In Pursuit of ....

I'll let you fill in the blank but perfection wasn't what I was thinking. I tried for the first time today a new kind of frosting-swiss meringue buttercream. It is fabulous. Silky smooth, not too sweet and easy to pipe on cupcakes. Today's flavor was chocolate and the frosting was vanilla, with sprinkles.





I'm just practicing for my Dad's birthday which is coming up VERY soon. I will see him shortly after his B-Day and will be able to bake some treats for him. His choice, of course.

And, I'm trying to clean out my pantry. We are in the process of moving. Moving so far away that the title of my blog just might need to change. I've already received some suggestions for the new name: MileHigh, Rocky Mountain (thankfully Trot was not a suggestion for this particular change)!!!
I did get to develop this week's creation in some new clothes. My Mother In Law fabricated an awesome new apron for me. As my husband will attest and probably pleaded with my MIL to make me an apron, I am M-E-S-S-Y in the kitchen when I bake, with capital letters. So, I now have a new apron to sport to protect my well not so fabulous weekend duds.

I used the Martha Stewart one bowl chocolate cupcakes for this recipe, in case you are interested. The recipe is very easy to make and turns out quite runny. I quickly jumped back onto the internet after mixing the batter to see if anyone else shared the same sentiments as me. Turns out, it is a common thought but does not hinder the texture or flavor of the cupcakes.

Now, I need to concentrate on yet another section of the exam and filling my mouth full of tasty food from Chicago that is well, hard to get when you live 1200 miles away.

One last final note, I owe my newfound frosting talents to howtoeatacupcake.net. She has great ideas and is the superwoman of SMBC. I'm hoping to be one of her sidekicks in no time!

"These are your best yet!"

I heard those words today from a rather tall man that I know quite well. Nevermind that his mouth was full of vanilla cupcake and chocolate frosting! That's right, I finally baked more cupcakes and started to work on perfecting frosting as this seems to be my weak area. Tonight I started off with a white cake which included pudding and a little bit of sprite. The combo of the two really makes for a great textured cake with a nice crumb. Then I decided I would mix up a batch of chocolate and regular buttercream frosting. But, after mixing the chocolate, I realized that I had enough to generously cover all of the cakes, so I decided that one kind was enough.

Catching UP: Airshow

So, these pics are a couple of weeks old but still worthy of a post. My parents came out from the State of Corn around the middle of August to enjoy the show. We had a great visit with them and got to attend the airshow on Friday and watch it from our deck on Saturday and Sunday. We also got some great glimpses in when we were walking down the street, riding in the car and on public transportation. It's pretty difficult to miss airplines rushing by overhead at mach speed!

A Science Experiment

I was always a fan of lab in chemistry and biology. I wish I could rewind and go back to the lab to test my skills again. To mix, to waft, to put all things unknown into my crucible and boil and boil. Those were the days. Since I can't go back to school and frankly don't want to, I make my own experiments and they always occur in the kitchen. This weekend, it was an attempt to mix two of my favorite things, cheese and cupcakes. Sound gross? It's not. It's actually quite tasty and simple. Mix up a batch of cupcakes, lemon or vanilla are best. Then mix together ricotta, eggs, sugar and vanilla. Spoon the ricotta over the cake mix and bake. The ricotta sinks to the bottom of the cupcake and provides dense cheesy layer. Dust the cake with a bit of powdered sugar and you have a successful experiment!

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's Back to Work I go!

So, after an extended weekend, I will be returning to work tomorrow. That means I will actually have to get up when my alarm goes off instead of rolling over and hitting snooze a bazillion times. It also means I will not have as much time to review my testing materials. While I can be a slacker studier at times, I typically have the best focus in the morning and will miss out on it for the next two days. It also means that I have two more short days to prepare for REG and well, I never feel like I am prepared. I think I could drink myself silly into a red bull high for the next two nights studying like a good little cpa candidate and still feel like a complete retard on Saturday at about noon. Not looking forward to it but will gladly suffer through it if it means it will soon be over! Good night everyone and if you don't hear from me anytime soon, rest assured I will be studying.

Finally, some cupcakes!!

When I initially set up this blog, I did so because I was in the regular habit of baking frequently. I'm not sure if it is because it is now too hot to turn my oven on for extended periods of time or if I am too concerned with gaining some additional pounds but I haven't baked any cupcakes in (gasp) months! How can it be? Well, when you mix the summer weather with some good old Becker study books, the resulting combination is that there is no baking going on in the Chicago Cupcake lady's kitchen. Reluctantly, I have given up my hobby briefly in order to try to accomplish a personal and professional goal that has been in progress for quite some time and well needs significant attention.

Instead, I will share some of my favorite cupcakes to be purchased in Chicago. In honor of my Birthday, Mr. Cupcake took me to one of my favorites, Sweet Mandy B's. I had a cupcake for breakfast, yellow cake with buttercream frosting, and Mr. Cupcake had a homemade cinnamon roll. We then purchased a red velvet cupcake and chocolate with buttercream cupcakes to enjoy later. The picture below is of the chocolate with buttercream. The good thing is that Mr. Cupcake accepts the cakes from Sweet Mandy as a replacement for mine. Actually, based on his reaction I think he prefers them to mine. So, when I get around to baking again my first culinary goal will be to figure out the recipe behind these things. Trust me, you will be happy that I did when I make them for your next occasion!

Please enjoy the flowers as well and pay no attention to the permarings on my coffee table. I promise we regularly use coasters, it just doesn't look that way.

Aging gracefully....

For those of you who have stuck with me since the inception of this blog despite the length between posts, you may remember that I chronicled the planting of my flowers at the beginning of the summer. Well, I can assure you that I have a green thumb and that the combination of direct sunlight and lots of watering from Mr. Cupcake has allowed these flowers to bloom into beautiful reminders of life and growth.

See the pictures below for transformation from beginning to now:

I

So, the true point of my post, for those that know me well, is that I too am approaching another year of what I hope is aging gracefully. While I am no where close to being old, I'm also old enough that when I was a kid I thought that being my age meant old. And yes, my body is showing some signs of age that I am NOT going to share with everyone as I don't want to give away all of my secrets.

Let's just say I really enjoy attending the weekly yoga sessions in Millenium Park as it gives me the chance to stretch my body out. That's right picture about 100 people practicing yoga at 8am on Saturday morning in the splendor of downtown Chicago. This morning, we even chanted at the beginning and end of our session all in unison. It is fantastic. It attracts those who have aged gracefully and some that have not but all that are interested in finding a little time for themselves. Thank you Chicago park district for providing the opportunity.

Belated: Fireworks for the 4th!

It is an age old American tradition to honor our freedom, the bbq and fireworks, on the 4th of July. Fortunately this year I had the opportunity to witness the most fireworks I have ever seen in my life. The location of our home and the perfect weather for the day afforded the brilliant scene. First, from our living room, we could see multiple shows, probably about 5 at once. Then, I stepped foot onto the deck and could see a few more. As the evening grew from dusk to night time, the Mr. and I grabbed the camera and headed to our building's roof top deck. Who would have thought that a building with 6 floors would have such a great view? The pictures that I am going to display below will not do the scene justice. We literally could see all fireworks shows to the North, West and South for what seemed like a 30 mile radius. It was amazing. Everywhere I looked on the horizon and up close in the city there were fireworks. Here are a few pictures of the sight. Again, no camera can "show" you what I got to see! Mark this fourth down in the memory book for me, as it was spectacular!



It's hard to distinguish a firework from a street lamp in this picture. However, if you look closely at the light bursts, those are all various fireworks that were going off simultaneously.

Spoils of today's farmers market!

The Mr. and I started our day off early this morning. By 10am we had been to the farmers market, had our morning coffee and retrieved any remaining groceries that we needed for the week from the store. Since I've had a bit more time on my hands lately, I've spent some of that time looking for new ideas for things to cook. So, now you will be able to see the fruits of my search! At the market this morning we picked up green beans, cucumbers, snap peas, zucchini, yellow squash, tart cherries, flat parsley, rosemary and onions. It was a very productive visit to the market. Following our visit, I dug up some of the recipes that I had recently found to cook today. First we started off with a zucchini squash pizza. We modified it slightly by adding some grilled chicken to the mix. We finished our evening dinner with tart cherry crisp. I used my Aunt S's recipe for the cherry fruit filling and the crumbly crisp topping recipe came from one of the magazines I've had the pleasure to enjoy in the past few weeks. Both recipes are keepers that we will be adding to our rotation of things to cook.

Lots of Catching Up to Do!

It's been a few weeks since I've posted...since then we've had family in town, we have our first baby tomatoes on the vine, I've been to Dallas and back, we've seen our friend Sue's new fabulous home, and it's officially SUMMERTIME!
During our family visits we have had the chance to go on an extended eating tour of Chicago. While managing to roll around town, we saw many of the more touristy attractions-the art museum, Lincoln Park Zoo and Conservatory, Millenium Park and the Bean, Wrigley Field, Navy Pier, the Buckingham Fountain, Soldier Field, Michigan Avenue and the Hancock building. While this list may seem rather long to squeeze into four days, the truth is we hit these attractions and squeezed in some shopping, caught the tail end of the Pride Parade and managed to relax at home. It was Waynie's first visit to Chi-town and we therefore had no choice but to have no restraint!
In other news, our flower and tomato and herb garden are progressing quite splendidly. As I said earlier, we have the first signs of fruit on the tomato plant and I can already taste the fresh red, ripe goodness on my tongue. Nevermind that our garden consists of one pot of basil, one mint and 2 tomato plants. But, when you live an urban lifestyle and your patios are about 30 square feet each, this is an accomplishment. I don't set the bar very high when it comes to gardening-can you tell?
That's about all that has happened at the cupcake house over the past few weeks. I'll be posting something in honor of our freedom in the near future.


This first shot might give you the wrong impression. No, we are not in the Carribean. These crystal blue waters are Lake Michigan ala the John Hancock building.



And this one is self explanatory. Home of Da' Bears!