Sweet Corn Cupcakes w/ Maple Cream Cheese Frosting

Monday, June 23, 2008

For today's adventure in baking, I chose the Sweet Corn & Maple Cupcakes. I skipped any and all references to bacon.

I chose this recipe as my first adventure for two reasons:

1.) We had ONE small ear of corn left in the fridge. It definitely wasn't big enough to make any sort of dinner for the two of us, but we left it hanging in food limbo because we didn't want to waste it.

2.) David is a big fan of bartering; in the spring he did some computer work for a family of farmers & maple syrup producers (love living in Western Massachusetts!) and they gave him a GIANT jug of 100% natural maple syrup as payment. We've been trying to use it as often as possible, but neither of us is big on "heavy" breakfasts with pancakes or waffles, you know? (Cake for breakfast?)

Ingreeds, in general.

I deviated from the recipe a little, mostly for the sake of convenience. Sugar is listed twice in the recipe, once for 3/4 of a cup and then again towards the end for another 1/4 of a cup (??). I cut out that last 1/4, and when I tasted the batter it was DEFINITELY sweet enough without it. Holy cow, trust me.

Also, there was less than a cup of corn after I got done shaving the ear that we had- it was more like half a cup. Other than that, though, I stuck to the recipe's guns. Well. Sort of.

Now look, I like to bake, alright? But no one ever said I was this expert who knew all the tricks. I get that you mix the dry and wet ingredients separately and I get that you pour the wet in to the dry SLOWLY while mixing the two together. That's basically the extent of my "technique." Accordingly, I had a few fumbles with this recipe, all having to do with the egg yolks and the egg whites.

Eggs creep me out, I'm going to be honest. I wanted the "egg" portion of this recipe to be as quick and painless as possible and didn't even read that part of the recipe very closely. I saw that it called for 4 egg yolks and 5 egg whites, and that was enough for me. Apparently I was supposed to separate all whites from all yolks, and then "whip" the egg whites on their own before adding them to the batter. What I actually did, though, was dump them all in at once and not whip shit.


Me, not whipping shit.

Adding the corn felt *wrong* somehow, which was awesome. I have to admit I was a little skeptical of how the corn would adapt to everything else (namely all the sugar and cream cheese), but went forth faithfully and with trust. Once it was all mixed, I used a soup ladle to get it from the bowl into the baking cups. It just seemed more logical to me somehow, since I was spooning out all this corn and stuff. Wooden spoons be damned, I am not ashamed.


Ladle, ladle, ladle

After I stuck the cupcake pan in the oven, I did the dishes and started on the frosting. Oh, the frosting.

Yes, it's delicious, but dudes- frosting is GROSS. I don't think I've ever made frosting from scratch before (just canned, or the "add water only" kind) and I honestly had no idea that frosting is essentially just butter and sugar. Lots and lots and LOTS of butter and sugar. Nevermind that I picked the recipe with the CREAM CHEESE frosting, right? I swear every step of the way I felt like I was sinning- hands down, good old fashioned, raised catholic SINNING. Just when I thought I might lose my mind entirely, the timer went off letting me know the cupcakes were done.


My surprisingly well adjusted domes

I'm really disappointed that technology has not yet been invented which would have allowed me to share the AMAZING SMELL of these cupcakes coming out of the oven with you all. Considering I only used half a cup of corn instead of a whole one, I was surprised at how distinct the corn smell was. And it smelled GOOD, holy-cow-good. It was exactly what I needed after the shell shock of the frosting.

After cooling and whatnot, I frosted them and tried one. !!!!! Success! Success! Sweet, sweet success. As you can imagine they're a little on the heavy side with the frosting and all, but they're delicious and I can't wait to share them! Anyone wanna come over and have one?



Click for full-sized goodness!

Food!

My First Trimester

Since I've been pregnant, David and I have amassed a whole new appreciation for eating. During my first trimester, I was so sick all the time that I couldn't keep anything down but lukewarm water (not cold, or I'd throw it up), saltines and Lipton's noodle soup. During my second trimester, I was CONSTANTLY hungry. And it wasn't just "hunger"- it would feel like I was starving even though I obviously wasn't, and I'd get debilitating stomach pains and headaches if I didn't eat every 2 hours. Because of the sheer FREQUENCY of my needing to eat, we ate a lot of greasy, fast nonsense. It's only really been over the last two or so months that I've been able to eat like a "regular" human being, so we've been trying in that time to get ourselves back on track.


My Second Trimester

We know that very, VERY soon things are going to have to change. Not just for just the two of us, but as a "family unit" in general. (By the way; yes, equating everything in our lives to how it will affect a "family" has been challenging, if you were wondering.) I would ideally like to have the little boy see us eat lots of healthy, fresh food and let him witness us trying new recipes and new ingredients as often as possible. Growing up, my family ate pretty much nothing but ground beef, chicken, and cube steak. So when I decided I didn't LIKE meat, I was pretty much doomed. I very quickly became a "sides only" vegetarian, which I think happens a lot to young veg's. When my family had meat with a side, I'd have double to rice/noodles/pasta to "make up" for the lack of food on my plate. Eating fresh, varied foods is something I still struggle with, since I've always been really, really good at limiting myself. I want to get myself back into non-pregnancy shape in better ways then only eating Lean Cuisine frozen pizzas for three years, which I will totally do if I don't at least make an effort to attempt otherwise.

Speaking of which, I really, really want us all three of us to have a healthy relationship with food, especially since all of our genes have a predisposition for both extreme self-denial and relentless chubbiness. I was never as overweight as some of my relatives but I tortured myself with food in my adolescence. Not by starving myself outright or purging, but by putting myself on ill-advised "diets" that usually consisted of limiting the food I ate to only one item in the morning, afternoon, and at night. I once ate nothing but baby food for a month and a half, for example. I'm hoping that if we teach our son how to eat healthily right off the bat he won't struggle with the how-to's later on. Fingers crossed, anyway. But where do you even start, right?

Naturally, we were PUMPED when Davey discovered "Twenty for Twenty: Vegetarian Edition" on allrecipes.com- a list of twenty mostly fresh ingredients to stock up on in order to make twenty different healthy, vegetarian dinners? So far we've tried the Mediterranean Chickpea Salad, the Hot and Spicy Tofu and the Homemade Black Bean Veggie Burgers. WOW! They're all so delicious and don't leave us feeling heavy later on; I love, love it. It helps, of course, that David is an amazing cook. He does 98% of the cooking around here because he is just so, so much better at it than I am.


Homemade Black Bean Burgers <3

It's true, I can't actually COOK for the life of me, but! Amazingly, I seem to have a natural talent for baking. I used to get a secret kick out of bringing in home-made spice cakes and blueberry coffee cake made with hand picked blueberries to parties and pot lucks when I worked at Mass Mutual, because it was so contrary to my personality that I would bake, and everyone was always really surprised and impressed. Like a lot of things I used to enjoy, though, I put baking on the back burner a year or so ago when I scraped my entire foundation down the drain and started rebuilding it from the ground up. Getting pregnant slowed that process down even more, but now that I'm at the (very, very) tail end of it I'm starting to get back into baking.



My fire was re-lit the instant I laid eyes on the (no longer updated, sadly) Cupcake Bakeshop blog and egged on by my subsequent discovery of Cookie Madness; two websites all about unique baking. How absolutely amazing do lavender cream filled cupcakes with citrus cream cheese frosting sound!? I've decided it will be an awesome challenge to see how I can make these recipes a little healthier without compromising too much of the taste and I'm pumped to start experimenting. Wish me luck!

Just two weeks left...

Saturday, June 21, 2008

this is roughly where I'm at:

The Great Renovation: Nursery Finished!

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

The nursery has been finished for a few weeks, actually, but I wanted to wait until after my baby shower when it was full of things to show it in it's completion. Considering our incredibly limited budget, I'm pretty proud of how it came out. Thanks to my family and teamwork in general, we pulled off a dream nursery way, way beyond my expectations.

Overall; it's hard to get a picture of the entire room at once, but this is the general gist.


The baby's bookcase- he has two additional BOXES of books in the closet because he comes from a long, long line of enthusiastic bookworms who've all bought him book upon book. We're also classic children's book appreciators- note the Very Hungry Caterpillar book with stuffed caterpillar, the first of what will soon be an extensive Dr. Seuss collection, and the Madeline hand puppet.


Close-up of the mural my father painted, shooting off into unknown realms from Changing Table Rocket Base.

Now all we need is the final touch- an actual human baby! At my appointment today I was informed that I'm dilating at a healthy pace and, now that I'm 37 weeks along, could potentially and safely go in to labor at any time. It's really happening!! Can you even believe it?

Congratulations Phyllis & Del!

Monday, June 16, 2008

Phyllis Lyon, 83, and Del Martin, 87, will finally be legally married in San Francisco today after being together for over half a century.

"They write together and work together and have been in love for 51 years. And tonight, after the state Supreme Court decision kicks in at 5:00, they are going to be the first same-sex couple to get married in San Francisco, in what will be another historic moment in their lives together." -CANOW

How can anyone say that a love like this could possibly negate their own? Congratulations, Phyllis & Del!

I'd been working on a mix for a while that's sort of about maturing. Acknowledging that I was really going to be someone's mother was eye opening to me. I had a lot of demons I'd ignored facing for a long time, but knew I'd have to put them all behind me if I was ever going to be the sort of partner and mother I needed to be for my new family. This little mix is just a little peek into my journey.

http://caitmary.muxtape.com/

I hope you like it!

I will probably want to elaborate on this later...

Friday, June 13, 2008

... but I'm *really* digging The Pica Beats right now.