(My!) Wedding Shower Cupcakes!
Who would have known that a year ago when I made the first wedding shower cupcakes, in a little more than a year, mom would be making mine! Today was cupcake day! Hooray!
Today was one of those days at home when you think to yourself, "great! I have a whole day at home to get things done!" And then, somehow it's bedtime, and you still didn't get everything done. Maybe the fact that having a "quick lunch" with mom turned into a two hour adventure has something to do with that. But I must say I did get a lot done. My to-do list might have been an teensy bit long. But I did catch up on a lot today. And I submitted my grades! I'm officially done for the semester!
Today was also sniffles day. My allergies have been bugging me like crazy since I've been home. I think that after weeks of spending the majority of my day in a big box of a building with filtered air, my allergies are taking over. They just need to leave me alone by Saturday! Somehow I don't think that's going to happen though . . .
But I have been waiting for . . . weeks, at least, for today. I haven't made cupcakes in forever. Aaaand, well, I still didn't get to make cupcakes. But I did get to "advise" mom in her cupcake adventure and help as much as was acceptable for cupcakes for my own shower. At least now I know SOMETHING that's going to be at my shower. BMM, KEB, LO, CJC and AB have been VERY tight-lipped about what is happening. I just know there is going to be a lot of food.
Mom made 2 dozen each of chocolate and vanilla cupcakes. She was trying out the vanilla recipe for me -- it might be making a return very soon! Both were from Hello, Cupcake! by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson. It's one of my favorite cookbooks. Along with What's New, Cupcake? That one is good too.
It was quite an adventure to make the chocolate ones. They didn't rise all that much, which was kind of disappointing and did this weird thing where they pulled away from the sides. But I think they still taste good.
And they came out looking nearly perfect. I'm so excited to try them!
There was a lot of butter in use today. Ah, the sticks and sticks of butter bring me back to my senior year apartment days . . . Oh, memories.
The frosting mom made involved butter, fluff, vanilla extract and powdered sugar. Yes, Marshmallow Fluff. And yes, a lot of Marshmallow Fluff. But it was a double recipe of frosting, to be fair.
It was really interesting frosting, because it started out really light and fluffy (heh, yes, like Fluff), but after being refrigerated for a bit, it really hardened to more like a buttercream consistency. I guess it was all the butter in there.
She was even really smart and used a Tupperware celery container to hold up the plastic bag for both piping the frosting and piping the batter into the cupcake pans. Sorry dad, next time I make cupcakes, you might be out of a job!
She dyed half of it pink!
And sprinkled the tops of all of them with sanding sugar.
These were the original inspirations for making cupcakes. I can't wait to see them with the brides and grooms on top!
Meanwhile, amongst lots of errand-y-type-things I was doing, I couldn't let mom have ALL the fun in the kitchen. NES brought me a ton of rhubarb last week, so I decided to make rhubarb sauce. The rhubarb was from his parents. They apparently have a monster rhubarb plant that just never stops growing, kind of like rhubarb is supposed to. We, on the other hand, have itty-bitty rhubarb plants that never grow much no matter what we do. Alas.
But this much big rhubarb meant I could almost triple the recipe (which meant instead of enough for each of us to have a bowl once, there's actually enough for each of us to have several servings! Gasp!). It was great!
Rhubarb Sauce
from Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook
3 cups rhubarb, chopped into 1 inch pieces
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
Combine rhubarb, sugar and water in a saucepan. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium low and cover. Let cook for 10-15 minutes.
I even had to let today's sauce cook a little longer without the cover just to get it to thicken some. It really depends on the rhubarb and how much water it lets out.
Today was also sniffles day. My allergies have been bugging me like crazy since I've been home. I think that after weeks of spending the majority of my day in a big box of a building with filtered air, my allergies are taking over. They just need to leave me alone by Saturday! Somehow I don't think that's going to happen though . . .
But I have been waiting for . . . weeks, at least, for today. I haven't made cupcakes in forever. Aaaand, well, I still didn't get to make cupcakes. But I did get to "advise" mom in her cupcake adventure and help as much as was acceptable for cupcakes for my own shower. At least now I know SOMETHING that's going to be at my shower. BMM, KEB, LO, CJC and AB have been VERY tight-lipped about what is happening. I just know there is going to be a lot of food.
Mom made 2 dozen each of chocolate and vanilla cupcakes. She was trying out the vanilla recipe for me -- it might be making a return very soon! Both were from Hello, Cupcake! by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson. It's one of my favorite cookbooks. Along with What's New, Cupcake? That one is good too.
It was quite an adventure to make the chocolate ones. They didn't rise all that much, which was kind of disappointing and did this weird thing where they pulled away from the sides. But I think they still taste good.
The vanilla ones seemed much, much easier.
And they came out looking nearly perfect. I'm so excited to try them!
There was a lot of butter in use today. Ah, the sticks and sticks of butter bring me back to my senior year apartment days . . . Oh, memories.
The frosting mom made involved butter, fluff, vanilla extract and powdered sugar. Yes, Marshmallow Fluff. And yes, a lot of Marshmallow Fluff. But it was a double recipe of frosting, to be fair.
It was really interesting frosting, because it started out really light and fluffy (heh, yes, like Fluff), but after being refrigerated for a bit, it really hardened to more like a buttercream consistency. I guess it was all the butter in there.
She was even really smart and used a Tupperware celery container to hold up the plastic bag for both piping the frosting and piping the batter into the cupcake pans. Sorry dad, next time I make cupcakes, you might be out of a job!
She dyed half of it pink!
And sprinkled the tops of all of them with sanding sugar.
These were the original inspirations for making cupcakes. I can't wait to see them with the brides and grooms on top!
Meanwhile, amongst lots of errand-y-type-things I was doing, I couldn't let mom have ALL the fun in the kitchen. NES brought me a ton of rhubarb last week, so I decided to make rhubarb sauce. The rhubarb was from his parents. They apparently have a monster rhubarb plant that just never stops growing, kind of like rhubarb is supposed to. We, on the other hand, have itty-bitty rhubarb plants that never grow much no matter what we do. Alas.
But this much big rhubarb meant I could almost triple the recipe (which meant instead of enough for each of us to have a bowl once, there's actually enough for each of us to have several servings! Gasp!). It was great!
from Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook
3 cups rhubarb, chopped into 1 inch pieces
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
Combine rhubarb, sugar and water in a saucepan. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium low and cover. Let cook for 10-15 minutes.
I even had to let today's sauce cook a little longer without the cover just to get it to thicken some. It really depends on the rhubarb and how much water it lets out.
So begin the tastes of summer. Yum.
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