I had my first Cakeology experience downtown and I have to say: DELICIOUS. Not only do they have beautiful full-size treats, but mini cupcakes as well. I tried two, and I WILL BE BACK.
Also, finally, FINALLY saw Belle after reading about it in Entertainment Weekly for a few months now! Go see it if you love period pieces (and you know I do.)
Here's the trailer:
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFi8YCxq2VU&feature=kp[/embed]
Happy Thursday!
Today is the day that I start finalizing my Valentine's Day treats for my work chums!
I'm down to either heart-shaped cupcakes, or Lofthouse Style cookies with buttercream frosting...
Stay tuned!
As a natural homebody, I sometimes have to make myself leave the house and go places other than the grocery store and corner sandwich shop. That's why I'm so glad my best friend Anna (this is her blog!) lives in this city as well. She's one of my favorite activity partners, and also one of the only people I know that doesn't think I talk too much. Bless her, she puts up with my long-winded stories.
If there is one thing that Bostonians can do, it's drink, which means that Boston is nowhere near in short supply of bars and pubs.
As a person who doesn't like to go out much, I can't stand places that play music louder than normal speaking level (Call me crazy, but when is it ever fun to literally shout out a story to a person sitting two feet away from you?). That leaves out a good chunk of establishments for me. But one place that has never failed to keep me happy is Goody Glover's in the North End. It's one of the only restaurants in the neighborhood that isn't Italian, (it's very, very Irish. Like, many of the servers have wonderful Irish accents and everything) and it ticks every box on my list: appropriately balanced audio, friendly staff, a true pub feel complete with dark furniture built into the wall, and food that is TO DIE FOR. You have not lived, my friend, until you have tried one of their potato spring rolls. It's kind of one of those places that can easily get passed up if you're not paying attention, but if you're in the mood for a Grade A burger and a pint of Magner's, find yourself at Goody Glover's this instant.
Anna and I had time to spare before our movie, so I suggested we hit up my favorite cupcakery in Boston: Sweet. It is the Girly-Girl's dream. There's pink everywhere, Marie Antoinette playing on a loop, and cupcakes with the perfect frosting-to-cake-body ratio. If you've never had a Buttermilk Pancake cupcake, Sweet is the place to fix that. AND, best of all, there are great vegan and gluten-free options that are just as sweet (see what I did there?). Sweet is the kind of bakery that I'd love to open in the (very distant) future.
Mmm Cookies and Cream.
Side note: Have you heard of the Cupcake Sandwich? If you haven't, then I can assure you, you've been eating your cupcakes all wrong. Listen, the next time you hit up a bakery, take a seat and try this little trick: unwrap the cupcake, carefully split it in half so that one half is the cupcake top with frosting and the other half is plain cake. Carefully join the frosting side and bald cake together to make a sandwich with frosting in the center. Voila, a Cupcake Sandwich. You'll never eat a cupcake the same way again.
Hamburgers and cupcakes: do Saturdays get much better?
What did you do this weekend??
You guys I tried. I really, really tried.
Every weekend I make it a point to bake. I love to bake. (You know this, you follow me.) So there I was, just like every weekend, perusing my hundreds of recipes that I've collected online when suddenly, I found it: a recipe for light and fluffy sweet potato cupcakes. I knew I had to make them.
So I make my grocery list, I go to the store, and already I run into a problem: It's winter, and canned sweet potato is no longer available. No matter, we have a blender, so I grab three yams, and I go on my way.
Something I wish I had known before I tried to puree my own vegetables:
YOU HAVE TO COOK THEM FIRST.
Given the fact that my love for cooking is admittedly still in its early stages, this little kitchen trick is one I'd never learned. So there I was, adding water to a blender and pureeing those yams like there was no tomorrow. And puree them I did...kind of.
So as you can see, my should-be smooth puree was a tad bit on the chunky side. But not one to give up, (ESPECIALLY SINCE I HAD ALREADY PURCHASED YAMS TO PROVE I COULD MAKE THESE BABIES.) I forged on ahead. The cupcakes might have a little texture to them, but they were going to be great, I just knew it.
Then arose the next problem...in the form of buttermilk. Now, I don't know if you're like me, but I never find a use for buttermilk. I'll buy it for a recipe, then never, ever use it again. Then a friend of mine mentioned a way to make my own, and being a huge lover of DIY, I jumped on that!
"Just add a tablespoon of vinegar, fill up the rest with milk, and let it sit for a while," she said. Okay, easy enough.
Just to be sure, I looked up a few recipes confirming exactly what she'd told me, with just one speed bump: one recipe said 5-10 minutes, and one said 15, but the rest was right.
I decided to wait ten minutes. The recipe said that I should see it curd, but I didn't. I figured that since I'd done it all right, that it was buttermilk, and forged ahead. OH BOY was that possibly the biggest mistake.
My cupcake mixture ended up being far too watery for the average cupcake, but as I put it in I thought, "Hey, no big deal. You've never made sweet potato cupcakes, and maybe this is just their way." Wrong. So wrong.
Into the oven my babies went. Uncooked is how they returned to me.
The funny thing was: cooked on the bottom and top they were, but mushy in the middle as well. I just couldn't understand it! What had I done so wrong? What had I done to deserve such a tragedy? How could they smell just like Thanksgiving, but a watery one at best? And then it hit me like a sack of yams: the "buttermilk."
Of course. I never let it curd, and this was my result. I felt defeated and a little sad: everything I'd made up until this point had turned out fabulously, and then this.
So now, if you've made it this far, you may be saying to yourself, "What's the point?"
The point, my beautiful or handsome reader, is that even though this experience got me down, even though I totally failed, I still carried on. I still looked up recipes the nest weekend, and I'm still happy.
This blog serves as a documentation of my journey as a cook, but it also serves as a way to share. I know there are other future cooks and bakers out there that want to do more, but are too afraid they'll fail. And let me tell you: you might. I did, and still do. But that's half the fun isn't it? Failing is part of learning, and learning is an everyday occurrence for even the best cooks.
Keep at it. Always cook. Always bake. Always do it with a smile on your face.