C is for...Canada? Cherry limeade cupcakes, citrus cake pops and cookies

My stepsister Katie visited last weekend. Well, technically she visited all last week, but she stopped in KC on Sunday. It was fun to introduce her to my new city, and just see her in general. She lives in Ottawa, Ontario, which is pretty darn far away (and plane tickets are expensive!). Technically, I'm an only child. But when my dad remarried almost a decade ago, I inherited a step-sister and step-brother, Katie and Justin. Even though I hadn't seen Katie in more than a year, we had a great time that day, going to City Market and shopping for as long as we could stand what my phone told me felt like 111 degrees that day. Stupid Kansas. We also lounged around and watched wedding reality TV shoes. So even though she came into my life around my teenage years, it's pretty darn cool to have an older sister!

Katie requested a baked good for her visit, and Dad chimed in that he thought I should make cake pops (I think he just wanted me to make those so she could take some home to him!). With these, I tried something new: citrus flavors. I've only made basic flavors so far for cake pops, like yellow cake, chocolate and red velvet. For these, I did lemon cake with a frosting to which I added lemon and lime juices. Being a citrus fanatic myself, I loved them. Katie liked them too, and I heard reports from out West that Dad and Cathie enjoyed them. Mission accomplished!


So this picture kind of cheats. I actually made cookies twice, and this is a combo of both recipes. First (the smaller cookies) were my favorite all-brown sugar chocolate chip cookies. I actually found these really great semi-sweet and white chocolate swirl chips, which made for a great twist on the cookies. The other cookies were my favorite peanut butter cookies from Smitten Kitchen. Always a winner and always nice, soft cookies.

I've been making fewer cupcakes than normal. It may not seem that way on here, but Kelly's cupcakes I made weeks ago and hadn't gotten around to posting them. We've had crazy hot temperatures in Kansas lately, but it finally started cooling off lately. Cherry limeades are one of my favorite summer drinks...or anytime drinks. I made these last summer, but lemme tell you, this year's cherry limeade cupcakes were WAY better. If I remember correctly, I used grenadine in the frosting last year. This year, it was maraschino cherry-flavored. With the lime syrup brushed over the already lime-flavored cupcakes, they're flavor-packed. Someone at work even said they were the best treat yet. Success!

(Posted on Hoosier Homemade's Cupcake Tuesday.)

Happy birthday Julia! (And 1 of 8 goals met)

Students are coming back to town. It's easy to tell. I went to dinner a couple nights ago at Free State with a friend, and I swear, half the place was students and their parents. A few nights ago there was a fire on Tennessee Street (a stronghold for student housing) and students just mulled around waiting to see what was going on. It's the school year! Woo hoo! Except it's not for me. No reading assignments that were written by boring academics only to get excited when one — just one — was written by someone with some flare. No cramming for essay tests on theory, no answering my own questions for a class because a teacher refuses to answer them for me. None of that. Yippee!


Anyway, the pedicures from last week were wonderful, and it was awesome to see Matt and Sarah. The demolition derby was super fun as well. I can't explain what it is I love about the derby — the crashing cars, the people-watching, the sheer amount of work these people put into the cars — no matter what it is, it's fun. It also ruins a new pedicure. Oh well. I met some really nice drivers and had a lot of fun writing the story, too. Before the derby, I made cupcakes for the next day when my Aunt Phyllis was in town. She doesn't live here, but she and my Aunt Betty were roadtripping to see my mom, so we all had dinner. I went with plain old (but super yummy) yellow-cupcakes-turned-funfetti with blue sprinkles (to match the wrappers). On top, plain old buttercream with silver shimmery sprinkles. Simple recipes but oh-so-yummy.


Then last week, as I was rolling through my blog roll, I saw a recipe for cherry limeade bars, kind of like lemon bars. It's pretty hard to beat cherry limeade during the summer...especially a summer like this one. We're supposed to hit 102 today (!), except we also hit 102 yesterday. Actually, this is our sixth day in August above 100 degrees (I know this because I wrote the story about it today). But isn't that ridiculous?! C'mon, Kansas. Anyway, these bars were super easy and colorful, definitely a fun dessert.


And then, as I was continuing through that blogroll, I saw an article about Julia Child. I have "Mastering the Art of French Cooking," something I couldn't resist buying after seeing "Julie and Julia." I've been itching to make bouef bourguignon, but once again, it's a little hot. That, and I have to figure out how to get around the fact that I don't eat bacon, and it starts with a big, juicy chunk of it. Anyway, turns out August 15 would have been Julia's 98th birthday. What better reason to make something else I've been wanting to try — her chocolate almond cake? So I did. I don't even like chocolate cake, but I had to try it. This, or something like it, is what Julie Powell's husband eats with his hands in the movie. And really, it was that good. It was very intricate, and for someone who often doesn't read the directions closely, this could have been a problem. This cake involved whipping egg whites and crushing almonds (you have to do this with sugar or it will be lumpy — who knew?) and folding stuff into batter and making a chocolate icing out of only chocolate, rum and butter. But in the end, it was worth it. The cake was divine — it was light, not dense at all, and just plain yummy. I will make it again, for sure.


And then I decided to tackle one of my eight goals. Yes, already. But once I set the goals, I wanted to try marshmallows right away. And my first revelation is that gelatin is nasty. Beyond that, though, it was simply cooking together sugar, corn syrup, water and a pinch of salt to a certain temperature and then letting my KitchenAid beat the hell out of it. Then add vanilla and let set. Out came square marshmallows! This Joy of Cooking recipe didn't elaborate on flavors you can make, but I'm thinking peppermint for later on when it gets cold and they can go in hot chocolate. Tonight, though, they're going to be used for s'mores. I'm off to the lake to relax, read "Eat Pray Love" and hang out on a boat. Not a bad way to spend a weekend.


Oh, and one last glamor shot of my kitty, because I couldn't resist.

Drinks in desserts: pink lemonade pie and cherry limeade cupcakes

Today is my day off. So far I've caught up on sleep and gotten a haircut. Pretty active day, eh? Oh well, that's what weekends (since this is mine) are all about.

It's been fairly active in Lawrence lately. We had a monster of a storm yesterday; it was raining so hard you couldn't see more than three feet out the window. Parts of Lawrence flooded, I-70 was closed and KC got hit really hard too. Just another Kansas summer. I guess it's not boring, though.


It's been a week since I got back from my trip out to Lewis, which is always a good time, but also kind of sad. I love going on the road trip with just my dad and grandma, because we don't do stuff limited to just family very often. But it's also filled with sad memories — death of my maternal grandfather, death of my cousin's little girl, death of my dad's brother when my dad was 11. I mean, I guess that's how life goes, but it's so sad to think about all that in one day. After we plant flowers, we always do a mini-tour of the area around Lewis of places back in my grandma's and dad's life, the first being a farmhouse that was the first place my dad lived. He went inside it and it was abandoned, run-down, smelled bad, everything. It's weird to think that if I went inside the house my dad built for me to grow up in I'd probably be really apprehensive too. It's not abandoned, but it's been completely changed. Anyway, point is, the trip is always very sad, but happy too. I still have my grandma to go with, and that's definitely always an experience. Plus, every time I go I learn more about her life. We went through her cedar chest and found both her wedding gown and a plaque from her college sorority days...in 1941. Those letters in the picture are ones my grandpa wrote her before they were married and he was stationed at various army bases, dated 1940-1942. Incredible.


The weekend after coming home from that, I really wanted an easy dessert to make. I was browsing the LJWorld sites and found a food blog they have called the Flying Fork. Somehow I stumbled upon a pink lemonade pie that looked really yummy and easy. Originally I wanted to make pink lemonade cheesecake, but the recipes all called for chilling overnight, and I didn't really want to wait. So I ended up with an easy pink lemonade pie — four ingredients! Okay, so it wasn't technically as much baking as it was chilling, but it was dessert and tasted really yummy. That night AC came to town, and we all went to see the A-Team, which I actually liked. I know critics hated it, but for a movie about a show that was already really ridiculous, they did a good job. The casting didn't bother me either, and I thought it would. Murdock is still my favorite :)

Saturday I worked dayside at the newspaper, and I got the best assignment ever. I got to cover the cat show! I know that sounds horrible to some people, but I have no issue spending part of the day with kitty cats. One Maine Coon was the biggest I'd ever seen; he was longer than the torso of the guy carrying him. There were definitely some characters there, including one guy whose Maine Coons were named things like Francoonstein and Coonzilla. Creativity, yes! So I went to the show and then wrote the story for the paper and put together an audio slideshow. It was a fun day at work.


If you couldn't tell, I've been on a cupcake kick lately, and that continued after my cat extravaganza. I made cherry limeade cupcakes to take into the newsroom. Man, those cupcakes are lime-y. The recipe uses limeade concentrate out of the freezer — the whole can! They'd be really tasty as just lime-flavored cupcakes too. Then on the frosting I departed from her recipe and kind of just made my own grenadine frosting. All in all, I thought they were pretty good, but I'd kick up the cherry flavor a bit next time.

A couple days ago I made brownies just for fun. No picture of those, though. They were eaten before I could shoot a pic.

Now it's time for me to head to the gym to counteract all this baking. I joined Body Boutique this week, so now I just have to make sure I actually go on a regular basis. I guess the nice thing about working in a newsroom (among many other things) is that when I bake, there are always a bunch of people willing to eat the desserts. Plus, cupcakes always brighten my day, so I hope they brighten other people's as well.