AND THEY’RE ALL MINE!

We are celebrating Mr. A’s birthday next weekend, which of course is all the excuse I need to try out some new cupcake recipes THIS weekend. I am NOT going to have a repeat of Ms. E’s Birthday!  While the actual cupcakes were to. die. for. I was a bit bummed with the presentation.  There I was thinking that BROWN cupcake wrappers were a NORMAL thing to find.  I mean come on, BROWN was the rage! Man was I WRONG!  Not this time, I am a week ahead of the game.  Amazing! I found these and a couple other goodies I’ll show later over at Bake It Pretty.  Let just say… there may or may not be candy buttons involved!  And owls. Lots of owls!

Upon reading my obsessive cupcake blog from last June she decided it was high time for me to partake in one of her favorite places.  So as a thank you for lending out my husband to fix their drywall, SPRINKLES cupcakes are what I…err…we received!  Holy smokes!  What you may not know is that it is a good hour drive to get these babies, and I still had never had them!  OH MY, YUMMY!   They are all I thought they would be and more!  Moist, cakey, not-too-sweet-goodness!  I am always in search of cupcakes to try, and these for sure take the cake– pun intended.  I am hooked.

THANK YOU KELLI, MATT, and IVY!  It was so considerate of you.  Do you have anything else Mr. K can fix?  We work for cupcakes.

I realize that eggnog isn’t everybody’s favorite, but these cookies are the most cakey, soft, and delicious treat ever.  My mother-in-law made up this recipe based on a buttermilk cookie recipe she has made for years upon the request of my niece last year who LOVES eggnog almost as much as I do.   It is simple and pretty difficult to screw up in my opinion.  And just a hint, they are SO much better the second day after sitting overnight in an airtight container.  I don’t know what it is about it, probably the moisture of the frosting or something, but boy-oh-boy are they GREAT!  Just to see if I could, I made a little 3×5 recipe card for ya’ll, I think it turned out pretty nifty.  I hope you enjoy them as much as me, I just had to share the love.  Please leave a comment and tell me what you think, it could just be me and my wacky pregnancy preferences, but I doubt it!!

I couldn’t keep all the yummy-cakey-goodness to myself so I sent some over to my neighbors as a New Year’s treat, plus I HAD to use these sweet little treat boxes I found at Michael’s this season!  I had every intention of doing more baking than I did and sharing the wealth, but this is all that ended up being gifted.  Better luck next year I guess.

I hope you all have a wonderfully fabulous 2009!  HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I have received a few requests for the recipe I used for the 4 dozen cupcakes at Miss E’s first birthday a few months back, and I just received another!  It is time to spill it, including all my hints for you non-seasoned bakers (me included)!

First off let me say that I absolutely adore Sprinkles, I imagine that they are the most scrumptious cupcakes around– but I wouldn’t know exactly because I have not exactly eaten one before. BUT, I have been promising myself a trip to Beverly Hills for paper and cupcakes, (sigh) someday!  Taste aside, I love the simplistic, elegant, homemade look of them.  The swirl is perfect.  Every one is a bit different, and the marzipan marking system is brilliant and lovely.  SO, you can imagine my absolute elation and lasting excitement when I found THIS and THIS!  The exact recipe from Candace herself, EUREKA! (I realize this may not be the exact exact recipe that is actually used, but please, don’t tell me that, I am perfectly content thinking that it IS!)

I am not going to go into any detail about the making process, who am I to think that I can do any better job than Martha herself and Candace… but I will let you in on three things:

First, I was completely bummed, and sad, that I was not able to find brown cupcake wrappers locally or even semi-locally the week I made these.  I did not think that they were that tall of an order, but they were, and as you can see I regretfully did not use them because I am a looser and did not get my butt in gear soon enough to order them online from HERE.  They even have polka-dot ones now, UGH!  Take my advice, order them now, keep them in your pantry, they really do make all the difference when cupcake making in the future.

Second, in the directions/recipe AND on the video, nowhere do they mention that you should STRAIN your strawberry puree!  FRUSTRATING!  I did not do so, and clearly mine look dramatically different, I will go out on a limb and say that they probably tasted the same as intended just with a few strawberry seeds mixed in.  When I do them again I will strain the puree, but I will have to say that they looked a bit more like intentional homemade goodness when all the seeds mixed in.

Third, a friend of mine was going to make these and after we got to talking she said that she was going to make them with her hand mixer.  I am not sure when the last time is that she made a cake, but I could not imagine making one or these with a hand mixer.  Somehow I imagine not being able to get the fluff and loft that is required when making a cake.  But hey, if you are th adventuresome type, go for it.  Me, I will stick with my beloved wedding gift!

Oh, and the tools that made this particularly more easier were not only my mixer, but also an offset small frosting knife that I need MUCH more practice with, and a ice scream scoop-ish thing, but smaller, that is the exact size needed for a dollop of batter in a cupcake wrapper.  I cannot for the life of me remember what it is called, if you really need to know I can get it, but for now “scoop-ish” is going to have to satisfy! ha!

Happy baking, and send one over for us please!

]]> http://seventeenandem.com/blog/2008/06/18/a-bit-of-strawberry-cake-goodness/feed/ 1 http://seventeenandem.com/blog/2008/04/23/want-a-boy-eat-breakfast-cereal-honest/ http://seventeenandem.com/blog/2008/04/23/want-a-boy-eat-breakfast-cereal-honest/#comments Wed, 23 Apr 2008 16:15:04 +0000 Emily http://sardofamily.com/blog/?p=12

A new study out of the University of Exeter suggests a strong link between high glucose levels in the early days of your pregnancy and preconception and having a boy.

“According to a survey of 740 British mums to be, a high-calorie diet is more likely to lead to a baby boy in nine months’ time.”

“The level of calorie intake was the main dietary factor that affected offspring sex, say the researchers, who report their research in Proceedings of the Royal Society B ¹. Overall, women in Matthews’s study who produced sons ate an average of 180 calories more per day than those who had daughters — “the equivalent of eating a banana”, she says.”

Higher glucose levels were found in mothers who gave birth to boys, but interestingly there was also a correlation between mothers who routinely ate breakfast cereal.

“The researchers are unsure of why this happens, although they suggest that it could be to do with levels of glucose in the blood. Male test-tube embryos generally require a more glucose-rich growth medium to survive in the lab — Mathews suspects that a similar process may operate in the uterus, so women with higher sugar levels are more likely to nurture a male embryo as it is implanted in the womb lining.”

So eat up! Or don’t. Personally when that time comes I am going to load up on Whole Food’s Fruit Loops!!