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4th of July Cupcakes
07.03.09 | Permalink | | Comments Off on 4th of July CupcakesI have been inspired. It started quite innocently, a comment from a blogger on my friend Hannah’s website which led me to Jenna’s website where she wrote about Nie Nie who got a cake from the writer/blogger of Conversations With a Cupcake. Since then, I have been addicted to the blog, or rather the photos in the blog. Yum. The pictures are luscious and inspiring. In fact, I can often visit the site when I am craving something delicious and to just look at the photos of her masterpieces and I feel like I have been a very bad dieter! So, I decided that yeah, it’s okay to make a few dozen cupcakes to celebrate the Fourth of July, right? Gigi and I set out to do exactly that.
We started by sugaring berries. Take one egg white, add a tablespoon of water and whisk the mixture together. Then either paint the egg whites onto the fruit or dip them. Then sprinkle the wet fruit with sugar. They take about two hours to dry. If you dip the fruit in a thick coating of sugar they turn out frosty and frozen looking. Lightly sprinkled fruit glistens. It is all lovely no matter how you do it!
After the fruit was all lovely, we got down to the business of making the cupcakes. I have never found a cake recipe that tastes right, even though I have tried to bake many. They always taste a little off. Perhaps I am just used to box cakes, but that is what I prefer. So we made cherry chip cupcakes because they are tasty and red and white to honor our holiday. When they were finished, we frosted them with cream cheese frosting:
1 cup butter
1 block cream cheese
1 capful vanilla
1 pinch of salt
3 cups powdered sugar
Cream the butter and cream cheese together, add the vanilla and salt, then the sugar. Yum. Keep the husband out of the frosting (mine likes his frosting).
We frosted the cupcakes in thick snowy drifts and set the cherries and blueberries on them. The strawberries didn’t make it onto the cupcakes, they had to be eaten earlier in the day.
Next we set about making an experiment, a recipie direct from Conversations With a Cupcake. Being a vegetarian family often leaves us out of some of the traditional American fare, like Hostess cupcakes which often says that their fare ‘may include beef fat’ in their list of ingredients (does it or doesn’t it? What’s with the ambiguity??). These cupcakes, dubbed ‘Abby’s Bakesale Cupcakes’ looked just like hostess chocolate cupcakes to me: squat little cakes with thick ganache-like frosting on top. The center looked gooey and rich, the icing just like something I would have trouble staying out of. So, I decided to give a ‘from scratch’ cake recipe a try one more time. The entire recipe for the cake and icing can be found here (you have to scroll down a bit to find it).
This is the product. It looks exactly right. Y-U-M! Right?
But, if I did it again, I’d make different cake. The icing: AMAZING! Exactly what I was hoping for: rich, fudgey, and oh-so-tasty! The cake? Missing… something. A little dry, a little plain and not nearly chocolatey enough! If I were feeling extra decadent, I might use a brownie recipe for the cake. On a normal day, chocolate cake mix. Don’t get me wrong, these won’t live to see Monday, but I would just do something a little different next time. And there WILL be a next time!
Our Fourth of July will be sweet indeed! Beautiful explosions in our mouths and skies.   Have a wonderful day celebrating our independence!
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Lost & Found
06.29.09 | Permalink | | Comments Off on Lost & FoundJude was in bed for the night when my mom came over. She picked him out of the crib and we chatted while she was holding him. She put him down and continued to socialize. A lightbulb went off over Tamara’s head and she bolted for the back door, open since Jude was asleep. We scampered round the corner and down the steps to see a waving red hoe held up by a candystriped pajama clad toddler working the land where we are planting some shrubs. Thank goodness for Jude’s green thumbs; they kept him from wandering out to the road or the paddling pool. I am still shaking as I write this.
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Caterpillars Are Gross
06.29.09 | Permalink | | Comments Off on Caterpillars Are Gross
These caterpillars are disgusting! They poop a lot and their cage is full of poop! At the beginning they were very cute and I loved them. I even kissed their jar! Now I would never kiss them. I am surprised that they got so big. Now that they are big I just hate looking at them. And when they got big, so did their poop! Yuck!
In this picture, the caterpillars are starting to make their chrysalis. I know that because they are just hanging at the top. I’ll bet they are sticky. Do you think caterpillars are sticky?
When you look at the top of this picture, you can see the chrysalis. That only took one day to make the chrysalis.
This picture shows two things. One is their poop. The poop is all over the side of the jar and on the bottom. The other thing you can see is that the tiny caterpillar is still tiny! I wonder if it will ever grow! It might be the tiniest one that won’t grow until the other ones turn into butterflies. Do you think I am right? I am going to leave it in the jar until it grows and changes into a chrysalis.
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Cookie Dip
06.29.09 | Permalink | | Comments Off on Cookie DipJude learned a new skill today: dipping a cookie in milk. He agrees, there is nothing like chocolate cookies and milk. Here is his process:
Step 1: Acquire cookie
Step 2: Dip cookie in milk. Best done with entire fist.
Step 3:Â Eat and enjoy with the entirety of being.
Step 4: Drink/spill milk then finger paint with spilled milk. The best!
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Gigi is a Reader
06.28.09 | Permalink | | Comments Off on Gigi is a ReaderIt warmed my heart to walk into Gigi’s room this evening to tuck her in and find her like this:
…reading every word that she knows! I love my girl. She is so amazing.
Oh, and yes! She is sleeping IN HER OWN BED IN HER OWN ROOM these days!!! Granted, there is a High School Musical Sharpei dress on the line, but regardless, it has been a big week at the Littlejohn House. Kids sleeping in their own rooms and in their own beds. AND reading! Phew! What other craziness might occur?
