WEDDING REHEARSAL CUPCAKE EPIC, EPIC, FAIL

The Plan: 65 cupcakes for a wedding rehearsal dinner.
- 25 double chocolate fudge cupcakes filled with dulce de leche topped with Kahlua whipped chocolate ganache frosting
- 20 triple vanilla cupcakes filled with blueberry mousse cream topped with vanilla cream cheese frosting
- 20 triple vanilla cupcakes filled with strawberry mousse cream topped with vanilla cream cheese frosting And each cupcake would be topped with a heart-shaped fondant topper embossed with the bride and groom's first initial's and sprinkled with edible glitter.

Sounds simple, right? In reality, not so much.

On the day of, everything that could have gone wrong, did.

The day started out rather well. I woke up really early, giving myself five hours to complete The Plan and arrive at the rehearsal site by 3:30. Everything was looking good. The fondant hearts were already done and by 10:00 the double chocolate fudge cupcakes had been baked, the fillings had been made and were cooling in the freezer. I was just about to start on the vanilla cupcakes and everything from there on out went straight downhill.

The recipe for the vanilla cupcakes did not yield the 20 that I was expecting. Fail #1. This I knew, was attainable, as I had attained 20 cupcakes at Jessie's house when we first baked the triple vanilla cupcakes. Whatever, moving on. As soon as the first batch were in the oven I began making the second batch. The second batch baked as the first batch were cooling and low and behold, the cupcake liners were slowly but surely peeling away from the cupcakes! Fail #2. These were cupcake liners that I had purchased online in the colours of the bride and groom's wedding because I couldn't find them in-store at Michael's or Walmart or Bulk Barn. I chose the same brand as the black ones that I had purchased for a previous wedding but for some reason, these ones were peeling away! And I knew it couldn't have been the recipe I chose because I had fantastic results with the same recipe with the same liner in a different colour. At this point I was completely freaking out as I couldn't serve cupcakes that had no liner and I only had enough butter for one more batch of cupcakes. So I made the last batch of vanilla cupcakes in regular white cupcake liners and hoped that these liners would be okay. As I was getting the flour and baking powder mixed together I realized I was on the last dregs on my 10kg bag of flour! How could that be? How could I be out of flour? I tried to get out as much flour out of that bag as I could but I still short about half a 1/3 of a cup of flour and subbed it with cake flour. Fail #3. I hoped that the 1/6 of a cup of cake flour out of the entire 2-2/3 cup of AP flour wouldn't make that much of a difference.

At this point I gave myself two options: go to Michael's and purchase ribbon to tie around the bottom of the cupcakes to make up for lack of liner and up the presentation factor OR go out and buy more butter and flour. The latter wasn't really an option since the butter wouldn't have been room temperature anyway. The former it was! I spent 40 minutes round-trip purchasing four different types of purple and yellow ribbon only to have Sean show up and help me tie the ribbon but then realize that I hadn't purchased enough. Clearly, 18m of ribbon is only enough to wrap like...8 cupcakes, not 20! Fail #4! At this point I had no choice but to go with the unlined cupcakes. It was devastating. Being a perfectionist, I cringed at the thought of presenting less than stellar cupcakes but I didn't really have any other option. I was already running incredibly late as I'm the type of person who likes to arrive early at these sorts of things.

Finally, an hour later than intended, Sean and I left for the wedding rehearsal site. When all was said and done, the cupcakes looked amazing even despite the missing liners and I know that they tasted amazing so I'm hoping that the bride and groom are happy with the results. It was all very rush, rush so I set-up as quickly as I could without making it look like a rush job but didn't have a chance to make contact with the bride-to-be.

So after four major failures, it was what I would consider a true cupcake failure but I managed to pull myself together and get the job done. Why life likes to play such cruel jokes on me, I don't know, but the cupcakes still looked good and the double chocolate fudge cupcakes tasted better than ever. My dad even sampled one and complimented me on how "fin" it tasted. That's a winner in my books as my dad's comments usually begin with "next time..."

Here's a little teaser...More photos to come...

RECIPE: TRIPLE VANILLA CUPCAKES

Go ahead, take a bite:Or do you want to take a bite out of this one:Vanilla bean, vanilla extract and vanilla sugar. All three types of vanilla are the stars of the triple vanilla cupcakes. If you don't have vanilla sugar available at your local store, or you want to save some cash and make your own, just use the bean shell/pod from an already-scraped vanilla bean and stick it in a 2L jar with white sugar. Leave it alone for at least a week, shaking the jar every couple of days. After that, open your jar and sniff. You'll inhale the wonderful scent of vanilla sugar. Ta-da, vanilla sugar!

I made these cupcakes at Jessie's house with her and Sean. It was a very hilarious evening involving the KitchenAid stand mixer, a Dollarama spatula and batter going everywhere but those photos aren't as lovely as the ones pictured here.

Triple Vanilla Cupcakes
(adapted from Cupcake Bakeshop*)

Ingredients:
- 3/4 cup (1-1/2 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 cup of vanilla sugar (down from 1 2/3 cups)
- 2 large eggs, room temperature
- 2 2/3 cups flour
- 1.5 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 3/4 cup + 2 Tbsp milk
- 1 Tbsp vanilla extract (upped from 1 tsp)
- 1 vanilla bean, seeds scraped out (upped from 1/2 vanilla bean)

Directions:

1. Beat butter until softened. Add sugar and beat until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
2. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until well combined.
3. Measure the flour, baking powder, and salt into a medium bowl and whisk to combine.
4. Measure out the milk and vanilla and stir to combine.
5. Add about a third of the dry ingredients to the butter/sugar and beat to combine. Add about a half of the milk/vanilla and beat to combine. Continue adding, alternating between dry and wet and finishing with the dry.
6. Scoop batter into cupcake cups about 2/3’s full. Turn oven down to 350 degrees and bake cupcakes for about 22-25 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.

Vanilla Bean Frosting
(adapted from Cupcake Bakeshop)

Ingredients:
- 1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 package (8 ounces) philly cream cheese
- 2 Tbsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 vanilla bean, seeds scraped out
- 4-5 cups powdered sugar*

Directions:

1. Using an electric mixer, beat the butter at medium speed until creamy.
2. Add the cream cheese and beat until combined.
3. Add the vanilla extract, vanilla seeds, and 3 cups of powdered sugar and beat at low speed, occasionally stopping to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl, until light and fluffy.
   
4. Add more powdered sugar to arrive at the consistency and sweetness you like. (Our frosting was really "runny" so I kept adding more and more powdered sugar. In fact, I nearly ran out and Jessie was worrying about all the sugar I was adding. Next time, I would decrease the amount of butter used to maybe 1/4 of a cup or none at all.)

The next time I decided to sprinkle some homemade vanilla salt (vanilla bean seeds and sea salt) on top of the icing. It was a match made in heaven. If you're a fiend of the sweet and savory combo like I am (think maple syrup on your bacon or Vosges bacon chocolate bar), you'll love this combo. *Jessie and I are pretty much Vanilla Monsters so we upped the vanilla any time we could. She also suggested we cut down the amount of sugar anytime we could and also wanted to reduce the amount of butter (she's currently on WW) but while I was okay with decreasing the amount of sugar, I wasn't keen on the butter reduction. Cupcakes are my one indulgence and I don't indulge in cake (in any form) very often anyway.

WEDDING CUPCAKE RECAP

It was a long 12 hours. Yep, that's right, 12 freakin' hours. There weren't many meltdowns--maybe just one and a minor one at that. It was really just a lot of waiting around for cupcakes to bake and then washing dishes.

The setbacks? There were a few. The first was running out of strawberries and then vanilla extract. Luckily Sean was around to lend some moral support and make a late-night run to the grocery store to pick up said items, as well as extra heavy cream, which came in handy. Another setback? Forgetting to measure out the right amount of chocolate for the whipped chocolate ganache frosting and then doing it midway while the heavy cream was cooling down. My initial ganache recipe was therefore f'ed so I had to improvise and am happy to say that it turned out marvelously, despite the clumps of chocolate stuck in the frosting tip. Thanks to Sean and his days at the Sobey's bakery, he was able to let me in on his "frosting tip under running hot water" trick.

Let's back up to the process a bit though. I was kind of given free reign with the wedding cupcakes, which initially made me really nervous. The bride's comments were something along the lines of "whatever they are, I know they're be great" which made me feel good that she had so much faith in me, but also made me nervous because I knew the cupcakes had to be spectacular. I think that's why I pulled out all the stops. The cupcakes chosen (or suggested by me and approved by her) were a strawberry and toasted coconut cupcake with vanilla bean and coconut rum buttercream as well as a double chocolate fudge cupcake filled with dulce de leche and topped with a whipped dark chocolate Kahlua ganache. Initially the toppers were supposed to be chocolate shortbread cookies with embossed initials of the newly married couple. I did a test run about a month back but in all honesty, the photographed cupcakes didn't look spectacular. They tasted great but they didn't look very awesome. Who really wants a miniature cookie sticking out of a cupcake? I decided to go with dainty little sugar flowers instead and I'm glad I did because it really suited the classy black and white theme of the wedding. I made the sugar flowers a week in advance and am really glad that I did. Putting on the silver dragees took three hours alone because it involved piping the royal icing with my left hand while placing the dragee with my right hand with a pair of tweezers. Insane work, I tell ya! It is not for the faint of heart. It was tedious and time consuming and certainly fiddly. But the flowers looked so cute and perfect afterwards.

The majority of the cupcakes were made the night before, finishing up the last batch 12 hours before they were due. I then woke up five hours later and made the last batch of cupcakes--making extras for any mishaps--and then began frosting. Surprisingly, I didn't feel tired, but there was a LOT of yawning later in the day and perhaps a little bit of a nap at Corey and Bryanne's place. In total there were 144 cupcakes. I planned on making extras as "back-ups" for the car ride to Oshawa. I wanted to be able to swap out the "casualties" that didn't make the car ride over for the "good" ones. I didn't really plan on making THAT many but because of the two different recipes I was using, it just happened to make that many. It was okay; I didn't hear my co-workers complaining.

Piping the cupcakes wasn't too hard. I had piped cupcakes several dozen times before and have pretty much perfected my piping skills. There were a few that didn't look so hot and those are the ones I asked Sean to scrape the frosting off so I could re-pipe them. Thank goodness for the extra set of hands because I really needed them. As I piped, Sean placed the sugar flowers on top of the cupcakes. (FYI: I used my trusty 1M tip for the piping.)

I was done at 12:58pm, two minutes before my self-imposed 1pm deadline. Sean and I packed the car in about 30 minutes and made our way to Oshawa. The traffic, for the most part, was non-existent, so the car ride took about 45 minutes and the entire way there I was internally fretting about what would happen should we get into a fender bender. How would I salvage the cupcakes? Could they even be salvaged? What if the accident was so bad that Sean and I couldn't make it out right away? What if the "jaws of life" had to come get us out? All kinds of crazy thoughts were running through my head and at one point, when we hit a blip of traffic, I'm pretty sure I was about to have a panic attack. my heart started racing and my palms were getting sweaty and I was worried that we wouldn't make it to the reception hall in time for our 3pm deadline; I still needed time to set up the cupcakes! But we made it there in time, accident free, with plenty of time for me to van-vaner with the cupcakes on the cupcake stands made by the bride and her bridesmaids. It took about 30 minutes to set up the cupcakes (deciding whether to alternate the cupcakes on the same tier or whether to separate them was a bit of a pickle that Sean didn't understand) but afterwards, they looked marvelous. And I have to admit, I was a proud Cupcake Mama.

I set up all 102 cupcakes, took a few pics for the memories and then sadly, said goodbye to my babies:Stay tuned for part two...featuring more photos!

FRIDAY NIGHT ON THE TOWN!

Watermelon, ice cream, cupcake, beer, pizza and a tea latte.

That's all the food I consumed within a four-hour period, so it probably comes as no surprise that my stomach is no fan of me this morning. Add to that combination a Tylenol Extra Strength, because I had a mondo headache after work, and well, someone was a little "funny" after dinner last night.

I always forget that you cannot combine Tylenol with alcohol. The thing is that I rarely drink because a) I don't drink wine--ever and b) I'm picky about my beer. So the chances that you'll find me drinking are pretty slim-to-none but Sean and I found ourselves in a quaint part of town and when the restaurant we chose (based solely on their thin crust pizzas with awesome sounding toppings) had beer selections including those from Mill Street Brewery, I had to go for it! But alas, I'm hoping the two or three times I've accidentally mixed these two ingredients together does not lead to serious liver damage or failure.

Let's back up a bit though. Sean waited for me for 30 minutes while I had to work late and after that we headed back to my house so I could change. I grabbed some watermelon for me and my dad's beef curry with rice for Sean. I don't do curries in the wintertime with no air conditioning. It's just plain wrong. Yes, I'm VERY tempermental in the summertime, springtime, whatever.

After that we headed to the mall to find shorts that I actually fit me but stopped by Coldstone Creamery where I got the Banana Caramel Crunch and Sean got the Cookie Minster. We decided to get the "Like It" (small) size this time around but at only 50 cents less, I felt like it was kind of a rip off. We should have gotten the larger size but I know it would have been too much ice cream.

An hour later I came out of the mall with a top and three pairs of shorts. Go me! I was actually previously wearing shorts that were two sizes too big--oops! After that we headed to one part of town's Main St. and came across the Unionville Pizza Co. and it looked promising. Sean suggested we check out the menu but before we did, I couldn't take my eyes off the store front of the Old Firehall Confectionery. Against the dark sky, the old firehall was radiating with light and people buzzing in and out of the shop. I told Sean we had to check it out.

We stepped inside part of my dream-come-true. The shop has everything a die-hard sweet tooth could dream of: ice cream (from Kawartha Dairy), fudge, chocolate-covered anything (pretzels, strawberries, cookies), cakes, cookies, cupcakes and the most artistic and interesting truffles I've seen in-person (chocolate lavender anyone?). After a look around, Sean and I settled on a single cupcake: vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream. What better way to test a shop's worthy-ness than to review the most basic of cupcakes. It's pretty much my MO for any cupcake shop I enter. At $2.89 plus tax for a small (and $3.99 for a large with ganache filling), these were the priciest cupcakes I've ever purchased. They weren't even advertised as all-natural (a la Dufflet) or the best I've ever seen. They were square however. Yep, that's right, square cupcakes and this is what they look like:

Excuse the shite photo. You'll notice the lack of photos from this post because I didn't have my camera with me (blogger nightmare) and the iPhone's abilities to take photos at night are horrid at best.

Our first bites were not pleasant ones. There was something a little bit "off" about the consistency of both the buttercream icing and the cupcake itself. I found the cake to taste artificial; like that of cake mix but as light and fluffy. Sean said it tasted artificial and mealy and he was right. It was definitely mealy. There was a really weird consistency to the cake. We then cleaned out our palettes with water (thanks to the refilled Evian bottle I carry with me everywhere) and tasted the icing and cake by themselves. The icing. Ugh. Where do I even begin. It was hot, almost melting and do I dare say that it tasted like nothing? It was just butter that was a few degrees past room temperature iced onto a cake. It had the slightest taste of vanilla but certainly not one that was pure. It was nice to eat a cupcake that wasn't too sweet but this icing could have used more powdered sugar. It was literally like eating a cake with piped butter and sprinkles on top. At $3 for one small square cupcake, this is definitely not a re-purchase.

After declaring that they may have stole the property for my cupcake shop, I still make better cupcakes and Sean agreed with me. We then headed back across the street for dinner and with hopes that it would turn out to be better than the cupcake. It turns out that the Unionville Pizza Company has been around for three years, though previously known as the Harvest Wine Bar. I remember Harvest Wine Bar. I remember never venturing inside for a very specific reason, though now that reason escapes me. Sean and I opted to sit inside (everyone else was out on the dimly lit patio) and I took a quick glance at the drink menu. My eyes opened wide when I saw Mill St. on tap and in bottles. Seriously, really? Organic beer offerings in a restaurant in my town!? Oh I was giddy with excitement. And not only Mill. St but another option too! I couldn't choose. Faced with so many beer offerings, I asked Sean about the difference between pilsners and ales and whatnot and finally settled on a Nickel Brook cream ale. It's brewed in Burlington (not too far from here) and entirely organic, even carbonated naturally. I was super amped to try Mill St. for the first "real" time (I had previously only had a sip but this completely organic beer got to me. Sean got a German beer that I can't remember the name of but I love it when Sean talks with a German accent so I made him say it three times. His beer was served with a lemon wedge and he was the beer winner of the night. I loved my beer (I finished it all and it's actually rare for me to finish a beer by myself--again, I'm picky) but Sean's was totally awesome. I have to find out what the name of it was from him.

Sean and I opted to split the roast duck pizza and it was great. Not as awesome as the anchovy pizza in New York City (that pizza was to-die-for) but this was good for my town. The dough was made from organic flour and thin as thin could be--just the way I like my crust! Our toppings include roast duck, tomato sauce, mushrooms, goat cheese and arugula piled on top. I thought that there was a little bit too much cheese but Sean didn't seem to mind ;)

Unfortunately the menu on the UPC's website isn't quite up-to-date (items have been updated, prices increased) but if you're in the area, it's definitely worth it to stop by for a meal. They also have some great appetizers including arancini, beet root carpaccio salad and corn chips with fresh guacamole. They also have some great burger options include a turkey, lamb, buffalo, veggie and kobe burger.

After dinner we decided to walk along Main St. and I grabbed a tall black tea latte from Starbucks. I was a little shocked when the barista told me the price: $3.57. Seriously? That's how much I've paid in the past for tea and hot milk with foam on top? I couldn't believe it. I had to borrow a dollar from Sean to pay for my latte. Suffice it to say, there will not be a lot of tea lattes in my future but oh, it was kind of worth it. That's probably the best tea latte I've had in a long time. Sometimes they don't put the sugar syrup (which is fine by me) or sometimes they put too much (blech!) but this one was perfect. Kudos to the barista who made that one. So eventually it got cold and I needed to use the washroom and when I came back from the washroom Sean mentioned that my eyes were red ("you look baked") and I couldn't stop laughing. But eventually I became really sleepy and could barely keep my eyes open so Sean suggested I go lie down in his car while he listened to Bowie. That's when the trouble started. I couldn't walk down the stairs properly and that's when Sean mentioned something and when it hit me, I had a Tylenol earlier (!!) and then I had alcohol. Oops! Anyway, lesson learned; it's never a good idea to mix medication with alcohol.

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Just to make sure that I was not being completely biased, I made my dad eat the cupcake as well and give me his thoughts on it. After his first taste (I wish I had videotaped it, he was tasting it like a person tasting wine), he asked if it contained cornmeal. See, my thoughts exactly...a mealy consistency. I asked him if it was stale or just plain bad and he said it was a combination of both; that it was just sugar with no flavour. After dad's taste-testing, this is what's left of the cupcake:

I'm now at a loss as to what to do with the cupcake. Do I toss it or do I finish it? I'd hate to toss any baked item but I also try to follow my diet of "if I'm not in love with the taste, I won't eat it." According to my rules, I should toss it but I also hate to waste food--though I'll happily throw out all kinds of pre-packaged and processed crap that I find in my house.

BAKING UPDATES!

I've done a lot of baking in the past month but haven't had a chance to post about it yet. There's been much Olympic-watching going on and a lot of sickness, plus I decided to take Wednesday off blogging (not one food photo!). Here's a recap of recent baking:

BAKERELLA CAKE POPS:
I made these for a work bake sale last Thursday with the proceeds benefiting the Hospital for Sick Kids. I followed Bakerella's recipe but halved everything as I was feeling under the weather and wasn't really in the mood to be baking. I honestly wouldn't have followed through with this recipe had I not already signed myself up for the bake sale early last week. Because I just really wanted to go to bed rather than create these things, I only made a dozen. Here's the process and the reveal at the end. There's so many final end product photos because it took so long because I was sick.

So first thing's first...you have to bake an entire sheet cake and crumble it. Again, I halved the recipe and since I wanted to keep the rest of the cake as cupcakes, I used a cupcake box mix and made 24 cupcakes. Thank goodness Sean's food processor started working again that night because there's no way I would have gotten this fine crumb without the use of a food processor:

After that I added in the cream cheese and then mixed it all together until it stuck together and was sweet enough. I ended up using about half a can of cream cheese frosting:

After that was complete I rolled the mixture into 15gram balls. Yes, I actually weighed each ball. I think I ended up with around 30-something...I think 34 or 36 to be exact. Then I started dunking and decorating.

Here are my final dozen:I completely forgot to pick up a big block of styrofoam so I made do with some styrofoam I found in the basement, cut it to size and then wrapped it up in some festive tissue paper. It did the trick. It was now nearing 1am so I just wanted these cake pops to be over with. Here's a few more pics:
I like the way the sprinkles come together in a circle in the white one above. It was completely unintentional as I was dipping the pops in a bowl of heart-shaped quins. It kind of reminds me of a Valentine's Day baseball.

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MERINGUE COOKIES:

I went a little bit nuts making meringue cookies last week. I made two batches on the 12th and then another batch the next day. The first batch I made I split into two and flavoured as follows:

Above are chocolate with chocolate chips and I also made a batch of chocolate with dried cherries:

My second batch made the next day were vanilla meringue cookies with dried cherries. As I was packing the cookies into an air-tight container, I had to flip a few upside-down in order to make them all fit. That's when I stumbled upon this one and decided to keep it for Sean:

Cute huh? I think he liked it. He's Sean so he probably thought it was corny and cheesy and silly but I liked it. I mean, how the heck do hearts just appear on the bottom of meringue cookies? It did all the work for me.

My second batch of meringue cookies were vanilla with dried cherries but I forgot to take photos of them. They were incredibly sweet though. I followed the recipe to a T but found them to be ridiculously sweet (hence the use of fruit sherbet served to Sean and his parents but the sherbet was ridiculously sweet anyway). By the way, you can find the recipe here but if you do plan on using the recipe, I'd cut the sugar down by at least 1/4. I also piped my cookies with a pastry bag instead of spooning them onto a cookie sheet. It saved time and effort. Oh and cream of tartar is key to keeping your meringue stable...very key!

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STRAWBERRY COCONUT CUPCAKES WITH VANILLA BEAN AND MALIBU COCO FROSTING:
I wanted to make cupcakes for dessert for dinner at Sean's. I wanted these to have a Valentine's Day theme and was going to make red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting but wanted to include coconut since I love coconut. I couldn't find a coconut cupcake recipe that I was happy with so I decided to stick with a favourite but had to include some kind of fruit puree. I decided to go with strawberry for a strawberry coconut cupcake--yum! After piping with vanilla bean and Malibu Coco-flavoured frosting and decorating half with toasted coconut and the other half with heart-shaped quins, this is what I've got:

Here's a couple close-ups of each. First up the toasted coconut (my fave):

And the heart-shaped quins:

And that's all the baking I've been up to lately. I have wanted to bake some more but there aren't enough taste-testers in my household--boo!

VALENTINE'S DAY RECAP! (Celebrating A Day Late)

Sean and I celebrated Valentine's Day a day late this year. We weren't really planning on celebrating Valentine's Day at all--Sean really hates the "holiday"--but I was really in the mood to cook, so he agreed that I could make him dinner on the Monday since he had to work the night before (on actual Valentine's Day). We decided to include his parents in the meal since it would have been rude not to since they were going to be in the house as well.

Monday was Family Day, a public holiday, so I got to sleep in until 11 when I woke up and decided to make Valentine's Day-themed cupcakes for dinner with Sean and his parents.

Previous to dinner, this was the day's eats...lunch was congee with Chinese New Year leftovers of stir-fry:
And then a couple of hours later (after making strawberry coconut cupcakesI had a pear followed by another bowl of congee:The dinner menu at Sean's had to be altered a few times because I had forgotten that Monday was a holiday and that the grocery stores would not be open and also, Sean had forgotten to pick up some groceries the night before. Good thing the Asian markets were open so we were able to pick up a few things before heading to Sean's house.

Appetizer was bacon-wrapped asparagus. Thank goodness the bunch of asparagus had just enough for the 9 slices of bacon I had leftover in my fridge:
Main: rosemary and garlic lamb chops:
Side: Gordon Ramsay's "Cook-a-long Live" rosemary potatoes (but with dill since the Asian market didn't have fresh rosemary)
Dessert: chocolate + chocolate chip meringue cookie, strawberry coconut cupcake with vanilla bean and Malibu Coco frosting, vanilla bean and dried cherry meringue sandwiched between pomegrante and cranberry sherbet:
Dinner was a huge success (even with the ingredient flaws) but the best was yet to come. Sean had a surprise in store! After helping Sean's mom clean up, Sean presented me with this card. The first words that came out of my mouth when I saw it were "did a child write this?" to which Sean replied "I dunno..." and I had no clue what he was up to!
Here's the actual card:Funny enough I had totally forgotten about the card even though I had picked it out (we were at Hallmark the day before picking out a card for Sean's parents) and pretty much forced Sean to give it to me. I love penguins and think that it's cute that they're "holding hands." Then I read the inside:And as soon as I read it, I started laughing...especially at the part that says "Valentides" so much so that my eyes were watering and I wasn't really paying attention to the rest of the card. The other side said this:So even though I was mega excited because Sean and his mom had mentioned something about a giant box, I was laughing so hard and my eyes were still watering.
I had a hard time getting "Q" out of the box because he's this big:And this fat:We're now the best of buds:e's seriously the best present ever! I was so, so happy! He's really heavy though. He's a lot bigger and a LOT heavier than I had imagined. I guess he's got to be if he's going to cost $350! I was just ecstatic and super surprised because I didn't think Sean was going to get giant Quatchi for me for my birthday. He let me open my present early so that Quatchi and I could enjoy the Olympics together, which is what we've been doing since then (photos follow). Quatchi is 38" of pure entertainment!
Hope you all had an awesome Valentine's Day like I did!

POMEGRANATE LEMON CUPCAKES

I wanted to start the year off right so I decided to make a batch of cupcakes for my family to take to my aunt's new year's dinner. It's a tradition that we go to her house for dinner on new year's day but I had other plans but wanted to whip up a batch of cupcakes anyway. I settled on pomegranate cupcakes seeing as we had a couple of white pomegranates in the fridge about 24-hours away from the compost bin.

After frosting and decorating, this is what I came out with...24 standards, 12 of which I frosted:and the other 12 I left unfrosted for my mom and 20 minis for my relatives:Here's a standard aerial close-up:and a mini in profile:Pomegranate lemon cupcakes with pomegranate frosting, topped with white sugar dust and pink sanding sugar. There are actual white pomegranate arils in the cupcakes that held their shape during baking.

The frosting was a little too tart for me. Instead of using some kind of pomegranate juice, I ended up using pomegranate molasses, perhaps a little bit too much, but Sean said he'd probably like them so I'm going to give the rest of them to him and his family.

I also used white pomegranate instead of the regular red pomegranate because that's what I had in my house but if I ever made these cupcakes again, which I probably would, altering the frosting (perhaps cream cheese would be better?) I would use red pomegranate seeds for the batter instead.

Anyhoo, great way to start off baking in 2010!

WHY SO MUCH FOOD??

A lot of food went into my mouth today. I have no excuse except for the fact that nothing was entirely satisfying and all these extra snacks were around so I just kept on snacking. I did plan on exercising after it all went down but a 90-minute conversation with Sean but a halt to those plans.

The day started out all well and good...
There was a bowl of rice noodle soup for lunch. Besides the rice noodles there was slices of pork and various Chinese veggies in a beef broth. I didn't even eat the entire bowl set out for me by my parents. I only ate half and then left the rest for later on.

But then later on I decided to eat this banana tart...And then finished off the rest of my noodle soup.

And then dinner rolled around and because we had something different than our usual pork with red and green peppers, I ended up eating the whole thing. I present you with, pork chop with applesauce.It's probably nothing new to you but it's something entirely new to my family. After pan-frying the pork chops, my mom and I teamed up to make the sauce of apple cider vinegar, applesauce, a chopped-up apple, thyme, cinnamon, salt and pepper. It was a little bit too vinegar-y and my mother disallowed me from adding nutmeg or more cinnamon to the mix (she's not a fan of those spices) so we added a little bit of sugar and that was that. To be honest, I'm a big fan of sour/tart flavours so I thought that the sauce was great. But that meant eating the entire plate's worth of food, which I should not have done.

And then I didn't stop there. I also ate (unpictured) a slice of leftover meat pie, a mini salmon tart thing and a mini mushroom tart thing (both from M&M's). Then a couple of hours later, I had this for dessert:A cup of vanilla Earl Grey with a pomegranate lemon cupcake. The frosting on the cupcake was too tart for my liking (is that even possible?!) but I ate it because nothing I had eaten that day was entirely satisfying. While I was really excited about the pork chop and applesauce, what I really wanted alongside it was a baked potato and steamed carrots.

So the whole day was kind of a write-off in terms of food. I also ate some Lay's lightly salted chips as well as drank about 3/4 of a can of Coke. Tomorrow is going to have to be more of a healthy food day. Oi.