Let them eat...

...cuppycakes!

This week my kitchen was a little cuppycake-making factory. Well...okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but I did make many little cakelettes...all destined for the office.

This week a very wonderful person decided, after 30 years at the company, it was time to retire. We'll miss her wisdom, sense of humour and down-to-earth nature--any woman (of a certain age) who still harbours lusty thoughts for men in uniform (specifically motorcycle cops' jodhpurs and "fantasy boots") is a gem.

As a special thank you for everything she's done, I whipped up a bunch of my vanilla cupcakes, topped them with pastel-tinted royal icing (pale rose, blue and lavender) and sprinkled rose petals, sugary flowers lavender on top.

The other cupcake event was my sixth anniversary at my current company. Our tradition is that we bring in the treats (unless it's a surprise or a major milestone). Given the recent warm weather, light and sunshiney lemon poppyseed cakes came into fruition.

The texture is a cross between an angel cake, a regular cake, and a meringue. It's almost snow-white crumb was light and refreshingly lemony. One of my colleagues said it was the perfect after-lunch sweet because it wasn't too sweet nor too heavy. After the cakes cooled, I spread some blueberry butter (akin to jam) on each one, and then topped them with cream cheese icing.

Lemon Poppyseed Cupcakes
adapted from an Anna Olson recipe

Yield: 24 cakelettes

6 large eggs, separated
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
225g vanilla sugar
200g cake flour
1/4 tsp salt
125ml lemon juice
3 Tbsp poppyseeds

Preheat oven to 325F/170C and line cupcake pans.

Whip egg whites, cream of tartar and 75g sugar to a glossy, soft peak stage and set aside; in a second bowl mix the yolks and lemon juice. Whisk together the sugar, flour and salt, then mix in the lemony-yolky mixture and beat until thick. Stir in the poppyseeds. Fold in the whites, being careful not to deflate the mixture. Spoon into cupcake liners and bake for 40 minutes or until done (a skewer will come out cleanly and the tops will be a pale golden).

cheers!
jasmine

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Beanie gets his chicken

A few weeks ago a certain little kitty of mine posted a plaintive request for some chicken. He can be rather obsessive when it comes to poultry in general. He just *knows* when there's a chicken in the house: KFC (yuch), leftover Buffalo wings, frozen homemade pot pies cause him to gallop around and miao, chirrup and paw incessantly.

Normally I don't give in to such things, but I "accidentally" roasted "too many" chicken pieces (lemon, butter, rosemary, salt and pepper). I held back a couple of drumsticks for the dear cat, and put them in the fridge for his later munching.

I snapped these photos (action shots, surely!). The first picture was his expression when I told him that he was getting some chicken...you can read the disbelief on his fuzzy little face. I also caught him in his after-snack grooming. The last photo is what I call the "Oh, I'm so full" shot.






And in other news...I've finally updated my blog links. As usual, these are blogs I visit on as regular a basis as I can (I may not comment all that often, but they are in my RSS reader). Most of them are ones you may already know, but there may be one or two new ones for you to explore:

Bread, Water, Salt, Oil...
Cooking by the Seat of My Pants
Culinary Concoctions by Peabody
Dorie Greenspan
Humble Pie
Jumbo Empanadas
Kitchen Wench
La Mia Cucina
My Kitchen in Half-Cups: Second Helping
Once Upon a Feast
Table d’Hôte
Tartlette
Taste TO
Urban Pedestrian
What's For Lunch, Honey?
Winter Skies, Kitchen Aglow
Writing at the Kitchen Table

cheers!
jasmine

International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day

Thanks to the exbf I found out about International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day (which coincidentally is both St. George's Day and William Shakespeare's birth and death day), a day to embrace your inner technopeasanthood. What's it all about? Read Jo Walton's post here and the post that started it all here.

So what am I doing participating in this event? Well, I'm not a SFWA member, but I have had several pieces published hither and yon (far too dull to talk about so I won't). Besides this comment (and response) is all I needed to delve into the back-up discs to participate.

For those of you who know me in real life, you know that I've been tinkering away at a novel. Bits of it have been posted on-line, but I thought this snippet would be fun to bring back. Yes, for those of you who are fans of my conversations with my mummy will recognize Sophia and her mum, Mrs. K...not a verbatim of a conversation with my dear Mummy, but, you know, it's awfully close to something that happened several years ago. Enjoy!

Cakes were not Mrs. K’s strong point, so she always ordered them in. At first there was quite the variety: vanilla, chocolate, lemon, pound cakes and the rest. The year she discovered black forest cakes was one that everyone remembered as the year that all other cakes ceased to exist to the family. At every opportunity Mrs. K served one: birthdays, holidays, shopping days.

Unfortunately her enthusiasm for what was supposed to be cream and cherries sandwiched between layers chocolate crumb was not shared by her daughter. Sofia hated them: slabs of chemically-induced “chocolate” cake, swirls of saccharine-ladened edible oil product and sugary, sticky cherry preserves of a colour not known in nature. If she were truly unlucky, the cake would be a day or two old, cherries hidden between each layer and on top of a cloud of cream and the entire cake would be covered in waxy chocolate curls. It was enough to put her off of all cakes and pastries.

Previous requests for a plain chocolate cake resulted in a white-swathed tower, sometimes with chocolate shavings, sometimes with toasted slivered almonds. After the off-key singing ended and candles were blown out, Sofia drew her knife through gateau layers, disappointed to find an almost glutenous cherry filling oozing out from between the cake layers, and puddling onto the plate.

"What is the matter, Honey? Is there something wrong?" Her mother would ask.
"No, nothing's wrong."
"But you do not look happy."
"Well, I thought I'd get a regular cake. That's all."
"But it is a regular cake. It is a chocolate cake. In fact it is much better than a chocolate cake...it is a black forest cherry layer cake...you do not like it?" Mrs. K. would ask with a hurt tone in her voice.
"Well, I really don't like black forest cake, and I thought that you’d get me something different this year."
"No. You told me that you love Black Forest Cherry Layer cake. That is why I ordered it for you."
"No, Mum. You like Black Forest cherry layer cake. It's your favourite cake."
"You asked for one."
"I asked for a chocolate cake, mum."
"And that is what I got you."
"Okay, fine”
“See, there is cake and it is chocolate.”
“Yes Mum.”
“And look—it is covered in whipped cream. You like whipped cream—that is why you are so fat.”
“Yes, Mum. I like whipped cream, but no…I’m not fat.”
“And look. There are cherries. You used to dig through the fruit cocktails for the cherries when you were little.”
“Yes Mum.”
“So, this is all of those things in one cake.”
“But—“
“What “but?” You just said you liked all of these things.”
“But—“
“It's great. I like the cake."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, I'm sure."
"As long as you like it."
"Yes, I like it."
"See, I told you Black Forest Cherry Layer cake was your favourite."

Click here for the event round-up.

Thanks Jo!

cheers!
jasmine

tags: International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day

logo credit: John Scalzi
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