Christmas Eve and My Favorite Cookies

Today is a Saturday. I should be making cupcakes. I worked my first job and am on to the next one.  I came home, poured myself a Christmas Eve glass of Malbec, threw in a frozen pizza, and created my favorite cookies.

This is what they look like, although they are not mine exactly.  But that's how easy they are.  They are delicious and simple and peanutbutterandchocolateandDELICIOUS.

Then I got asked on a date. Do you believe men and women can be just friends?  When does the lust die if one is attracted to another?

Merry Christmas!! Hope everyone has a happy and sweet and spicy holiday!!

Yellow Buttermilk Cupcakes and a Waddle of Penguins

Fact: I am a very boring person.  Food depends on texture for me, I enjoy recognizing flavors (tried to use the word recognizability… Word says it’s not a word), and I enjoy simple things.  I made yellow buttermilk cupcakes.  THEY WERE DELICIOUS.  And made way too many.  

AND WERE DELICIOUS.  I am a boxed cake lover.  My friend Brenna makes delicious homemade vegan chocolate cupcakes, but when asked what cake I wanted for my birthday, I said Betty Crocker yellow (or butter) cupcake mix with canned frosting.  I have officially beaten Betty Crocker’s cupcakes in my own mind.  Martha, you wonderful woman.  I made it with swiss meringue buttercream frosting.  This is also the first time I’ve ever liked buttercream frosting.  It’s a texture thing.  It’s normally too light and fluffy.  DELISH. 

Now, if you expected me to make a holiday cupcake, you are right.  I did.  I decided to cutesy it up with PENGUINS.  Did you know that a group of penguins is known as a colony, a rookery, or a waddle when on land?  When in the ocean, they are known as a raft! I made penguins mostly because I love adorable little animals in shades of black and white.  Penguins, pandas, Siberian tigers, Peaches (plus orange), and other animals.

Anyway, Martha made them sound so easy, and they weren’t.  But some people realized they were penguins.  They were Jordan almonds dipped in chocolate, with chocolate dotted on for the eyes, and an orange sprinkle held on by buttercream frosting.  It was labor intensive.  It was snowing.  It was sunny.  There was The Santa Clause.  What a wonderful Saturday! A Saturday of happiness! With a vacation the three days after!

So, next Saturday is my “Christmas.”  My father’s coming up to celebrate with us because Katie works Christmas.  He’s building her a bed because he’s a genius.  And perhaps I’ll make some cookies.  Cupcakes are normally very intense.  And he likes cookies.   So, to fix this, I decided to make the birthday cupcakes for the week, which were three! Now I just need to out-do it for the next one.  They were cute, no?  Also, Frank is again allergic to tree nuts again, so he got just a candy cane. 

Gingerbread Cupcakes and Being a Maneater

Nelly Furtado’s bass bumpin’ hit Maneater comes to mind with these cupcakes.  Sadly, it hasn’t been true lately for me.  This week though was the first Saturday in December so I was officially allowed to pretend Christmas is next week.  (We still haven’t gotten our tree yet.  That is a sad sad fact.) I did however make a wondddderful advent calendar! Christmas time!!

My addition to my baking products is a mini holiday cookie cutter set.  They are super cute.  I still think that “gingerbread women” are stiffed in terms of their looks.  But I’ll let it go because they were so damn cute.

Martha says that gingerbread “is the most recognizable Christmastime flavor.”  Sadly, I never ate good gingerbread cookies growing up.  I was actually quite against them, but I know that I like some good iced ginger snaps, so I decided to try this recipe.  I did not, however, have time to make royal icing for their buttons.  I also think I might have had cookies that were smaller than Martha’s.  And I did the frosting all wrong.  But that’s life, and sometimes it works out.   This week, it did. 

The cupcakes were delicious and moist and everything that I don’t like about gingerbread cookies!  The cookies were fresh and delicious and I have three huge balls left over of dough, even after extra on the side.  I really want to make these again, but they are definitely only winter cupcakes (in my mind at least) and I have a long time before I can make as I wish.  Also, Frank wasn’t allowed to eat them because we discovered that nutmeg is a type of tree nut.  He was angry as a gingerbread man without legs.  

Also, fun fact: I'm doing a triathlon! See the book in the back? Yup. I won't have legs.  I'll be angry.  

Mini Chocolate Salted-Caramel Cupcakes and Battle Wounds

Gretchen Rubin says, “No deposit, no return.”  My deposit this week: a candy thermometer.  I created mini chocolate cupcakes with salted-caramel filling and super duper chocolate frosting.  This is not what Martha called it, but it’s what I consider it. Peaches was interested in the frosting. 

In my opinion, I don’t like caramel.  It’s a texture problem.  The frosting was too bitter.  Bitter is my least favorite part of my tongue.  I still like yellow box cake.  I can’t choose what I love.  Don’t judge, I’ve been trying to stop judging.  Judgment creates bad feelings in your soul. 

I didn’t realize I had clip to hold the thermometer on the edge until it was too hot to move.  I got creative.  So I got this sugar syrup up to 300 degrees F and the thermometer fell out of the pan, flew and hit my exposed inner forearm, and instantly blistered.  Battle wounds!! I looked like I had the herp.  (Herpes: any of several viral diseases causing the eruption of a small blisterlike vesicle on the skin, spread through skin-to-skin contact!)

My brother-in-law unfortunately didn’t like the cupcakes because of the salt.  I however am a salt-a-holic. Therefore the flavor of the salt melted with the bitter of the frosting, so it was wonderful for me.  However, if the cupcakes are cold, caramel is waaay harder.  So don’t leave the cupcakes in your car after a night out.  But, sometimes things happen and that’s why we have room temperature.

Anyway, the recipe went well, and it seemed that everyone liked them.  They were really cute, and it meant that many people could have more than one at work.  I saw a blogger do one online in regular cupcake size.  I’m glad I stuck with Martha on this one because they were super filling and a bit too rich for regular size. 

ARMY OF CUPCAKES.

Red Velvet Cupcakes and a New Beginning

Fact: I graduated in May of 2011. With a seemingly insurmountable level of debt, a bachelor’s in Psychology, a few wonderful friends, and no direction in life.

Fact: For the past eight years, I have learned that I enjoy cooking and baking to de-stress.  By de-stress, I mean it makes me happy and I enjoy spending time measuring, cutting, sautéing, and mixing.  Perhaps I have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, maybe everyone has some level of a personality disorder.

Fact: I am a goal driven person.  I need to have deadlines.  I need to have goals.  I need details.  I need to have proof (As Jean Cocteau said, “There is no such thing as love; only proof of love”).

Conclusion reached from the previous three facts: I am baking (de-stress) something every Saturday (deadlines) from Martha Stewart’s cookies and cupcakes books (details) in order to make myself happier (goals).  I’m giving myself a direction, using nothing for the first fact except that I work two waitressing jobs to pay for this. 

I have officially started on my quest to conquer these books.  My first adventure into baked from scratch: RED VELVET CUPCAKES.

I created these cupcakes from scratch.  It was the second time I have ever made cupcakes not from the box.  I think it was successful.  Things I’ve learned from this experience: red velvet cupcakes have depth of flavor, red food dye ruins my manicure and gets all over your bathrobe if that’s what you choose to wear (I do), I dislike cream cheese to the point that I don’t enjoy cream cheese frosting, and I looove baking. 

Also, like Gretchen Rubin discovered, “One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy; One of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself.”  And who doesn’t love homemade, moist, delicious, red cupcakes when the person giving them to you has a huge smile on her face? 

I should also mention, part of this experiment is to make more friends in my place of work, since I moved to the Capital District of New York with my bed, belongings, and a small family.  I have just one friend to speak of, and he was Pat’s best friend growing up, so he is rightfully Pat’s friend.

Week one: wonderful success!!