Tiramisu cake, candied almonds and champagne cupcakes

First, I have a few fairly exciting announcements. I'm going to be on TV, doing my baking thing. More on that later, though. Second exciting announcements: last week's Sour Patch Kids cupcakes were wildly successful online. They made Foodgawker and Tastespotting. They made the blog Cupcakes Take the Cake, which I've never been on. A Martha Stewart Twitter account retweeted my post. I got reblogged on Tumbler. A few other blogs reblogged it (TipJunkie and Ediblecrafts), and Bake It Pretty included it on a post. I'm pretty darn excited after that. Third exciting announcement: I'm a real person now. As in, I got moved to dayside. That means I get weekends off. I think only someone who's worked nightside at some point really realizes how monumental this is. Granted, I've never been (and probably never will be) a morning person, but it's amazing how much time I have to do other things after work. Like go to the gym. I have a new goal to go every day after work, except for today, of course, when there was a snowpacalypse. Still got my workout shoveling the driveway, though. I'm also starting to watch The Wire, about an episode per night. And I get to do stuff with friends at night after work. I'm pretty darn excited to have a life.


One of my night-time friend nights resulted in this tiramisu cake. I like taking requests for desserts because it presents me a challenge. Brianne requested tiramisu, and since I didn't feel like making homemade ladyfingers, I went with this cake I'd seen. Two layers of white cake soaked with a coffee syrup with a mascarpone-whipped cream filling and chocolate chips and we have a very tasty cake, even for someone like me, who doesn't like coffee.


Part of this going to the gym thing is also monitoring what I eat. I'm a snacker, and being at work during the day means I get pretty hungry. These candied almonds were the perfect portion-controlled sweet for work — that is, until the Girl Scout Cookies were delivered. Oh well, it worked for a couple days.


Finally, my exciting TV news. I'm going on Jayni's Kitchen, our local station's cooking show. Via some people at work, Jayni heard about this blog. She saw the champagne cupcakes I did for the holiday cupcake challenge and asked me to do those for the Valentine's Day episode. I had to test the recipe again, just because I improvise a lot and had to nail down amounts for the recipe she'll post. So I tape on Monday and then the episode will air the first time on Tuesday, Feb. 8 at 6:30 p.m. on Channel 6 here. I'm hoping to get a video of my segment to post on here. I'm pretty nervous; I'm sure I'll make a fool of myself. Here's hoping I don't!

Cupcake challenge week 5: Cupcake roundup

Sometimes I get bored with baking. Or find that I really don't have any inspiration, even though I feel like baking. So the holiday cupcake challenge at Hoosier Homemade was really nice, because it made me think a little outside the box. The challenge is over now, except for voting (please vote for my New Year's champagne cupcakes, number 3). So here's what I did for the last month, with both the help of Kelly and Aunt Betty.

Week one: favorite fall flavor. I made egg nog cupcakes...my next goal is to make some egg nog homemade!

Week two: Thanksgiving cupcake. I made pecan pie cupcakes, and found I like them better than actual pecan pie!

Week three: Christmas cupcake. I did chocolate peppermint, with a peppermint patty baked into the middle. They were pretty rich, but people sure seemed to like them.

Week four: New Year's cupcake. I did champagne (not terribly creative, I know). But these were a nod to my Kansan folk (LNOPwooo!), and the frosting was darn good.

So, happy holidays! I'm posting this roundup on the last Hoosier Homemade challenge. Now it's time to go scheme away and come up with more holiday cupcakes. I'm thinking gingerbread.

Cupcake challenge week 4: Champagne cupcakes

It seems a little silly writing about New Year's when I just put up my Christmas tree. This week, when I got home from Salina, I put up my multicolored tree. It's pretty ridiculous, actually. Kelly will tell you so. But hey, I like bright colors, so I suppose my tree should match.

My tree is one of my Christmas traditions I've built for myself. I've found it necessary to start making my own traditions up, because it's pretty tough to keep holiday traditions alive when your parents divorce and move away. So my tree is it. Some of the tradition is through the ornaments. I've got Santas my aunt painted for me, and porcelain versions of the Seven Dwarfs (yes, my parents started me early on the whole Disney thing). There's a collection of cloth ornaments a dear family friend made for me, one each year when I was growing up. There's the super gaudy old ornament with sequins and fringe, and I couldn't even tell you its origins. Mixed in with all the old stuff is the new, though. I've got the colored globe ornaments, but also my 2008 National Championship ornament, next to my Bolt ornament I got last year. There's lots of sparkle too. And a fair number of animal ornaments too.


My other two favorite traditions I've also made plans for. First, I watch White Christmas. A lot. If you let me, I'll force you to watch it too. But also, every year I go see the Nutcracker ballet in Kansas City. It's something I used to do with my mom, then later with various boyfriends throughout the years. I know this show by heart; the songs, the choreography, the costumes (the Dance of the Flowers is my favorite). This year, I'm pretty excited because I just bought tickets to see it with my friend Lauren, who used to dance in the show. I know she will love it just as much as me, and we'll get to do our Christmas tradition together.

Anyway, New Year's Eve is still a little far away to really plan for. I've got to get through the winter holidays first. But for this week's challenge, I had to make a New Year's-themed cupcake. I know champagne is a little cliche, but I hope all of my friends from the Kansan will appreciate what I made this cupcake with: a nice $5 bottle of Andre. Yup. Definitely some sentimental value there, some memorable Wednesday nights at the ends of semesters. I couldn't resist.

So I used this champagne cupcake recipe, which called for whipping the egg whites instead of adding eggs straight in, making the cupcakes a bit lighter than normal. The strawberry Andre gave them just a hint of flavor, but the icing is what really made these cupcakes. It might be in my top three icings ever. It was just a basic buttercream, but with the Andre added, and it almost seemed to have a fizzy flavor. Not possible, but I stand by what I say :)

I'm posting these cupcakes over at the New Year's challenge. I'd really appreciate if you'd go vote for my chocolate peppermint cupcake (number 4) to help me win last week's challenge. Thanks!