her able hands

More cupcake awesomeness happening over here.

I wanted to do something yummy for St. Patrick’s day to bring to work. Corned Beef and Cabbage? Not cubicle friendly by any stretch of the gastroimagination. Beer might help, but is probably not allowed. Sweets are always appreciated. Then I saw this post and knew I had to try stout and chocolate together.

Oh, my.

Oh my, oh my, oh my.

I used this recipe from Dave Lieberman with Droste chocolate and a Guinness stout. The cake came out so spongy and moist (a tiny bit chewy due to about one minute of over mixing) with perfect little puffy domes.

I didn’t follow his recipe for Cream Cheese Frosting exactly. I prefer it with equal parts butter and cream cheese. It’s an incredibly wet frosting, the butter and cheese creamed until fluffy and then whipping cream added and beat until frothy. Then you add your sugar and vanilla. I used vanilla bean paste and too bloody much cream, so had to use more sugar than I wanted to in order to get it to some kind of spreading consistency. I piped it on with a giant round tip and then dusted them with cocoa.

I’m thinking I’ll just go ahead and put them out at breakfast tomorrow, because otherwise I’ll be eating them all day. I had one tonight after supper and I think I’m in love. The frosting is so soft and creamy, with a mild sour, but sweet vanilla intensity and just the perfect texture to go along with the dense, moist cake that’s almost black. The frosting looks like the foamy head on the top of a glass of Guinness.

Bottom’s Up!

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Yesterday was all about the sweetness. I spent the day in the kitchen while Chris worked on boxes of stuff in the basement, sorting and filing and throwing away. Lila floated between the two of us, helping me mix cupcakes, then running upstairs with photos and other finds to share. “Freemember this? When I was in your belly still? Look at how big your tummy is mama!” She wanted to keep that photo of my bare belly right up on the fridge. Uh, no.

Tyler spent the day reading and doing homework and never once asked to get on the computer or to play video games, which was kind of weird, but also very nice to not have that extra vibration going on in the background. Later he went to a friends’ house to play D & D for a few hours (cracks me up kids still play that…I spent so many hours hanging out with the group of kids I was friends with in high school utterly mystified by the whole thing while they gathered hit points and slayed dragons and bludgeoned one another as they tried to fulfill their make-believe quests). I guess I’ve always lacked imagination in that way.

Chris at one point stood in the kitchen while I sifted chocolate, flour, ancho chili powder, cayenne, baking powder and baking soda together. We were talking about getting the light stand finished by next weekend so we can start planting and the sun streamed in the kitchen window and Lila had her arms wrapped around his legs and he said “I really hope this stage of my life lasts a really long time. It’s so good. Everything is so good.”

And I got all teary because he isn’t usually very demonstrative in that way. But I didn’t let any tears drop into the Mexican Hot Chocolate Cupcakes because even though they were tears of happy sweetness (just one or two, really), I don’t want to be working that kind of magic on my office mates, and that’s who the bulk of the cakes are destined for this afternoon. Drumming up business, don’t you know?

I have to tell you, these cupcakes rock the house.

Even Dora thinks so!

The cake came out super moist and the flavor is just so incredible, a sweet, mild chili and rich chocolate with an ever-so-slight, slow after burn. Lila helped me spread the layer of thick ganache, which is spiced lightly with organic cinnamon and then we piped a fat star of very vanilla buttercream (Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla) and topped that with a red hot. Goodness, I wish I could send you one, and you too!

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Busyness all weekend (nothing seed or garden related, but I’m out of the self-flagellation business, so we’ll just vett that to next weekend’s to-do list).

Chris surprised me Saturday afternoon by coming home with four new seats for the dining room chairs cut out of 3/8″ plywood. We all got busy taking the nasty covers off.

I was so happy to see that material in the trash. And check out the ugly vinyl underneath. I wonder whose rear ends made it so shiny.

Chris had to use his special pliers to remove the ancient, rusted tacks holding that vinyl in place. Those are working man’s hands, right there.

Lila helped, too. She was in charge of soaping the screws before Chris put them through the seat into the frame. Cheap made in China screws kept snapping off and after the fourth one he decided to put a drop of dish liquid in the hole and on the threads. Problem solved.

I didn’t get any photos of the actual reupholstering process because after an hour of the two of us struggling with one, I got frustrated and decided to go into the kitchen where I don’t have to deal with unfamiliar spatial relationships. I just couldn’t figure out how to fold the fabric without making it all lumpy and backwards and uneven and Chris could see it just fine. Bless him and his eternal patience with me, he just listened as I complained and questioned and pulled out staples and refolded and complained and re-stapled and pulled them out again and threw up my hands and ran upstairs to change because I was sweating so much.

We had dinner plans with Cheril & Greg yesterday and we were in charge of salad and dessert. I made these fantastic dark chocolate cupcakes by Chockylit but without the truffle aspect and I did a ganache glaze and a spritz of vanilla buttercream frosting and shaved dark chocolate curls on top. So basically, I used her cupcake recipe, which was absolutely incredible. So chocolatey and moist. I also added a half teaspoon of pure orange extract and a tablespoon of orange zest to the melted chocolate for the cake. And when I made my ganache, I added three tablespoons of butter to give it that nice shiny glaze.

I read on Chockylit’s site that my overflowing cake cups might have something to do with my oven temp being too low. She recommends preheating the oven to 25º warmer than the baking calls for, then turning it down as soon as you put the cupcakes in. I was very careful to only fill the cups 3/4 full and then tried that with the temperature, and they came out perfect. Psyche!

And look at how pretty they are! I so enjoyed presenting them last night and everyone made happy, yummy dessert sounds as they ate. So good.

So it was a multi-person, multi-tasking kind of day around here yesterday.

While I was busy in the kitchen putting together little love cakes, Chris was busy in the living room making our chairs pretty.

He says he wants to redo the second one from the left, but overall we’re both very happy with the way they came out. We used a thicker piece of foam than one might normally use, but I like the lift. Can’t wait to get that dining room wallpaper stripped off and the room painted next.

Speaking of paint, here’s a shot (crooked, sorry) of the corner where the green meets the red-orange. I’m so happy with this room.

Now we just need some more artwork for the walls. But doesn’t Cathy’s little painting look spectacular against the green?

Happy sigh.

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So! Sorry family (New Englanders, all) but that was some game last night. I couldn’t help rooting for NY, they played so hard.

The only treat I made for the game was a batch of Ina Garten’s Coconut Cupcakes.

The cream cheese frosting came out like silk. But I really need to work on my cup-filling technique. Every one of them overflowed and stuck to the edge of the (nonstick!) mini muffin tin. Ina calls for coconut to top the frosting with, but I’m not a huge fan of the chewy coconut unless it’s fresh, so I toasted about a cup of coconut in my cast iron skillet in the oven while it preheated.

This recipe uses buttermilk, and a metric ton of butter which converts to an assload. I mean, I may as well just stuff these babies down the back of my undies, they’re that buttery. I’m going to try making them with coconut milk instead of buttermilk next time. (Oh, yes. There will be a next time. But I will try to wait a few months before I carb load like that again.) I used to make an incredible layer cake using fresh grated coconut and coconut milk and it may have been the lightest, moistest, most delicious cake I ever had. It would translate to cupcakes so well.

And so I stayed up way past my bedtime to watch the Superbowl, ate two cupcakes and now have an early morning belly ache. But there’s no time for complaining—I’ve got to get the kids up and get us all out the door in 40 minutes. Peace out!

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