ABC's of Me (thanks to Katie)

Saw this over at Confession of a Suburban Housewife I thought it looked fun and a nice break from blogging about cupcakes.

A - Age: 28 I'd probably struggle with this more, but I'm in a great relationship and loving life right now. That helps me forget how close I am to 20.

B - Bed size: double Yeah, I know it's small but it's antique, my great-grandparents. I love it.

My walls are a lot more turquoise than this picture portrays.

C - chore you hate: I'm not crazy about emptying the dishwasher.

D - dogs: Libby and Marty!

E - Essential to start the day: Starbucks' vanilla no water chai (this is changing tomorrow due to Lent)

F - Favorite Color: ORANGE!!!!! (and not just because of UT, although that helps!)

G - Gold or Silver: just depends, I like the look of silver but gold is more precious, so white gold.

H - Height: 5'4"

I - Instruments played: the clarinet

J - Job: Customer Relations Specialist and Event Planner for Andria Lewis Events

K - Kids: Let's get engaged first :)

L - Live: MEMPHIS

M - Mom's Name: Willma

N - Nickname: Jen, Jenny, Boo

O - Overnight hospital stay: not since I was born

P - Pet Peeve: the misspelling of words, especially you're and your and their, they're and there This really bothers me on Facebook statuses. I also don't care for abbreviations like LOL, OMG, etc. I have a lot of pet peeves, I'll leave it at this for now.

Q - Quote from a movie: "You know what they say, 'If you can't say anything nice about anybody, come sit by me!" - Clairee Belcher, Steel Magnolias

"He helped Joshua fight the battle of Jericho, He helped Daniel get out of the lion's den, He helped Gilligan get off the island!" - Coming to America

R - Right or lefty: Righty

S - Sibling: one brother

T - Time you wake up: between 7 or 8 every single day

U - Underwear: anything comfy, not crazy about thongs but I will do it to avoid a VPL

V - Veggies you dislike: tomatoes (technically a fruit)

W - What makes you run late: taking the dogs out, curling my hair

X - X rays you've had: teeth, lungs and ribs (after a car wreck)

Y - Yummy food you make: Cupcakes! Christopher would say King Ranch Chicken

Z - Zoo animal: lions and flamingos

Cupcake Week! day 6: King Cake

In honor of Mardi Gras, I decided to make a King's Cake cupcake. Forgive me, I can't find the link to the recipe now. It's a spice cake with buttercream frosting. I was going to make the glaze but then you could see the hole in the top for the baby.

I dipped them in sugar to decorate them in traditional King's Cake colors of green, purple and gold. Purple represents justice, gold represents power and green represents faith.

I got the cute mardi gras masks from Mary Carter Paints. LOVE this store! Everything baking related.

My mom got into town Saturday, so she got to be the taste audience. I also saved her one from everyday to taste.

Yup! There's a baby in it! The baby (or other trinkets) mean if you find one in your piece of King Cake (or in this case, cupcake) means you have to provide the King Cake next year, or host the mardi gras party.

Happy Mardi Gras!

Cupcake Week! day 5: elvis

I'm just a hunka, hunka burnin' cupcake! After the succes with the peanut butter icing for the pb & j I knew the Elvis would be equally as good. For those of you who don't know, Elvis loved peanut butter and banana sandwiches. So I decided a banana cupcake with peanut butter icing would be a great way to honor the King. We take him pretty seriously here in Memphis. I got my recipe from "Hello, Cupcake!" (again).

Mashing the bananas (potato masher worked then the recommended spoon)

Voila!!!

I ended up making these a lot later in the day than the past 4 (late being 9:30pm) so Christopher got to be the official taste audience of the day. He's tasted them all, but not officially.

They were a hit!

I told him I needed a picture with him like I have with all the other taste audiences. He thought smashing it in my face would be funny.

Stay tuned for a Mardi Gras themed day 6!

Cupcake Week! day 4: carrot cake!!!

I have been really good about not eating more than 1 of the cupcakes that I make. Of course I taste the batter and icing numerous times, but that's for research purposes of course. I have to make it taste just right. But then came, day 4: carrot. cake. This is my weakness. This is my favorite flavor of all time. I usually request carrot cake for my birthday cake, even though it's in December and not in season. Anyway, let's just say I ate A LOT more than 1 cupcake. I'll have to pay for this at the gym.

The recipe I used is my mom's/Mawgie's recipe. No problems with this one!

Using my Tupperware to get the carrot chopped up finely.

Victornox vegetable peeler I bought in Switzerland. A staple tool in my kitchen.

TA DA! I had a lot of extra batter so I made mini cupcakes, too. Aren't they cute?

I took the cupcakes over to my friend Jessica's house for "Margarita Thursday." They were welcomed warmly.

Pop quiz: I use a secret ingredient to inhance the cinnamon flavor. Any guesses as to what it is???

Cupcake Week! day 3: Key Lime Cupcakes

A special thanks to my friend Lindy who gave me the recipe for day 3. key lime cupcakes with lime zest cream cheese icing, recipe found here.

Forgive me, I forgot to take pictures. I also made a few mistakes. I used skim milk instead of buttermilk and then I used all purpose flour for everything instead of the self rising. I also added a lot more sugar. They taste okay. I should've left out the extra sugar so they stayed on the tart side. I think because of the alterations I made with the flour and milk the texture was off. But again, they were okay. The icing however, was FABULOUS! Although, as Katie Bailey pointed out (I'd thought the same thing) the icing looks like sour cream with chives because of the lime zest in it. Ha! Next time I will follow the recipe exactly.



Please excuse the one on the bottom left. It fell on the counter so I had to smooth the icing out with a knife.




Katie was my taste audience. She approved!!!

Stay tuned for my absolute favorite flavor of cupcakes for day 4!

Cupcake Week! day 2: PB& J

Day 2 was National Peanut Butter Lover's Day. In honor of the day, I made PB&J cupcakes. CONFESSION: I actually didn't know it was National Peanut Butter Lover's Day until Christopher told me last night and I'd already made the cupcakes. Whatever. PB&J cupcakes are white cupcakes with grape jelly filling and peanutbutter frosting. I concocted this recipe myself by taking parts from different recipes. I got the white cake recipe from "Hello, Cupcake!." I adapted their buttercream icing recipe by adding a cup of peanut butter.


Ready to be filled. When it comes to grape anything, Welch's is best.

Voila!

We went over to Cousin Pam's so she could be my taste audience.

"It's like a sandwich dessert."

-Christopher A. Wilson

PB&J was a success!

Cupcake Week! Day 1: Raspberry Lemonade

Day 1 was successful. In fact, it's going to be very hard to top. I love anything lemon flavored and I love raspberry filling. So, the natural thing to do was to put them together. Thus the raspberry lemonade cupcake was born. Lemon cake filled +raspberry filling topped with lemon buttercream icing = DELISH!

I got my lemon cake recipe adapted from Hello, Cupcake!'s lemon poppyseed recipe. I got the lemon buttercream recipe from here. You can't go wrong with Wilton. They practically invented icing. So! Here we go!
The ingredients

Into the oven they go (forgot to take a pic of mixing the ingredients)

How approriate to burn my lemon cupcake candle while baking?

Icing (had a little help thanks to yellow food coloring)

Raspberry filling Normally I use seedless jam, but I decided to give

this pastry filling a try. It takes the cake! (sorry, I couldn't resist)

Filling the cupcakes with my Wilton cake decorator

thanks to C's Grandad and Grandmom. (yes that is Crystal

Light Lemonade I'm drinking, I wasn't kidding about my love

of lemon).

All filled up

VOILA!!!!

Bethany, my taste audience.

Success! Raspberry Lemonade was a hit!