Behold the Delicious Cupcaky Goodness!

What? What is this? An actual blog post from me? How did that happen?

Actually, with National Blog Posting Month coming up in November, I was intending to get back on the horse and post every day that month, with the hope and intention of continuing to post regularly afterward, even if it's not every day. I did really well with posting every day in November 2009, posted 9 times in December, then slowed to a trickle before I just trailed off to nothing after the beginning of June. I don't want to let that happen again, so I've started an Evernote folder on my iPhone so that I can write down blog topics as I think of them. Although often my problem is not thinking of blog posts (I frequently think "Hey, I should totally blog about that") but making the time to write them down. So I'll be developing more discipline in that area.

Anyway, my reason for jumping back into the fray a few days early is...CUPCAKES. My friend Colleen alerted me to the existence of RestlessChipotle.com's list of the 50 Best Cupcake Recipes on the Internet. Hold the phone! Amazing cupcake recipes all collected in one place? I'm so there.

I've already found 3 on the list I must try, had an idea for a fourth I want to create, and was told by Colleen about another recipe that she insists is incredible, for Martha Stewart's Pumpkin Cupcakes. How cute is this?

Her recipe is just for the cupcake sans frosting, but she recommends you use your favorite sweet cream cheese frosting to top them. I like the one that comes with this recipe for Carrot Cake. In fact, this is my go-to carrot cake recipe, except I omit the pecans and add an 8-oz. can of crushed pineapple. Yum! So moist and delicious. It's a very dense Carrot Cake, so don't expect it to rise much. It will be a fairly flat cake or cupcake on the top.

The first recipe from the top 50 list is Hummingbird Cupcakes:

These contain bananas, pecans, crushed pineapple and coconut and are frosted with a cream cheese frosting. They sound especially perfect for a spring or summer event, but I'm not sure I can wait that long to try them.

The next recipe is for Samoas Cupcakes:

The recipe starts with a Brown Sugar Butter Cupcake. You cut off the top, hollow out the center and fill it with caramel sauce. Replace the top and spread it with a thick layer of coconut topping, then drizzle with caramel and chocolate ganache and sprinkle a little toasted coconut over the top. These are not your optimal choice if you are watching your calories, but don't they sound amazing?!

The third recipe from the top 50 list is for Snickers Cupcakes:

The baker used Hershey's Perfectly Chocolate Cake Recipe, which is one I haven't tried before but will now have to check out. She hollowed out the center and filled it with caramel sauce, then made a caramel buttercream frosting to top the cupcakes. Sprinkle it with chopped up mini-Snickers bars, and you're all set.

Seeing the Snickers Cupcakes inspired me to come up with a recipe for Reese's Peanut Butter Cupcakes. I'm sure others have created recipes for that elsewhere, but I'm going to see what I can come up with to truly make it taste like the flavor of a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup in cupcake form, since often things don't translate with the same flavors when made in a different type of dessert. It seems difficult for people to get the right salty/sweet combination of a Reese's PB Cup in the peanut butter and chocolate they use for recipes. So I'll give it a go and post when I think I've come up with a winning recipe.

There's one more recipe that I found a while back and have been dying to try: Maple Bacon Cupcakes!

It's really hard to go wrong with bacon, and I do like salty and sweet together (like chocolate-covered pretzels). Plus bacon dipped in maple syrup is always delicious. I just don't see how these could turn out to be anything other than fabulous. The cupcakes have maple syrup, bacon drippings and minced cooked bacon inside, and the frosting is maple. Someone is going to be trying these out soon - so if you work with my husband, James, or are in our small group or in choir, or are part of my extended family, there's a good chance you'll be tasting these or one of the other wonderful combinations I'm discovering in the near future.

Consider yourself on notice.

LOST T-Shirts

LOST may be over, but you can still commemorate its greatness with these T-shirts. I saw these this morning and just had to post a few of my favorites:
"Yes, I realize I have some Arzt on me." Gross, yet funny. Loved that moment from the series! It was so unexpected, a total shock, and Hurley's reaction was priceless. You can buy the shirt here.

Here's a retro Hurley's Dharma Diner shirt that looks cool:
Buy that one here.

And if you've ever wondered what Ezra, the Dharma shark, may have consumed, now there's a T-shirt for you, available here:

This one, for Henry Gale Balloon Tours, is subtle and a good throwback to an early season:
And finally, I was looking for a shirt that said "Not Penny's Shirt." I didn't find that, but I did find this item, which I thought was clever:

Tips on Cakes

I have no idea how long I've been baking cakes. It was probably no more than 10 or 11 years ago that I actually started making birthday cakes with piping on them, but I've made cakes for longer than that. I'm guessing closer to 20 years. And yet I'm still just now learning tips that are making cake baking much easier.

• One thing I just learned yesterday was that many bakers use a combination of equal parts shortening, flour and oil mixed together to grease a pan before pouring in cake batter. It causes the cake to come out really easily. I tried this yesterday, and it totally worked. Brilliant. I'll be doing this every time I bake a cake now.
• I found a few tips for getting a flatter, more even cake. One is to dampen a towel, wrap it around the cake pan, then safety pin it in place. This works similarly to metallic cake strips that you can purchase, but you probably already have the right size towel and a safety pan in your house. And finally I just read today that, if you bake a cake at a lower temperature (like 300 degrees instead of 350) for a longer period of time, you will also have a flatter cake.
• Using a cake leveler - I bought one of these to use for Rachel's birthday cake last year. It's a metal frame with a wired stretched between two metal posts, both of which have rubber tips on the ends. I wasn't quite sure how to use it but figured I was just supposed to push the leveler across the cake to cut off the amount above the wire. Trying to do it that way, however, just resulted in the top of the cake getting ripped up a bit, not a nice even surface. So I looked it up online and found that I was backwards. The cake leveler stays in one place (hence the rubber-tipped ends) and you place the cake on a piece of wax paper. Then you put one hand on the leveler, holding it straight, and the other on the cake and gently but firmly push the cake through the leveler. Wiggling it a bit back and forth as you push gives you a nice, even top (or bottom, if you're going to flip it over after leveling).

I guess it proves you're never too old to learn new things :)

Homemade Maple Syrup

Rachel and Ben had some pancakes for breakfast this morning. As I was getting the imitation maple syrup for Rachel, I looked at the bottle's ingredients list and saw this: "High fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, water, sugar syrup, natural and artificial maple flavor, salt, potassium sorbate (preservative), caramel color." Yuck.

I'm not someone who's overly concerned about having corn syrup (high fructose or otherwise) here and there, but it just struck me that this is supposed to be maple syrup, and it contains a lot of other junk in addition to any maple flavor. I rarely buy real maple syrup because the taste can be strong if you're used to artificial, plus it's expensive. But this is one of those things where I think I need to make the change and go with the real stuff, instead of something that's loaded with junk.

A few of my Facebook friends suggested making your own syrup. I almost dismissed the idea until I did a search and found out that making homemade maple syrup is shockingly easy. Here's the recipe, courtesy of Hubpages.com:

Combine 2 cups of sugar and 1 cup of water in a sauce pan and stir to dissolve, while heating to a boil. After the sugar dissolves add 1/2 tsp of maple extract and stir it in well. When it boils, turn the heat down just enough to keep it boililng, but not boiling over. Boil for 3 minutes. Let cool and store in old syrup jugs.

That's it. Seriously, could it be any easier? You can add other flavorings to have different flavors of syrup, like strawberry or blueberry or butter rum. I love strawberry syrup on pancakes and raspberry syrup on French toast, so I'm looking forward to trying out those ones.

Homemade Pork Chilaquiles

I've been wanting to try some homemade chilaquiles lately. I had a little kalua pig left in the freezer and thought that would make a great meat for the dish, so I looked up some recipes on line to get a general idea, then threw together my own version. Measurements are approximate since I was just throwing things in without measuring. The smokiness and saltiness of the kalua pig was excellent in this dish.

Pork Chilaquiles
6 servings

16 corn tortillas, ripped into strips
A few tablespoons of oil for frying
App. 3 cups pork roast, shredded
1 c. sour cream
1/2 to 1 c. mild green taco sauce
2 c. shredded Jack cheese

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cook strips of tortillas in oil until softened. Drain on paper towels and sprinkle with salt. Mix sour cream and taco sauce together.

In 8x11.5-inch baking dish, layer 2/3 of the tortilla strips, followed by pork, sour cream mixture and Jack cheese. Top with remaining tortilla strips. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until cheese is melted and bubbly and the tortilla strips are beginning to brown.

You can easily decrease this to fill an 8x8 dish or add a little more for a 9x13 dish. It was a big hit with the whole family, and it's nice to find something that kids will eat without complaining!

Possibly the Best Cookie Bar Ever

In yesterday's post about our cats of the past, there was the promise of a post about cookies. On Tuesday, the day we had to take Carol to the vet, I felt some comfort cookies were warranted. I had some yellow cake mix and a can of coconut-pecan frosting that I wanted to combine, and I went in search of recipes on Allrecipes.com using their Ingredients search, which is brilliant, by the way.

I found a recipe for German Chocolate Bars. The only thing I did differently was to switch the German chocolate cake mix for yellow cake mix. I had regular chocolate mix but wanted to try the combination of yellow cake mix with that frosting. (Side note: one of the layers of our wedding cake was white cake with coconut-pecan filling, and it was sooo good!)

It turned out to be such a rich, delicious cookie bar! It's definitely going into my regular rotation and will probably be a new gift cookie for me to make, too. It's almost too sweet with the chocolate chips, but the fact that they're semi-sweet keeps it from going over the top. I think next time I'll try making part of it without the chocolate chips to see how I like it. I'm thinking it will have a pecan pie type of flavor. I actually think this would be too sweet using a chocolate cake mix, but if you love lots of chocolate in a cookie, you may think it's perfect that way!

Here's the recipe, or you can click on the link above to go to the original:

Best Ever Cookie Bars

1 (18.25 ounce) package yellow cake mix

3/4 cup stick butter or margarine, softened

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1 (16 ounce) container coconut pecan frosting

1/4 cup milk

Place cake mix in a bowl; mix in butter with hands until well blended. Press 2-1/2 cups into a greased 13-in. x 9-in. x 2-in. baking pan. Bake at 350 degrees F for 10 minutes; immediately sprinkle with chocolate chips. Drop frosting by tablespoonfuls over the chips and spread gently. Stir milk into the remaining cake mixture; drop by teaspoonfuls over top and spread gently to cover as much as possible.

Bake 25-30 minutes longer or until bubbly around the edges and top is cracked. Cool on a wire rack. Refrigerate for 4 hours or freeze for 30 minutes before cutting.

Of Cats and Cookies

I've been a slacker for far too long. After such a promising month of posting in November and fairly regular posting in December, even with the busyness of Christmas, I've totally lost it since then. But I have a piece of scratch paper with a few topics and other things bouncing around in my head, and I'm determined to start blogging more regularly. It's not that I never have things to write about, either. It's just that I get busy with other things, then forget to blog when I do have spare time, instead wasting a bunch of time reading articles and catching up with people on Facebook. There's nothing wrong with either of those things, but I do want to write more often and need to be reminded of that when I have time on my hands. So here's my first day of getting back on track. Warning: It's a long one.

Yesterday we had to put down our cat, Carol. She was about 13, which doesn't seem that old to us because our two previous cats were about 17 and 16 when they died. The eldest, Tinsel, definitely showed signs of aging for a while before she started to really go downhill, so hers was the one we anticipated the most, although it was still difficult. She had hyperthyroidism when we found her while out on a walk near our apartment. She was skin and bones and had knotted hair all over her body. We took her home intending to find her a place with other people, but couldn't for some reason find anyone who was interested in a geriatric cat who needed medication twice a day. So we added her to our other two cats, Carol and Morticia, neither of whom was happy about having to share us with yet another cat, having already adjusted to living around one another when we got married.

Tinsel did fine for about 4 years after that. Then we moved to Washington, and she started having other health problems. In the six months from the time we moved here until the time of her death, she ended up on 7 medications. If we'd been with another vet, they might have said sooner "It's time to let her go," but the vet we were going to sometimes seemed to err on the side of overtreating and prolonging life. Even so, she started to have trouble moving around and her eating drastically tapered off. Then one morning, I found her asleep in the litter box, where she'd gotten in and couldn't get back out. One eye was really dilated, which we discovered was a sign of having a stroke. We got her out and watched her and held her, and she didn't make any attempts to move around. We knew it was time to say goodbye, so we took her to the vet, and they gave her an injection as we sat with her.

That was the toughest time I've had losing a cat. I think it's because it was the first time I ever had to really live through the death of a pet. Previous pets in my family had been given away or were outdoor cats that had gone off to die on their own, except for our family dog, who my dad had to put down due to cancer while I was off at college. I didn't find out about his death until months afterward and only saw him occasionally at that point, so while it was sad, it wasn't raw grief.

That was in September 2006. In April 2008, 3 or 4 weeks before I was due with Ben, our cat Morticia started to have really bad breath. I looked in her mouth and could see that her gums looked swollen and bloody, so I thought she needed dental surgery. I took her to a different vet and they examined her and did some blood tests. They said that the teeth might be the only problem or they might be a secondary symptom of something more major.

They called the next day, a Friday, to tell me that Morticia had catastrophic liver failure. There wasn't much they could do for her other than something risky and expensive like a liver transplant, which they didn't recommend for a cat of her age. The vet said that the kindest thing would be to euthanize her. Because they didn't do euthanizations on the weekend, it meant I needed to bring her in before the end of the day, or make her suffer through the weekend so that we could have more time with her before we said goodbye. I hated having to act so quickly, but I knew she couldn't be feeling good with major organ failure. So at the end of the day, I met James at the vet (Rachel said goodbye to Morticia at home and then stayed with my mom), and we had her put down.

I cried more with Tinsel than with Morticia, and I felt guilty about that because Morticia was "my" cat. She belonged to my roommate when I moved in with her in 1994. When I moved out in 1996, she asked if I wanted to take Morticia because her other cat, Malcolm, bullied Morticia regularly. So Morticia became my cat. After we had to put down Tinsel, I felt guilty, even though I knew it was the right thing. But there was still a little part of me that thought "Was there even the tiniest other thing we could/should have done?" I knew that there wasn't, though. She was 17 years old and hadn't been in really good health for a long time. It was time to go.

Morticia came as a shock because I hadn't expected such dire news when I took her to the vet the day before. But since I'd dealt with the process before, it didn't strike me as hard. I was sad for a long time when I thought of her and am still a little sad thinking about the cats that we've lost. But I'm glad that we've had them in our lives and gotten to love and care for them, even though this part of it sucks.

And now that brings me to Carol. We said goodbye to Carol yesterday after receiving news from the vet that her failing kidneys had gotten much worse. There weren't many options, none of them guaranteed, and all just delaying the inevitable. We knew that Carol wasn't feeling good and thought that any of those options would be keeping her around for our own selfish desires. So we took her in and stayed with her while her life ended. She fought it a bit, which made me so sad for her, even though I knew her body was shutting down. I hope that our presence comforted her. Before we took her in, I sat with her in the family room. She didn't come out of her cat carrier, but I sat next to it and petted her. She leaned into the petting occasionally and gave a short-lived purr a couple of times, but that was it.

It seemed to hard to believe that she was gone afterward, but one look in her eyes showed that there was no longer any life in them. I don't know if we'll see her again one day in heaven, but I hope so. I don't know what God's "policy" is on animals in heaven, but I would be sorely disappointed to get there and find out that there aren't any animals. And I don't know if we'll see specific animals, but it would be wonderful if we do.

And now because this ended up being much longer than I originally intended, the cookies will be in the next post. But believe me, they're worth the wait.