Three's a Party

I'm going to a party tonight (which I am nervous as hell about. I'm not all that rad at social situations), so I decided to make some cupcakes, just because I'm old-fashioned and I think you should always do something nice for someone if they're having you over to their house. Because this is Olympia, you can bet that there'll be a couple vegans wherever you go, and that gave me a reason to try vegan cupcakes Martha-style. (In case you didn't pick up on this, I'm sort of secretly obsessed with Martha Stewart. I should hate her guts but at the same time, I adore her. It's kind of how Katie and I feel about Giada "Tits 'n' Teeth" de Laurentis. Should hate her but don't.)

The recipe only makes 12 but I doubled it.
3 c. cake flour (not self-rising)
1 1/2 c. granulated sugar
1/2 c. unsweetened cocoa powder (once Kara or Amy tried to make vegan nutella with unsweetened cocoa powder & peanut butter and it was gross. So don't do that.)
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1/2 c. + 2 tbsp. vegetable oil
2 tbsp. distilled white vinegar
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
2 1/2 c. water

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees & prepare muffin tins with paper liners.
2. Mix together dry ingredients.
3. Mix together wet ingredients.
Oil & water separate! This is science, people!
4. Mix wet & dry ingredients together. The resulting mixture will be very thin! Chocolate soup!
5. Fill the cups up 3/4 of the way, then pop those suckas in the oven for about 20 minutes, rotating halfway through.
6. Go mess around with the self-timer on your camera!
Two things I do a lot: give a thumbs-up & fiddle with my bangs. One thing I am not good at: self-timer pictures. And yes, I am wearing an apron.
Then go watch some Golden Girls.
7. Take 'em out o' the oven. Admire your handiwork. I made an icing out of powdered sugar and water then dusted them with cocoa powder but you could do whateva you want.

You Sound Like You're Sick

I'm sick! I've been chugging Emergen-C like a fiend and washing my hands every 5 minutes, but my weak-ass immune system doesn't care. I used to never get sick and now I get sick all the time. I'm glad I don't have class today. I hate missing class. However, because other people do have class (or go home for the weekend), no one is around to watch Time Bandits with me.

Anyways, on Tuesday (another day off, hooray!) I made some coffe cake muffins. These muffins were so good that Katie proposed marriage. We're getting married in Vegas by an Elvis impersonator. I'm so glad we share common wedding dreams. (I'm serious, the only way I will agree to marriage is if it can be in Vegas, by an Elvis impersonator. Or at Voodoo Doughnuts. I'm a little bit flexible.) They're really, really good.They're not the most gorgeous things I've ever made but I'm not a decorator. Plus they're delicious.

P.S. You know you go to Evergreen when you go down to the corner store to get some yoghurt or sour cream for your muffins and all you can find is Tofutti dairy-free sour cream.
People keep inviting me to shows and stuff and it's really weird because it's not like we're really friends or anything. I'm always suspicious when people invite me to stuff. I'm afraid they just want to humiliate me and dump pig blood on me and then I'll have to unleash my telekinetic powers and wreak havoc on the prom and I really hope you've seen Carrie or else this sounds crazy. Maybe I should just get over it and go. Maybe people do actually want to be my friend.

Strawberry Cupcakes

I made these a couple days ago. They're also from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes. That book rocks. I want to rip out all the cupcake pictures & frame them. Especially because I passed on a hideous painting of a sad-eyed pug wearing a jacket at Marshall's today. I might go back & get it, it was only $9.99 & would provide me hours of amusement. Almost as much amusement as the anatomically correct pug statuette Emily & I bought for Kara from Goodwill.

Anyways, the cake part of these is awesome, despite the fact that I almost lost a finger chopping strawberries into tiny pieces. I was so fed up with it that I only put in half what the recipe called for. My sister ate like 3 before I even made the frosting.

The frosting...eh. It's not totally disgusting, but it's definitely not how I wanted it to turn out, but I'm not quite sure what's off about it.

I guess I'll have to buy ugly dog paintings to make myself feel better.
The good part.

Fresh strawberries from the farmers' market! I also bought olive oil, parsley, blackberries (which I ate all by myself), & a block of cheese (which I also ate all by myself because I have a dairy problem).

Boston Cream Pie Cupcakes

I am learning to drive a standard transmission car, which is not the easiest thing in the world. Last weekend, I unnecessarily yelled at my poor father, so I promised him I'd bake him a treat to make up for it. He flipped through my copy of Martha Stewart's Cupcakes and selected, of course, a difficult and time-consuming one--Boston Cream Pie. (I was assuming he would pick the Guinness Stout cupcakes).

The cupcakes themselves baked up easily enough, but I ran into trouble with the pastry cream filling. Due to the distraction of my sister dancing through the kitchen, I dumped the cornstarch into the egg yolks. So I had to dump out those egg yolks & do that all over again. I went through 8 eggs on the stupid pastry cream! And I'm not happy with the texture of it, either. It's a little lumpier than I would have liked, but it was my first custard so I can't really complain. It tasted fine, which is really what matters in the end.


Troublesome custard.Cupcake friends! Avec ganache glaze.

Song about Boston: