Thursday, February 10, 2011

I Am Baking!!

Cupcakes. There will be delicious cupcakes.

At least I hope there will be...it was one of those, "hm, what's in the cupboards that could potentially turn into deliciousness?" moments.

True Fact: I am not a Food Blogger. Ulla, Pixee, Barbie, and everyone else who writes wonderful things about food, with precise measurements and actual ingredients and stuff-I love what you do. I am just not well equipped to do it. Because as I said, I am not a Food Blogger. I am a Kind-Of-Fat, Ineffectual-Rage-Filled Feminist, Yeah-I-Am-A-Mom-But-That-Is-A-Touchy-Subject-Right-Now, I-Have-Many-Opinions-But-If-You-Disagree-That's-Totally-Rad-As-Long-As-You-Afford-Me-The-Same-Respect, Lazy Blogger. And I cook like I blog. In that, hey, here's a link/ingredient/concept that seems like it would be great, so let's throw it in there and see what happens. Having said that, here is my cupcake recipe.

 You will need:

  • Some dry stuff. I used flour, baking powder (because science), sugar, cocoa (because chocolate) and fairy dust.
  • Some wet stuff. I used half a pot of cold coffee, some dark rum, about an ounce of chocolate almond nondairy creamer, some olive oil, and a couple of eggs. This is stuff I happened to have around that I thought would make good cupcakes.
  • A big bowl. Mine is pink.
  • A cupcake baking tray doodad.
  • Cupcake paper things. Today I happened to have white ones on hand, but I usually enjoy the multicoloured kind. Because, well, bright colours.
  • A mixing/scooping device, if you're not into using your hands.
  • A heat source. I prefer an oven.

Procedure:


  1. Put the dry stuff in your big bowl and mix it up, to avoid random clumps in the batter. If you are tempted to not mix it, remember that while a random chocolate clump may sound delicious, a random baking powder clump will probably make you barf.
  2. Add the wet stuff. Mix it all really well. You can use a traditional mixing device, like a stick or your hands, or a spoon, or if you're feeling really classy, one of those electric mixing things.
  3. Get your heat source ready. I heated my oven to about 325 F. YMMV, depending on your heat source.
  4. Line your cupcake tray thing with your cupcake paper whatsits. Use your scooping device (hands, spoon, whatever) to fill them about halfway with the batter.
  5. Bake them. You will know they are cupcakes when they look cupcakey and also don't get goo all over the toothpick you stick into the middle of one to test it.
  6. Take them out of the oven and cool them at least enough so that you don't burn yourself by taking a bite. Nothing takes the joy out of baking like a trip to the emergency room. Okay, a lot of things probably take the joy out of baking in a severe manner, but I am here to be happy about cupcakes, so shut your negative facehole.
  7. Decorate your cupcakes if you want, or just put them in your face and eat.

Now, some of you may be all like, "But Becca, those are not cupcakes! They are at best, chocolatey muffins! You said decorating was optional! Those are MUFFINS, which are basically lazy and ugly cupcakes!!" And to you I say, "My cupcakes don't have to fit your baking beauty standards. If I want them to be all unadorned, they are no less cupcakey in their cupcakeyness! Stop pigeonholing delicious beauty!" And then you look at me kind of funny and start slowly backing away, and I vehemently insist that I TOTALLY DID NOT drink most of that rum before I added the last bit to the cupcakes, and GOD WHY ARE YOU ALL SO JUDGY.

Ahem. Ok, if you want to decorate your cupcakes, which should be done as an extra thing because it is fun, not as a mandatory practice to conform to the unrealistic standards perpetuated by the Food Network, then here's how you can do it, the Crazy Person Super Fun Becca Way.

You will need:
  • A big bowl. This time I'm using a blue one.
  • A mixing device
  • Icing sugar.
  • Something gooey, like butter, cream cheese, or mayonnaise. Today I'm using a mixture of mayo and peanut butter, because shut up and try something new.
  • Maybe some vanilla or something? Or essence of whatever the heck flavour you want? I dunno, it's your tastebuds.
  • Food colouring (optional)
  • Smaller bowls to make different colours of icing (optional)

How to do it:
  1. Mix the gooey stuff, flavour and icing sugar in the big bowl. It should look and taste like icing. Figure it out. This is not the Food Network, and I am not Rachael Ray.  
  2. If you want to make it all one pretty colour, add some food colouring. If you want multiple colours, divide the mixture into as many bowls as you want colours and add food colouring appropriately. Today I'm just doing it all a really bright teal-ish green sort of colour.
  3. Spread it on the cupcakes.

There, now you have cupcakes. Nom them.

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Ok, so mine turned out...meh. The cupcakes themselves were yummy, though they maybe could have used a bit more wet stuff. The frosting was excessively oily and weird looking, but delicious. But once they sat in the fridge for a bit, everything set up nicely and now I have yay cupcakes. I would take a picture, but my camera batteries died and I can't find the spares, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

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