Its been a while. Our internet is so terrible that most days we only have sporadic internet access, if any at all. Prince Charming finally decided to switch internet providers and hopefully this issue will be resolved by next week. "Yay." I was wandering around the store a few days ago when I spotted a cupcake book...I fell in love. No, I did not buy it (but I plan to...hehehe). I love my recipes but I would like to try a few new ones and this book is prime material for cute, fancy, creative, and ingenious cupcake decorating. They have it broken down into categories and there are designs and ideas for most seasons and holidays and special occasions.
While we are on the topic of cupcakes now would be a good time to share the happy news! A friend told me about a local Bake-Off competition last minute and urged me to enter. It was as good an excuse as I needed to make me some cupcakes :-) I ended up staying up until 2am mixing, baking, and whipping. In the end it was all worth it (not just because then my house smelled amazing and I would have "left overs" in my fridge) because my custom specialty Tiramisu cupcakes not only won Best Fingerfoods (it was originally going to be the Best Cupcake category but they decided to merge all the individual desserts i.e. cupcakes, cookies, chocolate dipped strawberries, etc at the last minute) but my Tiramisu cupcakes won Best In Show. I was very excited. My main competition was a woman who has her own cottage business baking gourmet cupcakes and her cupcakes always look fantastic. I was excited because sometimes you just want to know that you do something really well, something that sets you apart from the pack. I work really hard to be good at what I do, professionally, academically, etc and like most people who work hard can understand, there is a lot of stress that comes with setting high standards for yourself. Well, baking cupcakes makes me happy and washes my stress away. I like to think of it as aromatherapy for the carb inclined :-) Smelling something baking is such an instant relaxer, eating it makes you forget what you were so worried about in the first place, and giving it to someone else to enjoy makes you feel warm and happy inside. I could never be a full time baker, that would take all the fun out of it...but finding time to beat butter and sugar into submission improves my outlook on my week. I was happy that someone else really liked my Tiramisu cupcakes. They are definitely one of my more complicated recipes, and overall more expensive too since I use authentic ingredients. I baked Tiramisu, Pumpkin Spice, and Chai and Honey Cupcakes for the bake-off.....then my munchkin plowed through the extras in the fridge. He was actually getting up early and sneaking into the kitchen to help himself to breakfast! I left half of the extras bare, no frosting, so it really wasn't that bad for him...especially since he was eating the Pumpkin Spice cupcakes.
Happy Eating!
K
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