Think Spring!

It's mid-April - I'm hearing birds chirp more, buds are starting to appear and I'm thinking spring. In excitement for the coming season that lasts a mere 2-3 weeks up here in Maine, I created a new cupcake called "Think Spring." It's a vegan lemon cupcake with berry filling, topped with vanilla icing, a blackberry and some lemon zest - and it is yummers!

These cupcakes were my first experimentation with a "filled" cupcake, which seems to be all the rage right now. I used a cupcake corer from Williams Sonoma, and I must say, if you want to fill your cupcakes, get a cupcake core; it makes the job so much easier and much less messier! They're only $5 and are nice and compact and easy to clean. 

Filled Think Spring cupcakes, pre frosting

So I baked up the Think Springs last Saturday with an upcoming cupcake job I'm doing for a friend's graduation party in mind. I've had a bunch of taste-testers and have heard that they're awesome and that they don't taste vegan. It's interesting that people always need to qualify food as "tasting vegan" or not "tasting vegan." Vegan just means there are no animal products in whatever the product is - it doesn't mean that the cupcake contains ingredients the majority of us aren't familiar with. I'm sure most of us have had margarine in some form, flax seed, flour, sugar, fruit juices, applesauce...all normal things, I promise :o) But when someone says, "This doesn't even taste vegan!" I take it as a compliment. I think that vegan baking got a bad wrap at some point because a lot of vegan bakers didn't understand the world of substitutions and the chemistry going on in our ovens, and so a lot of vegan baked goods came out tasting grainy, seedy, bland, or dry. This certainly does not describe what I've been baking up! 

You may have noticed from my other blog or the From Scratch and Sniff Facebook group that I recently got engaged. We got engaged a few weeks ago before the ring was actually ready. On Tuesday we got the call that the ring was ready, and after returning home, I was surprised with a second proposal. My fiance had been doing a photo-shoot with the Think Spring cupcakes and asked to borrow the ring so he could get a shot. He came up behind me in the kitchen with the ring sticking up out of the top of the cupcake, and proposed again. And of course, I said yes again! Then we shared the cupcake, after he put the ring back on my finger. It was perfection. 

KitchenAid, how did I ever manage without you?

That's right, folks! I have finally upgraded my kitchen with a beautiful, shiny, sparkling, heavy, white new KitchenAid mixer. I am smitten.

If you've ever been tempted to buy a KitchenAid, I will tell you that it is worth it. Yes, they cost a considerable hunk of change, but they are SO worth it! And I'll give you a tip- I purchased mine on Amazon and got a refurbished model. You just have to be willing to forgo the product warranty, but buying a refurbished model saved me a lot of cash and I've used it at least 10-15 times since I bought it and haven't found any problems as of yet.

If you do purchase one- a word to the wise: it is MUCH more powerful that the average mixer. So if you're following the instructions in a recipe, cut down the amount of time you spend mixing and I even suggest turning it down a notch. If you over mix, you'll end up with a denser dough, resulting in a denser baked good instead of the light and fluffy outcome you were seeking. So be careful!

It's also nice if you can set it up somewhere and leave it there- i.e. you need an outlet nearby. Unfortunately, I live in a house that has a very strange outlet situation and it's impossible to keep the mixer close to an outlet. It can be a workout moving this mixer back and forth- believe me, it is quite weighty. I actually lost a batch of cookies to the floor trying to move the mixer to the counter by the outlet! My wonderful boyfriend is going to rig an extension cord from the weird outlet halfway up the wall by our back door, through the drop ceiling tiles and down the wall to the mixer so that I don't have to keep hefting it to the other counter top each use. Hurrah!

If you have any questions about buying one, leave a comment! I'm happy to help out!

Kitchen Upgrades

As I've increased the volume of baking I'm doing each week, it's become apparent to me that it's time to upgrade some of my common kitchen tools. Oh darn. I'll have to go shopping.

My extremely generous aunt recently mailed me several Amazon.com gift certificates after cashing in her AMEX points and realizing she couldn't figure out how to use the darned things (we're still working on getting her into the 21st Century- stand by). As I'm sure you all know, Amazon is a catchall for, well, everything. I typed "Baking" into the search and found my own little Utopia.

My first big box o'baking bliss arrived several weeks ago, much to my excitement! Among my many goodies were three new paintbrushes from Wilton. Now, don't get me wrong, I am a huge Wilton fan. I think the majority of their products are well made, visually appealing, and really easy to use. But I am sorely disappointed by these puppies; I used them twice before they found their new home in the trash can.

The brushes were purchased to assist with decorating my hand painted sugar cookies. In my brushless days, I was using a Ziploc bag filled with icing as a pastry bag, but smaller details were really tough and I needed something with more control. The first brush use was great; I was able to fill in small details and add real character to my cookies. After using them, I of course, took them to the sink for a good washing. As soon as the pretty purple-painted wooden handles hit the hot water, there were little paint chips all over my sink. Not was I was expecting.

I used the brushes again to decorate sugar cookies for The Bully (photos are in a previous posting), but I again found the paint chipping off, this time in large chunks. I had to maneuver carefully to make sure none of it landed in the icing- no extra flavoring needed!

Needless to say, I do not recommend buying Wilton's set of three brushes, no matter how cute they look in their packaging. As for me, I've recently stumbled upon Sweetopia (thank you, Kelly) and I'm going to try her methods of sugar cookie decorating before I run out to get more brushes. And if I do get more brushes, I'm trying out acrylic brushes from the paint section at A.C. Moore. Hopefully a safer bet.

Go eat a muffin

Normally I start off my day with a small bowl of plain yogurt with some rainforest granola from Whole Foods, or just a cup of coffee if I'm running late, but occasionally I decide to treat myself to one of my favorite baked good morning treats: a muffin. I haven't done much muffin baking myself, to be honest. I've developed an amazing carrot cake cupcake with cream cheese frosting which could be re-invented into muffin form; I've dabbled in raspberry muffins here and there...

My favorite muffin locale in Maine is the Bohemian Coffeehouse (or Boho Cafe, as the locals call it) in Brunswick. I honestly hate going in there- I've only had one positive interaction with the staff who tend to be hipsters or overly-nonchalant-artists, but the muffins are worth the venture in. I have two favorites: the Cranberry-Walnut and the Morning Glory. You can't go wrong with Cranberry-Walnut. This over-sized muffin is packed with lucious, round cranberries that pop in your mouth and are off-set by the crunchy walnuts scattered throughout.

The Morning Glory muffin could be renamed the "Kitchen Sink" muffins. They include apples, carrots, coconut, raisins, whole-wheat, cinnamon...I'm sure I'm forgetting something. I order a muffin with a medium coffee and my morning is set.

I've tried several muffins at other local coffee shops, but they're always too dry and end up crumbling all over the place, or they're too wet and difficult to remove from the paper. Boho's are just right. Check it out next time you're in Brunswick :)