Cherry cola cupcakes, coconut macaroons and ginger snaps

I know everyone talks about the weather, but seriously, it was 18 degrees when I woke up yesterday. Sometimes I forget how bipolar Kansas/Missouri can be. A few days ago it was in the 40s and a light jacket was enough. Yesterday I was forced to tear apart my apartment to find my winter hat(s) that had been stashed away in some dark corner after I moved in summer...in temperatures in the 90s. Sigh. I guess having no seasons would be boring, right? And cold temperatures mean holiday activities, too! I saw the Messiah for the first time ever this weekend and it was fantastic. Next up? The Nutcracker ballet. I LOVE it. You know what else is good about the cold?

Husky puppies. They like the cold, right? Meet Lois, my friends Joe and Brianne's new puppy. Isn't she SO DAMN CUTE?! Yeah, I got to look at that cute little face last weekend. I felt lucky.

I think we've probably established how much I HATE coconut. Can't really explain it, just don't like the stuff. So the only time it appears on this blog is when it's for someone besides me who will be eating it (see Kelly's birthday or special requests). These basic coconut macaroons were neither. You see, my computer at work almost crashed last week. As in, left for a few more days, I think it would have been totally gone rather than freezing every couple of hours. And my friend, Brad, happens to be the guy who sets up the computers at work. And my new computer happened to take a really, really long time to set up. And he happens to like coconut. And I happened to have a lot of coconut in my cabinet. So I made coconut macaroons. I did not sample them, so I cannot tell you if they were good or bad. They look pretty though!

Currently playing on my TV is a DVRed episode of "Good Eats." I can honestly say I'd never really watched it before seeing Alton Brown in person recently, but I'm pretty fascinated by what he's already taught me (i.e. don't put avocados you're wanting to ripen in the fridge because it will stop the process). Part of seeing him live was getting his latest cookbook, "Good Eats 3: The Later Years."Aunt Betty loves ginger, so we decided to make his candied ginger recipe (which will definitely clear out your sinuses) and then put some in these ginger snaps. The candied ginger came out perfectly. These cookies, not so much. Lesson learned: when weights are given, use an accurate kitchen scale to get the right amount. I'm putting one on my Christmas list. This picture is the edited recipe. Our first batch was....rather flat and thin. But the edited versions were incredibly good and packed a triple ginger punch: ground, candied and fresh.

And really, these cupcakes have no holiday theme whatsoever. I just had an itch to make cherry cola cupcakes again after making them in May. It's a recipe from Cupcake Project and is kind of baffling because it's super runny. It also takes cola extract, which isn't around at regular grocery stores (I got mine at Sweet! Baking and Candy-Making Supply). They're cola-flavored cakes with maraschino cherries in them, a cola-flavored cream cheese icing and the nice little cherry on top. They were a hit at work. I just love recipes that go well! (Posting these to Hoosier Homemade's Cupcake Tuesday.)

Funk cupcakes, double chocolate cupcakes, buckeyes and a baking fail

Saturday was a day of basketball for me. The best kind — college basketball, in person. My friend Erin was in town from Colorado, and we went to the KU-Colorado game with some other friends. It was fun, as men's games always are. I always get chills when I see that pregame video, with the likes of Danny Manning, Wilt, Mario's shot. It's awesome. But the second game we went to was the women's basketball game, and I'd never been to one before. We sat with Malcolm, our Kansan news adviser. It was really fun, and we were only a couple rows up. One player scored 31 points. 31! And we were playing Mizzou. No matter what sport it is, I will always be happy when we beat Mizzou. Pretty sure I was raised to hate the Tigers, and I actually have to check myself from hating them too much. Whatever, it's a college rivalry. And I love it!


Well, it's kind of the opposite of that hatred, but for Valentine's Day, I made some really chocolate-y cupcakes. I'm not a chocolate person, really, but someone at work asked me to make cupcakes for his wife for the holiday and include lots of chocolate. So I made these. Nothing out of the norm, really: they're my favorite chocolate cupcake recipe and that fudge frosting I used for my Kansas Day cake. Super yummy.


My other cupcakes of the week were inspired by my friend Christy at work. She said I should make funk cupcakes, and these were born. They're red velvet (for crushed velvet, get it?!) with a cream cheese frosting. The frosting was originally based off George Clinton's hair...and if you don't know who that is, please go listen to "Give Up the Funk" right now. A little multi-colored edible glitter and we're good to go! I posted these over at Hoosier Homemade's Cupcake Tuesday. (Edit: I was asked how I got the frosting that way. I painted a piping bag with stripes of gel food coloring and put the icing in, and voila! rainbow-striped frosting.)


Then on Sunday I did another baking day at Aunt Betty's. We did buckeyes again. They're darn tasty. I took them to a city-wide trivia contest I did with Jonathan, Trevan and Nick. A few people came by to sample them...so I didn't have a whole lot to share. These are one treat, though, that I don't mind keeping to myself.


Last, and least, might be the worst dessert we've made. These are madeleines, a traditional French cake shaped like a sea shell. We got the recipe from a Martha Stewart cookbook, and they're rosewater madeleines. They look darn pretty, but they used SO much rosewater (two tablespoons PLUS two teaspoons) that when you tasted them, it was like gulping perfume. Or eating a bar of soap. YUCK. They sure looked nice though!

Red, white and baking (and a semi-fail!)

Well, I just finished my work week and have a three-day weekend. Woot! But now, like a crazy person, I'm still awake. Transitioning to be awake during the days is kind of tough. I got a lot of cleaning done this morning, and played with the cat, and made some cupcakes. So I suppose I did well. AND I cleaned out my trusty (or not-so-trusty, depending on the day) Taurus, which will no longer be mine, as of tonight. That's right, I'm getting a new car! Or, a different car, more accurately. My graduation present from my grandma was her car, because she doesn't drive any more. It's got roughly 70,000 fewer miles than my car and in pristine condition. Minor detail, it's a stick shift. Guess I'll have to learn on the fly. I'm getting a little sentimental about parting with the Taurus, but it's definitely got it's issues. My favorite? Sometimes, when I turn the left blinker on, the windshield wipers turn on. But the brakes are going bad, as is all of the wiring, and the steering shaft makes weird noises, and the engine does too...it's time to retire that poor car. So I'm exchanging that car with my Dad today when I head to the lake, which I'm also excited about! No internet (except on my phone) and some downtime to just read and hang out. It's going to be nice. It's my belated Fourth of July, except without fireworks, which I don't like anyway, so it all works out.


I did my share of baking for the Fourth, including my very first semi-successful foray into cake pops. They might be the messiest things I've ever made. First, you bake a 13x9 cake, then crumble it up into a bowl, which isn't exactly clean. Then, you mix the cake with frosting, and the easiest way to do it is with (newly washed) hands. Then you roll the mix into little balls and stick a lollipop stick in. Then refrigerate and cover with candy melts. I had a few problems, mainly I've never worked with candy melts before and apparently you're not supposed to mix liquid (read: food coloring) in with them or it changes their consistency. Lesson learned. That, and next time I will make my pops smaller so they're easier to both decorate and eat. But I definitely need to practice them more, and it doesn't hurt that they taste so yummy too! :)


I made the pops for the actual Fourth of July, and then remembered I had Fourth of July cupcake liners that I had to use. After all, what good are fireworks liners after the holiday? At least, that was my reasoning :) First I made my good old faithful peanut butter brownie cups patriotism-style...meaning red and blue M&Ms with white sanding sugar. Seriously, if you ever need an easy dessert to make, these are it. Very little labor involved, and they're soooo yummy.


The other dessert I wanted to make was red white and blue cupcakes. I did something like that last year, but since then, I've gotten a lot better at baking...or so I thought. I tried a new white cake recipe from Smitten Kitchen, which is where my favorite yellow cake recipe is from. I tend to prefer yellow cake for some reason...plus, white cake confuses me. Why isn't it yellow? It had plenty of egg yolks in it! Anyway, I had no idea how many cupcakes this would make, so I made the batter, split it into three parts, made the other two red and blue and had Drew help me layer it in. Well, the cups were a little too full, and we overflowed a bit in the oven. Baking semi-fail.


Some were salvageable, though, so I did a fairly limited amount of icing compared with what I normally do, stuck some sprinkles and an M&M on top and called it a day. It's really interesting to see the middle of these, because they kind of reflect on how cake batter rises. If you're interested, we put red in first, then white, then blue, layered flat. Hm.

So I'd say it was a fairly successful holiday of baking. Now, to go get some sleep.

My most epic baking fail yet

I've been super excited to write about one of my latest baking experiences. Like, it was an epic failure. But first.

My giant project runs tomorrow. Eek! I've basically been working on it nonstop. I'm really excited about it but pretty nervous too. I kind of wish I would have kept track of how many hours I worked on it, from the reading and researching to the interviewing to the drafts to making a slideshow. I'd probably rather not know. I'll post a link on here after it runs. I'm also excited just because it will be done, and that's gonna be a great feeling. I'll be done with the class, too, so my first class finished this semester. So after tomorrow, I just will focus on my other major commitments this week. Good news is, once this week is over, I only have two tests and a paper between me and walking down the hill.

It's seemed like college has gone by so quickly, but I guess when I look back on my freshman and years, things were so different. There's been a different group of Kansan friends every year, most of whom I still talk to and love to see. I used to go to Manhattan all the time for the ex, and now I love spending all my time in Lawrence. I've traveled a whole lot to some new places, seen Elvis' mirrored-room and NYC for the first time, and hope to visit some more. I've taken a whole bunch of completely meaningless classes, a few interesting ones and just a couple really important ones. Right now, though, graduation seems SO far away.

I'm excited to see everyone coming for graduation, though. My mom's coming from Michigan (and gets here on her birthday!), I might have another few aunts or uncles coming, then Dad, Cathie and Grandma. It's going to be a great weekend, especially because I got it off from work! First weekend off since I started.

Anyway, about the food. For Valentine's Day, my mom got me a Martha Stewart Living magazine subscription, and on this issues first pages are rhubarb recipes. It's not something I'd ever really liked until just recently, but it's SO good in desserts. This was a recipe for rhubarb upside-down cake. Rhubarb is just coming into season, so we got it at the Merc. And then started my most epic baking fail ever.

The cake is assembled as such: rhubarb sliced thinly and soaked in sugar in the bottom of the pan, then a sour cream-orange pound cake on top, then a crumb mixture on top of that. When you turn it over the rhubarb's on top, obviously. Anyway, I read the recipe really carefully, except for the part about the pan. Normal cake pans are one inch deep, and this one needed a two inch one. I didn't feel like going out and getting one by the time I saw that, so I decided a springform pan would work. False. Rhubarb is kind of the texture of celery, but when you soak it in sugar and start baking it, it gets a lot softer and starts to make its own syrup. Some of that syrup started leaking out of the springform onto the bottom of the oven, which was pretty gross. So I put a baking pan underneath and wrapped the bottom of the pan with aluminum foil to try to stop it from leaking. The cake bakes for an hour, but about half an hour in I just decided to give up. It's a good thing I decided to then, because when I opened the oven door, the cake had some pretty awesome flames coming off it. Yup, that's right, I set a cake on fire. Took it out of the oven and they were like a foot tall. I guess if I'm going to fail, it might as well be with fire, right? Unfortunately, I wasn't in the mindset to take a picture for the blog, so you'll just have to imagine. So the next day, I tried again, with a normal pan. It turned out awesome and tasted great. It's not quite as red as the magazine's picture, but the rhubarb isn't that color yet. Too early. Also, it's the most interesting flavor if you haven't tried it. I think it's nature's Sweet Tart, especially with desserts. It's poisonous when raw though, FYI.

After this epic failure/redemption, I didn't have much time to bake, but I felt like making snack mix later in the week and went back to an old faithful recipe from a family friend. It makes a giant amount (check out the picture!) and takes forever, but is totally worth it. Eventually I should just give in and make my snack mix entirely with Chex. No matter what percentage of my snack mix is Chex, I always end up eating it all first and am left with a mish mosh of Cheerios and crumbs. Anyway, this takes two hours, stirring it every 15 minutes. It's totally worth it though. And I can actually post the recipe! Check it out at the bottom of the post.

Then a couple days ago my mind was so overloaded with stress I just took a break and made red velvet cupcakes for the LJ newsroom. Still a favorite and super pretty. It always freaks me out a bit when, at the end of mixing the cupcakes, you mix together baking soda and vinegar and put the fizzy mixture in. Whatever it does, it makes it yummy.

Tonight I hang out at the newsroom to work on my project, so I'm making cupcakes for that. And the number of things I'm baking for graduation is growing: ice cream cake for my mom's birthday, cupcakes for our cookout, cupcakes or cake for another lunch...I'm sure more will be added. And I'll love it :)

Anyway, here's the Chex mix recipe, courtesy of Marilyn Livingood.

2 lbs. mixed nuts
1 Tbl. seasoned salt
1 box wheat squares
2 c. salad oil
1 box rice squares
2 Tbl. Worcestershire sauce
1 box Cheerios
1 Tbl. garlic salt
1 package pretzel sticks
(I usually add a box of corn Chex too)

Mix all ingredients in a LARGE pan (two disposable turkey roasters work well). Bake in a 200˚ oven for 2 hours. Stir every 15 minutes.