a digression from the usual baking chat

Today, I took my first-ever [successful] foray into cable knitting. It's nothing fancy, just a few turns, but I'm so completely excited about it. I really do feel like I can knit anything now!

On another note, I bought the cutest tee-shirt from my local vegan bakery, Pattycake. Their cookies and cupcakes are seriously divine - I can definitely appreciate how they've mastered both fluffy cakes and more hearty peanut butter-oatmeal cookies (to say nothing of everything else in between). It's only a few miles from my house, so I think I go there a bit more than I should (oops!). In any case, they just printed shirts and I figured it was absolutely n

ecessary that I get one.

Here are the photos I borrowed from Pattycake's Facebook page

(I bought the pink version):

So long for now. I have some knitting and German homework to do before Project Runway starts at 9.

really hope the whiny lady who loves leather goes home.

I promise....

to be a bit better about posting from now on.

For this evening's installment of the weekly Sunday movie night Aaron and I host, I decided to make Billy's Vanilla Vanilla cupcakes (courtesy of Martha Stewart.com), topped with White Chocolate Buttercream frosting (from Jen's Genuine Life) - pictures forthcoming. I've used Billy's recipe before and I can say that it works quite well, whether you use the full recipe or half it, for a more manageable number of cupcakes.

My movie night guests are rather divided, in terms of their tastes for sweets. Cupcakes aren't always the favorites with those [boys] who aren't crazy about intense desserts. Thus, when I do make cupcakes (or really anything with frosting), I usually decide to go all out. Besides, any leftovers can always come to school with me - leaving them in the graduate student lounge usually produces an empty plate at the end of the day.

In any case, the frosting I made is a "true" buttercream and is, by anyone's standard, quite serious. The white chocolate seemed like just the right amount of richness for my sweets-loving friends, so I decided to go for it. The end result is fabulous and creamy, but I did have to tweak the recipe to make the frosting stiff enough to spread thickly. This didn't surprise me, as I feel as though I always have to add a bit more confectioner's sugar (in this case, just under half a cup). It's surprising that anyone can ever quantify the necessary ingredients enough to produce a recipe, really. I usually wing it with my frosting and glazing recipes, but the addition of melted chocolate gave me pause.

You can see from the pictures that the frosting is a bit grainy. This is because the chocolate hadn't cooled completely when I added it to the butter. Parts solidified and sort of splintered while I beat the ingredients together. I figure I'll just tell my guests that the cupcakes are topped with a "vanilla buttercream with white chocolate flake." They'll buy it, I'm sure... Otherwise, though, the flavor is delicious and I have to give Jen (of Jen's Genuine Life) a lot of credit.

update: I took the movie night leftovers to my sister's birthday party a day or so later, and they disappeared about an hour after we got there. Success!