Meringues and a birthday: Meringue cookies, meringue candied almonds and tiramisu cupcakes

Last summer I remember how mild severe weather seemed. In Kansas, you can always expect some rockin' thunderstorms and a few tornadoes in the spring. Well, we are definitely getting paid back for it this year. I know everyone's heard about the tornadoes in Joplin, which are just a huge tragedy. We had tornado warnings around here about that time, which freaked me out a little bit, but they went south. The mark of a true Kansan: watching the storm coming (the lightning was cool!).

But the tornado experience I got this year I've never had before was having to go into shelter at work. I was in downtown KC when our publisher made us go down to the parking garage. Later, the whole building was told via loudspeaker to take shelter. There were multiple funnel clouds around and a couple actually touched down in the metro area. We were downstairs for more than an hour, and the long-time employees didn't remember that ever happening before. Naturally, it happens to me in my first week!


In my never-ending quest to find food I can munch on at work (so I don't spend a million dollars at the food quart), one of the options I came up with were these candied almonds. I've made something similar to them before, but this new recipe used meringue, which is quickly becoming one of my favorite things. Too bad it's a pain in the ass to make in rainy weather, which we seem to have an interminable supply of lately. Anyway, these almonds are super tasty and easy to make. Will probably do again.

Meringue No. 2 for this week: meringue kisses. I've also made a variation of these before, a peppermint sandwich version for Christmastime. I really like how cute the little cookies are, and I pipe them, which I like doing too. These are all three different flavors: the orange ones are orange creme, the green are lime and the pink are tutti fruiti. The basking recipe is from Joy of Cooking. To be honest, the only decent ones were the orange creme, which I want to make again. The other two tasted like cough syrup. Lesson learned: stick with sweeter flavors and less citrus with meringues.


Most of my friends know they all get a free pass — for your birthday I will bake you whatever you please (so if you didn't know this, here's your warning!). Last weekend was my friend Brianne's birthday. Back when my friends and I had the time (and the same days off) to do dinner parties, she requested a tiramisu cake. So it was only fitting that for her birthday I make her these tiramisu cupcakes. I've also made these before, but I remember them being significantly more difficult. Guess I wasn't as experienced then. Even Joe, who's anti-coffee flavor, ate at least part of one. Paired with some sake bombs, these were a fun birthday treat! (P.S. - Posting them on Hoosier Homemade's Cupcake Tuesday!)

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!

The most involved cupcakes I've made yet (plus better than Cheez-it crackers!)

So it's spring break! Eeeeeeeee!!! So happy!!!

Okay. Excitement over. Not really, but on Sunday I leave for Vegas. Can't wait! I'm excited most about two things: Cirque du Soleil's "Love" and the amazing food we're going to eat. Well, and going with Liz and Alex. And seeing Case and Traci. And going out. And seeing all the sports book people show up Wednesday for the NCAA Tournament. And not worrying about stuff going on here!

It was a tough week, but I strategically placed some baking time in there to de-stress myself (translation: avoid studying). First, I tried baking these Parmesan crackers. I've never made crackers before, but these were super easy to make. Getting them thin was another story, but whatever. They were still tasty. You basically just throw flour, salt, butter and freshly grated Parmesan cheese (mmmmmmm) into a food processor, add half-and-half and you have dough. Then comes the rolling it out part. Like SmittenKitchen says, you have to go waaaay thinner than 1/2 inch like the regular recipe calls for. I tried as thin as I could, but even after poking holes in the crackers with a fork, some still puffed up. Oh well. They were really yummy snacks!! I'm usually not a cheese cracker fan, but Parmesan makes everything better. Can you tell that I like Parmesan?

Tuesday night I had to study for a test. It was one of those tests that's in a lower-level class but the teacher wants you to know everything about the topic plus how to change your car's tire while it's moving. As in, ridiculous amounts for something that's not worth it. Tuesday's my long day of classes too. So naturally, I get home and both of my food magazines are here: Food Network Magazine (my absolute favorite and you should totally go subscribe) and Martha Stewart Living. I read those. Then I decide to make brownies. Both things that help me accomplish my studying. But Easter candies are out and I had to make Easter M&Ms/Easter sprinkles brownies, right? Well that's what I was telling myself.

So this test was yucky. It did have a feminist question, though, so I owned that, courtesy of my yucky test last week. Something totally new and different happened to me, though, while studying for it. I was going strong, and then got tired at 1 a.m. Anyone who knows me knows that I stay up late...always. But this semester I've had to get up early for class or work every day and don't really have any sleep-in days, which I guess has thrown me off of that ability. So I went to bed at 1 a.m. the night before my test. SO weird. Even weirder, I got up at 6:45 to study again. Yeah. I don't do early mornings. But I did, and I took it. Maybe that means I'm getting older. Hmph.

Thursday night was my last school commitment of the week. I had to turn in computer class homework, but I wanted to do some cupcake-ing before I did. So I used the marsala I got when I was with Mom and tried these tiramisu cupcakes (the first photo is courtesy of Tanner Grubbs, again). They are quite yummy, but look closely at the directions if you want to make them. They're super involved: you heat up milk and vanilla bean pods and then let it cool and strain it, sift together dry ingredients and in the meantime beat together lots of eggs and sugar. Then you have to whisk that over simmering water, and beat that again till it's light, and then combine the dry ingredients in, and put some of that in your milk mixture and then put it back in the batter....it's a lot. Then you have a coffee-marsala-sugar syrup you brush over the top and marscapone frosting. Tasty but not easy.

And now it's break! And I got to sleep in today for the first time in...I don't know how long. I'm so happy about that. I also just bought a book to read for pleasure rather than school. It's such a foreign concept! I should probably do homework too, but whatever. Kitty is going to be mad at me for leaving him, but he's got good people to take care of him. And with that, a final thought, courtesy of "Ace of Cakes."

"Dogs have owners, cats have staff." — Mary Alice