intend to. (Sorry, kids.)

My sister made them for me. It started out as a joke. She had asked what type of cake I wanted for my birthday, and I told her "a cupcake." So she offered to make me cupcakes for each year (plus one to grow on, of course -- as if eating all those cupcakes wouldn't already make me grow...fatter). A friend laughingly told her that each cupcake should be different, and that's what she did. Chocolate based, because that's my favorite, but amazingly each mini cupcake has a different flavoring. There's chocolate coconut, and chocolate lemon, and Andes Mint chocolate, and even Strawberry Peanut M&M. The box of cupcakes came with a cheat sheet, which shows the exact flavor of each one. I can't wait to get started on munching out!

(I would have started on them last night, but my sister brought along a container of "Extras" to our Knit One Brew Two meeting so that I wouldn't have to share my box with the others -- she really is the best!)

Unfortunately, it's dinner time and I still haven't had even one of my cupcakes today. I woke up with a horrible cold or flu or something that's made me miserable. I tried going to work, but they sent me home. I've been sleeping most of the day.

I blame it on yesterday's bus ride. I wanted to go to K1B2, but my son needed to take our car to get to and from work. So thinking I was clever, I hopped a ride on the bus for a little extra knitting time.

Only the bus was freezing cold (apparently the air conditioning can only be ON or OFF, and the driver chose ON), and today I'm feeling miserable.

But hey, the socks are almost finished. And I'll have lots of cupcakes to eat as soon as I feel better.