Red Velvet Cupcakes.

Having made Red Velvet Cupcakes before, I was pretty comfortable with this recipe. Ultimately, they turned out well, but here are some of the moments that gave me pause.



First of all, cutting off my thumb was disconcerting. Kidding. That's the red gel paste food color I used for the first time. I found that it is extremely hard to measure, though generally you use it a tiny bit at a time to color frosting and it is perfect for that. As a result of using too little, the cupcakes came out less red velvet and more brown (from the cocoa powder) with a pink-ish inside. Sort of medium-well if you choose to use meat analogies, which I do. I have already secured a promise from a friend that she will henceforth describe beef in terms of appropriate levels of red/brown in red velvet and I sincerely hope this catches on.



So this batter looked a bit light to me going in, but I wasn't going to scrape it all back into the mixer and add more color. Next time, I will most certainly be using normal red food color because half the drama of Red Velvet baked goods is the red. Anyway, Wilton bakeware is the best, and should they desire to pay me to say so, just let me know.



After I started the Cream Cheese Frosting (the best part about Red Velvet anything), I realized that once again, I was woefully unprepared and had a good deal less than the correct amount of confectioner sugar. Happily, almost all frosting recipes make up about half a pound more icing than you could ever actually use on a single recipe and MStew's recipe was no exception, so I took out an appropriate amount of cream cheese and butter and mixed it to taste with the vanilla and sugar and still had a bit left over when I was done.

My coworkers (who receive the bulk of my baked goods because once you've eaten the batter, the ones that didn't look right, and the leftover frosting, you really don't want your finished products any more and your local friends never call because they are all married or otherwise attached and thereby miss out on the baked goods because they don't care about awesome MStew-ery because who needs food when you're in love? and yes, I have issues) enjoyed them in spite of the medium-well hue, so the recipe was an overall success.



That's the massacre of my kitchen before I even started the frosting (along with a not entirely unintentional plug for my other favorite MStew book). What you see here? Roughly a third of my counterspace, not counting the ledge where I have to put all my ingredients. I have no idea what I'm going to do when I get to fondant and need an area to roll it out. Besides curse a lot and scare the cat.

So, 2 down, 173 to go. For now, it's still A Good Thing.

Chai Tea Mini-Cupcakes with Condensed Milk Icing

So I started this one out badly because I was unprepared, a way in which Martha Stewart (or MStew for short) and I differ. Another way we differ is that I have roughly two square feet of counterspace and no assistants and no money and no accusations of insider trading, but if I were to list all of the differences between me and MStew, I would just get depressed and buy my cupcakes by the flat at Publix and die alone, save for my cat who loves me but would eventually be forced to eat my face off and we don't want to think about that because It's A Bad Thing.

Anyway. I was unprepared because I didn't have mini-cupcake liners. So I made normal cupcakes instead. I think this recipe will be a bit more twee and adorable when I do it in mini form, so I hesitate to consider it crossed off the list.

At any rate, I don't plan on giving a play by play on any of these but rather will just hit the high points and take pictures of the interesting stuff or the final product. The picture above is how they turned out. They neither destroyed my kitchen nor were they too difficult or interesting to make. They were pretty good, and though I don't really taste anything Chai-like about them, I would consider making them again.

Zero counterspace and a goal

Recently, I read Julie and Julia and loved it. I can relate to the author, not because I will ever debone a duck or cook anything involving entrails, but because the author was at a crossroads and looking to have some sense of purpose. Me too. But I'm not going to gut a lobster to do it.

I love baking. I rabidly love cake decorating shows (not so much Cake Boss - that guy makes me stabby) and surf Food Network for anything that involves sugar, butter, and some degree of artistic skill. I have attempted to work with fondant, and failed spectacularly, but other than that, I have no real experience with cake decorating.

What would be a better way to learn than from a Martha Stewart book? Well, lots of things actually. Learning from Martha Stewart herself would be the best, but I don't spend much (any) time in the Hamptons. The Culinary Institute of America? Sure. But I have a job, don't care to be a professional chef, and fear that they might make me touch raw chicken among other things, and I am far too picky to eat, much less prepare, gormet food. A class at a local craft store? Undoubtedly, but I don't have much tolerance for the kind of people who take classes at local craft stores.

No, my solution is to work my way through this book:



Unlike Julie Powell, I don't have a timeframe because cooking 175 batches of cupcakes in a year would mean over 3 batches a week and that would shut down my arteries completely or else make total enemies of my coworkers, who generally end up with the bulk of most of the baked goods I make. Instead, I will simply go with it and attempt to actually finish a project without ultimately laying it aside, and maybe by the end, I will have absorbed a little bit of Martha Stewart-ness and begun to understand why people think coconut is a valid part of dessert and what exactly a rhubarb is because I have no idea and mostly was just unaware that it would be something you'd put in a cupcake.

Is it a good thing? That remains to be seen.