Butterbeer cupcakes, fruit pie and red velvet holiday cupcakes

In the last few weeks, I've been to the lake for the Fourth of July, packed up my entire house and moved. I took a couple days off of work, and with the help of my dad, stepmom, aunt and uncle, moved to a city about an hour from where I lived. My mom and her boyfriend stayed behind to clean my old house while the rest of us loaded stuff into what looked like far too small an apartment. In fact, it is not. There's lots of nice nooks and crannies for my stuff. It's not quite put together yet, but apparently this stuff takes time. And now my commute has been cut down from one hour to about five minutes! So yes, I've been absent from here for a bit, but I promise it was for a good reason!

So that means a couple of my desserts this week were for Fourth of July celebrating, like this fruit pie. I've never made it before, but Aunt Betty suggested it. It was a basic sugar cookie dough with a topping made with cream cheese, whipped cream and sugar. Pretty basic, but very tasty, and an excellent way to use fresh fruit from the summer.

For the Fourth, I wanted to make red velvet cupcakes, but lemme tell you, these were not easy cupcakes. The thing about camp is that it's relaxed, and you don't stay there full time, so you don't have all the ingredients needed for things. We have a neighbor, Eddie Mae, who cooks a lot, and thank goodness for her. I think I went to her house three separate times for these cupcakes. I needed a cupcake tin, and then buttermilk and corn starch (to make my own cake flour!), and then more vegetable oil. Luckily, after all that, they turned out quite well!

These I made as my first cupcakes in my new apartment! I'm still learning the oven, so it's going to take lots of practice. They're butterbeer cupcakes, in honor of Harry Potter. No, I haven't seen the new movie yet. I'm rereading the whole series so I can remember the story better first, and I'm on book three. So just give me some time :) These cupcakes were wonderful, and even the non-butterscotch lovers liked them! The cake was a mix of cream soda (mmmmmm!) with vanilla and butter flavoring, and a nice butterscotch icing and butterscotch ganache.

(Posting these cupcakes on Cupcake Tuesday!)

Celebration summer: cake pops, strawberry cupcakes and pineapple pie

I've been feeling very grown up lately. There's a lot of really positive things going on that have led to that, but at the same time, I've had some harsh reminders of how quickly life changes. The nice thing is that with the bad, always comes good. And one of my latest pieces is really friggin' exciting: I'm going to be a maid of honor again! I told you a couple weeks ago that one of my best friends, Tara, got engaged, she asked me to be her maid of honor. I could NOT be more excited! She and her fiancé love each other very much, and I can't wait to see them get married. Luckily, I've got some time to prepare for it!


Most of the desserts on this post were for some sort of celebration, like Tara's wedding. Except, of course, this one. This one I just made because I'm a sucker for recipes that get tweeted, especially by a celebrity. I loved Michelle Branch as a kid, and still do. I follow her on Twitter, and she tweeted about this pineapple brown sugar pie. I love pineapple. But I will admit, this pie worried me at first. It was pretty runny when I took it out to put the crumble on top. I will also admit: I cheated on the crust. I bought it. Sue me. Anyway, it tasted great. I'm making this again. Maybe for the Fourth.

Celebration #1: Birthday cupcakes for a family member of someone at work. I've always wanted to make these strawberry cupcakes with strawberry meringue frosting from Martha Stewart. Geri at work asked me to make strawberry pink cupcakes, so I did! There are two packs of strawberries in the whole batch. Very, very tasty.

And the final celebration: birthday cake pops. My friend Nick was one of the first people I ever did a birthday sweet for. Last year I made him Fruity Pebbles cupcakes. Since last year, he has discovered cake pops and fallen in love. He requested two flavors, chocolate and yellow cake. That results in about 100 cake pops, so I took half to my new newsroom. They went over well there. And when I delivered these to Nick last night, he ate about four right away. I'd say they went over well with him, too!

(Posting this on Cupcake Tuesday!)

Fruit + citrus: Lemon and lime curd cake, pineapple cookies and strawberry shortcake cookies

So on Sunday, my useless ability to remember ridiculous lyrics came in handy, if only for a second or two. I played trivia for the first time in a while. I'm fully aware my use is fairly limited to Disney trivia, and I occasionally come through on some random other things. For one category on Sunday, the host asked who was on the sideline during Don McLean's "American Pie." Anyone? Anyone? Well, despite being unable to memorize geography for my Politics of Africa class or memorize works of art for art history in college, I can remember song lyrics like nobody's business.


Actually, in fourth grade, we learned our 6, 7, 8 and 9 multiplication tables to songs, and I still sing them in my head when I'm thinking about it. Grandma is always astounded when I know words to songs, ranging from Katy Perry to songs from "Singin' in the Rain." I'm glad this talent is so useful...but on Sunday, it gave me the Jester. We didn't win, but whatever. At least I got that question!

I guess the theme of this post is fruit. Because everything I made had some sort of fruit in it (and the cookies I have in the oven now are the same). I must be pining for spring and summer foods. Anyway, I used to hate pineapple, but it's grown on me as I've gotten older. I made pineapple cookies ones during Christmas, and then recently I ran across this recipe. As I'm sure you've all figured out, I'm a sucker for all things nostalgic, and the recipe obviously was for the author of the blog. So I made them at Aunt Betty's, and they were amazing. Pineapple makes a cookie so moist and awesome! Especially with a glaze.


My dad's a big fan of strawberry shortcake, so when I saw a recipe for strawberry shortcake cookies, I had to make them too. While they were tasty, they fell apart easily. I think we should have baked them longer (which would have meant following the recipe). But they were gone quick at the newsroom, so I suppose people liked them! I need to make real strawberry shortcake sometime soon.


My last fruit attempt was the cake at the top, which sliced into this. Recently, a local bakery that is closing had a sale, and I made away like a bandit with some great stuff, including a rotating cake decorating stand. I naturally wanted to make a cake, and I wanted some citrus in it, so Aunt Betty and I made my favorite three-layer white cake. Then Aunt Betty actually found a recipe for microwavable curd, which was waaaay easy. We made that lemon one, then adapted it to lime. I have to admit, the cake slid around a bit when we put it together, hence the curd coming out the middle in the picture at top. But it turned out pretty I think! I'm also fairly certain I don't have the patience to decorate cakes often. But I'm more than happy to make curd regularly. Bring on summer!

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!

Summer cupcakes and pie

I've officially been a college graduate for a week and a half. Now I'm a working girl. It's taking a little bit of getting used to. On the bright side, it gives me more time to bake and try new things. On the down side, I'm experiencing the end of college — namely, people moving away. I have friends moving all over the country, which I guess has happened before, except now I'm not going back to school after it happens. I imagine that when fall semester comes, it will be even stranger. I always have this feeling at the beginning of a break, where I've been so stressed with schoolwork that when it's over, I still feel like I should be doing it. I bet I get over that though :)

I've been watching a lot of movies. Saw Cabaret for the first time...jury's still out on what I think of that. And the Fantastic Mr. Fox. Definitely a cute movie. I watched Kiss Me Kate too — any musical lovers should appreciate that because Howard Keel is in it and his voice is amazing. Then some old favorites too, like Grease and 10 Things I Hate About You. "My insurance doesn't cover PMS!"

I've had a lot of time to bake lately, which is always fun. I made pink lemonade cupcakes about a week ago, sort of following the recipe. The weather was crappy and rainy, and I thought something like that seemed spring-y. You put in pink lemonade concentrate, but I added some of the powdered kind too, which made it extra pink-flavored. Same with the icing, which I also modified. Overall, they were pretty tasty, but totally weird. I guess I'm used to chocolate cupcakes or vanilla or something like that. I liked them though.


Then Keane came to town for his final goodbye before moving all the way up to Minnesota. He's working in the industry he loves, but I'm still sad to see him go. On the plus side, I guess, friends moving away mean lots of fun little trips for me to take! Anyway, Keane and AC came, and I made key lime pie cupcakes, which I've made before but apparently not written about. They're so tasty! You make a graham crust for them, and then a lime cupcake. Then you put in a key lime-marscapone filling, and top it off with key lime frosting. I'm not so hot at filling cupcakes, and might try a different method soon if I can't get better at it. But, they taste wonderful! Even though they fall apart when eating them. I made them initially for the guys, but gave them out elsewhere as well. The night out was fun too, and involved three boys singing "Shoop" in my car, putting the child lock on the windows and doing the Safety Dance.


My next project was to make bundt cake. I got this awesome bundt pan for graduation from a family friend (lemme tell you, my graduation gifts definitely had a theme, and they were all about cooking and baking). I'd really been wanting to try it, and stumbled across a recipe for Jones soda bundt cake. I've never made bundt cake before, but I had to try it. Kelly came over and helped me make the cake, which is seriously like half butter half sugar. It was flavored with Jones soda cream soda and berry lemonade, conveniently my two favorite flavors. The recipe called for just a normal glaze over the top, but I made glazes of each of the sodas instead. It was an awesome cake and very moist.


On my day off this week, I went to my aunt's house to make rhubarb pie. I've kind of shied away from pies because I'm not real confident in my crust-making abilities, so she taught me how to do it. My first crust was definitely a disaster, but a tip — roll it out between two sheets of waxed paper. Definitely helps. We made three pies, three different crusts, all from Joy of Cooking. The first was the normal pastry crust with strawberry and rhubarbs. The second, the better crust with just rhubarb. And finally, the best crust with fresh strawberries and rhubarb. The third was definitely best, but I guess that's what you get for putting more butter in, right? They all ended up really great, so now I guess I'm at least semi-ready to make my own pie crust. Fourth of July calls, right? Apple pie? I think so. Maybe I'll even brave making a lattice top.

So now I settle into summer and working. I'll leave you on an entertaining note — or at least I thought it was funny. I hope everyone watched Looney Tunes at least a little bit (and I still do if I get the chance!). Remember the cat that Pepé Le Pew always chased after? We knew she was French because she said "Le meow, le purrrr." So, my dad's in the Czech Republic right now for an airshow and sent me an e-mail today with the subject line "Czech pussycats" (I seem to always get animal e-mails...wonder why). In the body it said "Czmeow......czprrrrr!" I thought it was hysterical...coulda just been me though :)