black magic cupcakes with caramel drizzle

I am apparently the cupcake queen right now. My friend Sofie was doodling in her notebook during class, and she drew a picture of me holding a plate of cupcakes. This is how my friends imagine me. I like it.

When you bake red velvet cupcakes, you invariably end up with buttermilk that is left over and which can go forgotten in the refrigerator until it goes bad. Not so at the lovenest. I made it my mission to figure out something else I could bake with buttermilk, and as I was having some friends over last week, I settled on more cupcakes, and used the following recipe (sort of)

Black Magic Cake:

INGREDIENTS

• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 cups white sugar
• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup strong brewed coffee
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour two 9 inch round cake pans or one 9x13 inch pan.
2. In large bowl combine flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Make a well in the center.
3. Add eggs, coffee, buttermilk, oil and vanilla. Beat for 2 minutes on medium speed. Batter will be thin. Pour into prepared pans.
4. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 30 to 40 minutes, or until toothpick inserted into center of cake comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes, then remove from pans and finish cooling on a wire rack. Fill and frost as desired.

I actually don't own a cake pan, or I might have just made a cake, but who doesn't love cupcakes? They turned out really well, they were slightly tangy from the coffee and the buttermilk, and instead of making or buying a frosting for them, I made a caramel drizzle and had fun (and made a mess) pouring it over the cupcakes and allowing it to cool. It was perfect with this cake, and I would be interested in trying it again sometime because it was such a nice alternative to frosting.

playing catch-up

The problem with failing to blog about delicious things I have cooked/eaten in a timely manner is that food is best described when available to refresh your memory as well as your palate. Oh well.

Valentine's day weekend was nothing to sneeze at in terms of delicious things. The day itself was spent pleasantly drunk--as Valentine's day should be. I had a lovely night owl pumpkin ale at the Elysian brewery, which was quite tasty and truly pumpkiny. I don't remember a time when I have enjoyed a pumpkin ale quite so much! For dinner, both Sara and I ordered the cider braised pork chops (not sure why, as I don't usually really like pork chops) with mashed potatoes that must have had some kind of magical butter or gravy or I don't know what (both because of intoxicants that night and because time has passed) and also German-style purple cabbage. Honestly, we could have almost shared one entree, so large were the portions, but it worked out well for other people at our table, as we were unable to finish everything but willing to offer bites to everyone else.

Sunday morning (after a night of dancing at the Lo-fi!) was Heather's 24th birthday celebration, which was hosted at her house in the form of a tasty, communally cooked brunch. I brought orange juice and cava (for mimosas!) and also some red velvet cupcakes that I'd whipped up which, if I am allowed to pat myself on the back, turned out really well! I am on a new kick of trying to bake more sustainably, which means, for starters, not using cupcake liners. Every little bit helps, right? The cupcakes were bright red, and delicious. My only regret is not having enought time to make frosting for them from scratch, but c'est la vie.

My favorite brunch item, and indeed, my new favorite muffin, was the creation that Calder pulled together in a very crowded kitchen--bacon, gruyere, and scallion muffins.

Calder doing his thing

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Bacon-Gruyere-and-Scallion-Muffins-10835

I love all of those things, and was excited to taste a savory muffin, as I don't remember the last time I have eaten a muffin that wasn't sweet. The muffins, aside from being slightly labor intensive, looked fairly easy to cook and I am tempted to have my own small brunch get together soon just to have an excuse to make them myself.
My job at the brunch was to make pot after pot of french press, and this gave me the opportunity to "supervise" the creation of the muffins, brioche french toast, fritatta, and sweet potato fries, to name a few things. I also got plenty of coffee, and mimosas (a good reason to hang out in the kitchen if there ever was one).

Happy Birthday Heather!

Julien Offray de la Mettrie

I am studying for a midterm in my European studies class, and reading the works of various philosophers regarding enlightenment ideas, which is kind of exhausting but interesting. I thought the following bit of text was really cool, and it's about food! So I'm going to share it.

"The human body is a machine which winds itself up, the living image of perpetual motion. Food nourishes the movements which fever excites. Without food, the soul pines away, goes mad, and dies exhausted. It is a candle whose light flares up the moment before it goes out. But nourish the body, pour into its veins invigorating juices and strong liquors; then the soul, taking on their strength, arms itself with a proud courage, and the soldier whom water would have made flee, now made bold, runs joyously to the sounds of drums. Thus a warming drink excites the blood which a cold drink would have calmed. What power there is in a meal! Joy is born again in a sad heart; it infects the souls of table companions, who burst into the friendly songs in which the French excel."

Cardamom Banana Cupcakes

I like entertaining. I have a hard time having people over at my place without cooking or baking something, even if it is not my original intention.

Last night we had a small group over for movie night (we watched 8 Femmes, a strange but entertaining French musical murder mystery) and I decided at the last minute to make some cupcakes, because who doesn't like cupcakes?

I have been wanting to make something with cardamom because it is a lovely spice, so when I found this recipe online, it sounded perfect. The cupcakes themselves turned out well, not too sweet at all, which I found enjoyable. The cupcakes would have been lovelier still if I had been able to find bananas that were super ripe (brown!), and I think I will try it that way last time to see if it makes the difference I think it will. I used more cardamom than the 1/2 tsp that the recipe called for, and they were spicy, the texture of the cupcake was lighter than I thought it would been when spooning out the batter into the muffin tin. It looked like banana bread batter, but did end up being lighter than that when the end result came out of the oven. I frosted them with a cream cheese frosting that I whipped up by hand. I much prefer making my own frosting because I like being able to control how sweet it is (I like it when it is NOT loaded down with sugar). We weren't able to wait for the cupcakes to fully cool, so great was our cupcake lust. Instead, the cupcakes were consumed when still warm, with the frosting spooned liberally onto the cupcakes and licked off of fingers as we messily consumed them.

I also made tacos last night, and when I found myself with hunger pains later in the evening due to heavy concentration on my German paper, I rummaged in the kitchen looking for leftovers. The sole remaining taco shell was broken in half (lengthwise) and so I made an open-faced taco. For future reference, the open-faced taco is extremely difficult to eat without getting it all over you. It is delicious, but inferior to actual tacos in that actual tacos lend themselves to the possibility of being eaten without simultaneously ending up all over your lap.

miso soup

Sometime last week I decided, while shopping at Uwajimaya, that I really wanted to make some miso soup. I bought dashi miso (is it cheating to use that instead of regular miso paste? I don't think so), some seaweed, and went home to easily concoct my miso soup. I lightly sauteed some extra firm tofu in a little sesame oil, added the miso paste to very, very hot water, then tossed in a liberal amount of seaweed and tofu, and some chopped green onion on top. The resulting soup was awesome, and just what I needed.