Cupcakes here, Cupcakes there. My God They're Everywhere!

Official Cupcake Countdown: Nine days to go!


It has been sixteen days since I begun this blog and after four blog posts, I think it is about time I start sharing some things about myself. And yes, before anyone asks, this does relate to todays entry.

1. I love cartoons. I will not deny my inner child. Even at age 20, my eyes still fog with nostalgia whenever I come across something that reminds me of the cartoon characters of my childhood. Maybe that's why I am such a fan of the Nostalgia Critic of www.thatguywiththeglasses.com. 


2. I love books. Whoever said that reading is a gateway to new world wasn't kidding. If it wasn't, books such as Harry Potter would probably not have caught on like they did. Without books, I would never have realized my desire to be a librarian and a reading teacher. At the same time, if I didn't love books, I probably wouldn't have found the cupcake book to which this challenge was inspired.


3. Looking at the delicious desserts is a guilty pleasure of mine. Back in my freshman year of Clark, I went through a period of time when I was quite depressed. One afternoon some friends of mine introduced me to Sandra Lee and her infamous attempt to create a cake for Kwanzaa (trust me, find a video of it on youtube and you too will be shouting at the screen, "ENOUGH! JUST STOP!"). One thing led to another, and I stumbled upon my very first blog, www.cakewrecks.com. Every Sunday, Jenn or her husband have a section called Sunday Sweets. This is by far my favorite part of the blog. What's wrong with starting at deliciously crafted cakes?


Given these three things, what are the chances that I would discover a website dedicated to posting pictures of the most mouthwatering cupcakes one has ever seen. Well, I did it. And I didn't find one website, I found two. I guess this is an obvious sign that I have gone off the cupcake deep-end doesn't it? I mean, its not like I spend hours on end staring at the cutest cupcakes I have ever laid my eyes on. But I could, if I really wanted to.

Especially when they look like this. Aren't these just adorable!

In case you're curious and want to see some more of these adorable cupcakes then check out http://onlycupcakes.net/ and http://www.thecupcakeblog.com/

I can only hope that someday I'll obtain enough skills to be able to decorate my cupcakes this well. Wouldn't that be something? But if making my cupcakes looks as cute as those above is level ten, then let's just assume that I am at level one, maybe two, but even that's pushing it. Admittedly, I'm still slightly afraid of opening, placing, and pulling things out of the oven. Let's hope I over come that little fear rather quickly; I'd hate to have to rely on others for that. It can get kind of embarrassing. And another thing that I have begun to fear is the slight possibility that my cupcakes won't come out right. I feel, however, that this is a normal fear, and one that, upon my first baking, will go away. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that unless one is 100% confident in their abilities, that little worm of anxiety digs its way into everyone's brain every now and then. When I crochet and knit, I always wonder if the thing is going to turn out right. More often then not it does, but every now and then, something does go wrong. I just really hope that doesn't happen with my cupcakes. The benefit of yarn is that if you mess up, you can just pull the yarn out and start over. But baking, that's another ball game. Ingredients are expensive and if I screw up enough times, I'll become the local supermarket's best customer.

Let's cross our fingers now in hopes of a successful first batch.

Let the Count Down Begin

With Cupcake Day fast approaching, this past weekend I worked my butt off to gather together those necessary items that I mentioned in my last post. Yes, it is true; I am now the proud owner of not one, but two cupcake pans. And boy oh boy, were they a treat to find. Everywhere I looked, the only thing I could find were perfectly nice muffin pans. Had my mother not been there, I would not have known that there was a big difference between muffin and cupcakes pans. Well, big might be stretching it. The difference is really only 3mm but thats not the point. The point is, why were there so many muffin pans and almost no cupcake pans! I kinda wonder if perhaps the bakeware companies were almost ashamed to produce and label something as a cupcake pan. Why? Perhaps they think that muffin sounds healthier and people would rather buy something that produces healthy food instead of something that creates the muffin's alleged fattening cousin? Its not cupcakes fault that they that have the unfair connotation of being fattening. If anything, it all really depends on the ingredients used to create them. Even after I inquired if whether one of the stores had any cupcake pans in stock, they seriously asked me, "What's wrong with the other pan? Aren't cupcake just muffins with frosting?" To be honest, the probably would have been nothing wrong with using muffin pans. Sure, the cupcakes would have been slightly bigger, but who would really complain about that? And for the record, here are some differences between muffins and cupcakes. Note that these differences can vary depending on the recipes being used. Speical thanks for www.cakespy.com for compiling the list.

Oven temperature and baking times: The cupcakes were baked at 350 for 30 minutes, and the muffins were baked at 375 for 25 minutes.

But f

Mixing: With the muffins, our recipe said to mix until the dry ingredients were mixed with the wet, but not until smooth; with the cupcakes, we creamed the butter and mixed longer, until there were no lumps.

Flour: There is significantly more flour in the muffin recipe.

It took a few tries, but eventually, I did it. I found the perfect set of pans. How do I know that they are perfect? 1. They actually said cupcake on the packaging and won my mother's approval. 2. and most importantly, they are from the highly regarded cookware/bakeware brand Calphalon. Of course, until the moment of purchase, I had never heard of them. Not once. Never. Mom was quite shocked by this. Indeed, it seems my ignorance knows no bounds. She just couldn't believe that I had never heard of  Calphalon, let alone an array of other bakeware producers. This naturally set off her rant about my lack of bakeware knowledge. She does have a point; how am I supposed to do this if the only thing I know about bakeware is that the company, Kitchenaid has come out with a hot pink mixer that only a Barbie doll would want. This brings me back to what I said in my last post. Hopefully by the end of this adventure, I will have become a better baker and cook. This includes obtaining a decent knowledge about the equipment needed in the kitchen. Though to be honest, I don't know where I would be without my mom. Last week I checked a bake book out of the library because it held a recipe for a delicious cake called Battenberg. On the recipe page it said that I needed a specific sized pan. The problem was, I didn't know where to find said pan. What did my mom do? She flipped to the back of the book and found a list of websites and stores that the author suggested for baking. One thing led to another and a few days later, she led me into William-Sonoma.

I felt like Alice walking into a Wonderland of cook and bakeware. Though I had walked by this store countless of times, I had never actually been in it before. How can I properly describe it? Cute. That's really all I can say. The whole store was just absolutely cute. The layout, the products, even the help were just so cute. One of the ladies who assisted me had an adorable southern accent and just thought my cupcake thing was the darnest thing she had ever heard. After that, she kindly took me over to the bakeware section and presented me with a box. What was in said you may wonder? My first ever pastry bag! And for those who don't know what that is, I referred to it in my last post as that thing you use to put frosting on cupcakes and stuff. Let me just say, I have been waiting for one these things since I first saw one used on Cake Boss. I cannot wait to test it out. And speaking of testing it out, who wants to know which cupcake recipe I'm gonna do first? Cookies n' Cream. Simple, sweet, and my close friend's favorite. I told her before she left the country and her mouth watered. At least there is one person out there who is excited for my cupcakes. I just hope Clark University will be excited too. A friend at school agrees that my official nickname should be the Crazy Cupcake Clarkie. Who knows, maybe it'll catch on.

A Bit of This and That

Before I properly begin this entry, I like to make my first, and far from last retraction.

As my sister kindly pointed out after returning from her trip to Boston, if I only baked twice a month it would be impossible for me to complete this challenge. Additionally, it would make the blog fairly boring. So, for the sake of eventually gaining relative fame as Clark's cupcake girl and the slim chance of ever doing a "Julie and Julia", I caved. Until it proves to be detrimental to my academic performance, I will try to bake at least once a week. Maybe, if I'm lucky, twice a week. I'm holding my breath that someone I know will buy me industrial sized bags of flour and sugar so I don't end up buying new supplies twice a month. But enough of that, lets move onto more important matters.

For todays post, I decided to discuss my baking and cooking roots. Or my lack there-of. If anyone has read or seen "Julie and Julia" they would know that Julie Powell spent a bit of her narrative discussing how Julia Child has inspired her from the time she was a child to when she began her famous blog. I can proudly say that I lack such a culinary role model. In all honesty, most of the chefs that I admire I have discovered not through cookbooks or biographies, but rather through reality TV. Figures such as Anthony Bourdain, Gordon Ramsay, Buddie Jr. of Cake Boss, Jamie Oliver, and so on. Yea I'll admit that this is not the traditional way of finding culinary role models but these figures taught me to appreciate all the different magical dishes that can come from a kitchen. Hopefully when this is all over I'll have properly come to know and love some of the more traditional and well-known famous food figure heads.

But in addition to the TV personalities mentioned above, most of my culinary inspiration comes from the numerous blogs that I read on a daily basis. Currently I have multiple folders filled with recipes that I cannot wait to tackle. Coincidentally, this cleverly ties into another aspect of what I hope to feature on my blog.

Even though the cupcake marathon of crazy hasn't begun, I already know that I wish to blog about other things as well. Cooking as always been a passion of mine and I have already promised many people at school that I would proudly cook them dinner. So, in honor of that, every now and then I'll include a recipe that I love to make. Fortunately for you, dear readers, today's post will feature just that. But more on that later.

Flipping through my cupcake bible as I've come to know it, I was hit with the sudden realization that I lack quite a few objects that will be necessary to pull this stunt off. 

1. Cupcake pans: Yea I should probably on this right away. But alas, a problem: I don't know what size the ovens are at my dorm. However, I have already found a set of baking pans on the wonderful Etsy.com.  I can already picture all the wonderful moments I could have with these lovely baking pans, all the burned batches and messes that we'll make together.

2.Cupcake liners: Another find on Etsy.com made me realize that if I was going to be making cupcakes, then by god I wanted to be sure that I bought the cutest cupcake liners that I could get for the cheapest price. As one college professor once shared, "It doesn't matter how badly you mess up, its all about the presentation. If it looks good, you can always rake in points for having a good looking project." Truer words have never been uttered.

3. Frosting equipment: True, I don't necessarily need to buy whatever you call that thing you use to put frosting on cupcakes and stuff, but I kind of want one. Why? Well why not. If I'm going to be perfecting my cupcake skills I should also work on my frosting abilities as well.

4. Cupcake storage containers: One of the more important items that I'll be needing for this cupcake adventure. Of course, I need to see the size of the fridge in the kitchen before I can really buy a serious storage unit thing. In addition, I have this crazy idea of how I plan to get rid of my cupcake surplus. Bare with me, this is going to take same imagination. It involves me dressing up as Eliza Doolittle and carrying a basket of wrapped cupcakes around campus. With my basket fully stocked, I'd walk around campus offering cupcakes for $2 a peice. Throw in the cockney accent and I think I'm onto something. Don't worry about me looking weird or anything; at Clark University anything is possible. There was a guy in one of my classes who always wore red cat ears. 

Lastly, I just want to say that I have decided to embark on this challenge firstly for the fact that I'll be doing something spectacularly amazing. And secondly, I hope to ultimately end this challenge as a better baker and cook. I want to see people smile when they see what put out on a plate for them to eat and tell them that I was able to make that without being trained.

And here it is, as promised. A dish that had my dad say, "Wow, it smells like an Italian restaurant in here" as its delicious smell wafted through the house. Behold, Tyler Florence's (who is he anyway?) Spaghetti with Roasted Eggplant and Cherry Tomatoes. This recipe is really simple and tastes so delicious.

Tomato Sauce:

• 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 5 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 cans (28-ounce) whole, peeled tomatoes, drained
• Handful fresh basil leaves, torn
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 small (3/4 pound) eggplants, stemmed but not peeled
• 2 to 3 garlic cloves, chopped
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• Extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 pound dried spaghetti
• 1 pint cherry tomatoes, stemmed
• 1/2 cup freshly grated Pecorino, plus extra for serving
• Handful fresh basil leaves, torn

Directions

First, make the tomato sauce: Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook, stirring, for 7 to 10 minutes until the vegetables are soft but not browned. Add the tomatoes, crushing them in your hand to break them up. Add the basil and season with salt and pepper. Cook until the sauce is reduced and thickened, about 10 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

Cut the eggplants crosswise into 1/2-inch-thick rounds and put them in a large bowl. Add the garlic, salt, and pepper, and drizzle generously with olive oil. Toss to coat, drizzling in more oil if you needed. Arrange the slices in a single layer on a baking sheet and roast 20 minutes until eggplants are very tender.

While the eggplants are roasting, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil for the pasta. About 5 minutes before the eggplants are done, drop the pasta into the boiling water and cook until al dente, 6 to 8 minutes. Drain. Bring the tomato sauce to a simmer and pour it into a large pasta bowl. Add the drained spaghetti and stir to coat with the sauce. Fold in the eggplants and the cherry tomatoes. Add the cheese and basil, and another drizzle of oil, and toss gently. Serve immediately and pass extracheese at the table.

                                                                                                 

Yum!

The sticky little details

Here's a serious question, do they make cupcake pans large enough to accommodate eighteen cupcakes? The answer, not surprisingly, is no. Unless you know someone who's specializes in making custom baking equipment. I know I'm personally not going to cross my fingers and wait for some kind stranger to send me one in the mail. But all silliness aside, lets get down to business.

Behold, The Official Rules for this ridiculous challenge. Not only is that underlined, but italicized and in bold font too. That combination just screams "She's really serious about this cupcake thing."

1. I must bake every recipe in the book and try them all. This unfortunately includes the recipes that have ingredients such as prunes, maple syrup rhubarb, jam, balsamic vinegar, smoked salmon, brandy, vodka, kaluha, Irish cream, and...wait a minute, I get to use liquor? Nice

2. I must bake a minimum of at least twice a month. Alright, I bet the few people who have read this so far who aren't my parents expected me to be baking my but off for five hundred days. Please, let's be rational about this. As mentioned before I'm going into my junior year at Clark University. I do not have the time, the means, or the space to make eighteen cupcakes on a daily basis. Yea, I'm going to modify some of the recipes so they only produce six or twelve, but even then, I'll still run out of room. Fortunately, I have found what a more cunning person would call a loophole. For each recipe, Connolly offers three additional variations. If I'm making a batch of twelve or eighteen, I will include the variations within that one batch. Yes to some it might be cheating, but trust me, I am still baking five hundred different cupcake recipes.

3. I mustn't give into the temptation of giving up. This will probably be the hardest to follow. Even before the challenge starts I know that I will be faced with many opportune moments to walk away. But I will not. I have made this resolve and will do what ever it takes to stick to it. 

Those are the rules so far though I'm sure I'll be adding to them eventually. If anyone wishes to, please post any suggestions you might have.

As for my start date, I was thinking August 5th. To start off with, its a Friday and one can never go wrong baking-wise if doing so on a Friday. But seriously, the reason I'm considering August 5th is because my close friend returns from her four week trip in Russia the following day. So not only would I have a cause for baking cupcakes, but someone to eat them as well. 

How does that sound?

An Introduction to what will probably turn out to be a big mistake

One book filled with 500 different cupcake recipes. A year and five months to bake them all. And then there's me, Jill, age 20, and a full time student. What am I getting myself into? Though this project won't commence until August, I'll still be working at my summer job and after that ends, well, it's right back off to school for me. How on earth am I going to find time to do this? Trust me, I'm just as curious as you are to see how I am going to pull this off. But for now, I can relax; the timer doesn't start for at least a month so hopefully when that day comes, I'll have pulled together some form of plan. In the mean time, let me answer some questions.

Why cupcakes? Well why not? Cupcakes can be simple or complex, can be baked with a purpose or none at all, and are, in my opinion, a dessert that makes one happy. Though I have only recently realized my love of cooking and baking, cupcakes are something that I have always enjoyed. Its not that they are relatively easy to make, it because of the fun that goes into making them.

Why that book? True, I could have selected any cupcake guide, but I like the way 500 Cupcakes By Fergal Connolly is put together. None of his recipes are too pretentious or try to be more complicated than necessary. Additionally, for each recipe he offers three variations. Not only will this make the challenge more interesting, I get to use ingredients I have never used before.

Why now? When I was 16 I taught myself how to knit. Three years later, I taught myself how to crochet. This past year, my sophomore year at Clark University, I began baking. Despite having the interest in cooking and baking, I haven't always had the patience for it. Sure, I'd help my mother in the kitchen, but I'd always walk away whenever we reached the part of the recipe that didn't involve cleaning the bowl. But this summer, something has changed. Everyday I'm online looking at various food blogs for recipes and inspirations. In my mind, I entertain the thought of being the girl in my suite this coming year that cooks dinner once a month. Upon receiving this cupcake book the idea of baking, or trying to, hatched itself into my mind. Considering the crazy year I have ahead of me, a challenge is a challenge and I love trying to prove myself wrong. And besides, if I fail to reach my quota, at least me and bunch of other Clarkies will get to eat some delicious cupcakes. That looks like a win win situation to me. But in all honesty, whether or not I complete this challenge, I know that I will have become a better baker in the process and have the support of my family and friends.

The challenge will begin soon, so wish me luck!