Gingerbread Cupcakes and Puppy Love

There have been plenty of challenges of late, but I must say I am fortunate to have lots of joys as well.  Jeanine (the bride for whom I am the MOH) brought her new bergamasco puppy, Amira, to visit today.  All this sweetie wanted to do was snuggle, kiss, and play gently with toys.  Ayla put herself on strict patrol until I really encouraged her to play.  Then the two of them chased each other around the house.  

Jeanine wanted me to show her how to make my gingerbread and make it into cupcakes.  Yea!  It's a challenge for 2 people to cook together in my 6X9 kitchen but we worked it out really well.

Gingerbread.  I could eat only that as my sweet most of the time.  I know it's sort of an autumn food but  I love it all year.  I had not make them into cupcakes before and they worked perfectly.

I adapted my recipe from here.  Also, this time we used butter, but you can use coconut oil.  I doubled all the spices.  The frosting is all my own creation.

Gingerbread cake or cupcakes

Cream 1 stick of butter with 1/2 C sugar (I use organic cane sugar)
Add 1 egg
Blend until well mixed
Add 1 C of molasses and blend until full mixed.

Sift together dry in a separate bowl:
2 1/2 C all purpose flour
1 1/2 t baking soda
1 t salt
2 t cinnamon
2 t ginger
1 t cloves
1/2 t nutmeg


Add dry slowly, mixing after each addition.  After the dry is well incorporated,
add 1 C hot water slowly, and blend.  I always put the hot water in the same measuring glass I used for molasses to get the last of the molasses out of it.

It is a very liquidy cake batter.   For cake, pour in 9 X 9 baking dish and bake at 350 for about an hour.

We filled cupcakes 3/4 full and baked at 350 for about 20 minutes but I kept a close eye on them.  They are done when a knife or toothpick comes out clean.  They rose exactly to the top and were flat.  If you like a more puffed up top, add more than 3/4 full.  It made 14 cupcakes.

Frosting
1 package cream cheese
2-3 T vanilla greek yogurt to achieve the right consistency
2 T maple syrup to taste
1t ginger (ground)

This made just a little too little cream cheese - just enough for a dozen, so you might want to use 1 and 1/2 packages of cream cheese.

We sprinkled the top with cinnamon.  I tried taking a bunch of photos this time.  Working on my food photography.

When I make the cake, I just make maple whipped cream and serve it on top of warm cake.  It's marvelous.  This was a nice variation.  I think it might be nice to go in a lemony direction too.

Healing:  It's just been a pain lately but I am trying to deal with a lot.  Medication for tremors is pretty awesome but it makes me extremely tired.  Right now, one eye is closed because I am about to crash completely.  Anyway,  I hope this blog post finds you well, in love, in health, and knowing your heart's desire.

Mixed Berry Crumble

Ayla is just the cutest.  She was so sweet and happy wearing bunny ears at my mother-in-law's house today.  I must add that I was so super impressed with her behavior.  On other occassions, she has been a little too hyper in that environment.  Today, she was perfect.  She slept under the table during dinner.  She kept her eye on me and Nate all day.  What a good sheepdoggie.  

I had been thinking about making this crumble for a few days.  So, when I got into the kitchen, I pretty much had a rough plan.  I knew I wanted a shortbread bottom and berries with some topping.  I'm not sure if I can actually write this as a recipe at this point, because I became sort of a ball of chaos in the kitchen.  But it's worth the effort because these were so delicious!

The bottoms were a stick of melted butter, 1 cup (plus more as needed) of flour and 2/3 cup sugar.  I stirred this together and pressed it (most but not all of it) into the bottom of a 9X13 glass pyrex thingy.  I baked it at 350 until done - golden brown.  I was normal up this point.  I saved a bit of the bottom mixture to add to the top.

I used about 3/4 of a bag of frozen mixed berries.  I didn't defrost them or anything.  I tossed those babies down on the shortbread bottom.  

In another bowl, I mixed up 3 eggs, 1/2 cup sugar, vanilla, baking soda, baking powder, and buttermilk,  I'm guessing it was 1/2 cup buttermilk and a teaspoon of each of the others.  I poured that on top of the berries.  Then I took the little bit of bottom mix I had left, added brown sugar, and 1/3 package of cream cheese.  I mixed them together with my fingers and sprinkled it over the berry egg thing.  

I baked the whole business at 350 until it was solid and didn't jiggle (I have no idea how long this was).  

It was really yummy.  It's not too sweet and would really work as a brunch item with vanilla yogurt on top maybe.  Or it might be really good with chocolate chips or a chocolate ganache.  

 I neglected to take a picture of the shortbread bottom by itself.  I just threw the totally frozen berries on top of the shortbread bottom - it hadn't even cooled.  I was worried about the monstrous size of strawberries but it all worked out.

This is the egg mix on top of berries.

 Tah Dah!  Finished deliciousness.  The crumble on top got nice and golden brown.  The berries were cooked and it was not jiggling.  The approximate full recipe is at the end of the post.  Please know that I was totally estimating because I was not in the mood to measure.  As I pointed out before, some of you think I like baking because of its precision - but this is perfect evidence to the contrary.

Healing:

I've been feeling overall lousy for a few days.  I've had a rash on my chest that has spread to my face (so pretty).  I've had to take benedryl and nap.  My pain is under pretty good control, but I just haven't felt that good.  All I want to do is lie down and rest.  I forced myself out for some walks which helps so much.  

I got a new bedspread for our bedroom - see - It's nice to change up the color scheme a bit.  I bought gray curtains too.  I've just been feeling...meh.  The good thing is that I've been giving myself time to be cat-like and loungy.  I took some baths, got cozy in my new blankets, and watched Deep Space Nine episodes with my honey.  Somehow, neither of us really watched that series so we've been enjoying going through it. Sisco is no Picard, but he is strong.  I love how not-Starfleet it all is.  They make all kinds of errors in judgments.  And there were tribbles.

Mixed Berry Crumble

Bottom:

1 C flour

2/3 C sugar

1 stick melted butter

Mix together and press into the bottom of a pan (9X13).  Press in all but 2 T of the mixture.

Bake at 350 until it starts to turn golden

Top:

3/4 bag of mixed berries (I used Trader Joe's here) - pour on top of cooked bottom

1/2 C sugar

1 t vanilla

1 t baking soda

1 t baking powder

3 eggs

1/2 C buttermilk

Whisk together and pour on top of berries.

Crumbles:

Add to the leftover bottom:

1/2 C of brown sugar

1/3 package of cream cheeese

Mix with your fingers and scatter over the top

Bake at 350 until it does not jiggle.

Note for the anal retentive:  This recipe is not for you.  You need to add and subtract to your taste and your results.  Maybe you want to use a whole package of berries.  And why not?  Who's going to stop you?  Maybe you want to add semi-sweet chocolate chips at the end.  Maybe more cream cheese.  I don't know.  Please share what you do with this.  Next time, I'll measure more and get the amounts more precise for even the most anal retentive of you.  But for now, put your perfectionism aside, and bake with berries.  

Just Cake for Cake's Sake

This silly self portrait of Ayla and me makes me laugh.  Ayla is so snuggly and adorable and nearly impossible to photograph.  She always moves at the last minute.  So although this picture is grainy, I'm including it for joy.

I made a box cake tonight.  It's good on a Monday when there is no dessert in the house to consider a box.  We went to Trader Joe's yesterday (yay!!!) - and bought all kinds of yummy things, including a box cake of theirs.  I actually stuck to the box preparation recipe and it was great.  All you add is eggs, oil (or butter but I chose oil), and water.

The bottom line is that I have a real thing for yellow cakes with chocolate frosting.  I mean, I can't get enough of that right now.  I can't even think of baking other things.  I have to keep making different versions of it until I am done with it I guess.  This one had more chocolate in it by melting down Trader Joe's milk chocolate (big giant bars of baking chocolate in the baking section).  It's nice to have a cake without any butter as my last yellow cake was way too buttery.  Also, I'm not a fan of butter in my frosting.  A lot of cream cheese frosting recipes call for half cream cheese and half butter but it's just too much for me.

Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

1 8 oz package cream cheese
1/4 C cocoa powder
1/4 C melted milk chocolate
2T heavy cream (milk would work too)
Blend til smooth.  

Health-wise, I had a tough day.  My nervous system was tweaky today and I spent a good portion of the day being shaky.  I've been diagnosed with MS but it's a weird form of it.  I don't have major attacks and I've just had funky neurological stuff for years and years.  It may be the cause of the esophagus problem but who knows?  Oh, and I have a weird rash on my chest that is driving me batty. I was supposed to see the surgeon today to make some plans but I rescheduled it.  I NEVER reschedule doctor appointments.  I was quite proud of myself for knowing that I needed to stay home tonight and chill out and make frosting and a box cake.  I did, however, talk to the surgeon on the phone and we are hoping to wait until June for the next surgery.  He said it will be same day or one night in the hospital.  Easy to plan and only a few weeks of recovery.  I don't know how I can get myself to feel ready for it, except that the leg pain is so insidious.

You know, I gave myself this blog to think *out loud* about my health and struggles but I feel terribly self-conscious about it.  I think you think, "Is she done whining yet?"  or "maybe this chick should eat less frosting and sugar" or "whatevs get over it already."  Oh, inner critics are very judgey and snarky.
I'm surprised that snarky is not a spell check red line and judgey is (even if I spelled it judgy).  I love making up words.

Anyway, here's pics of cake.  Come on over and sit on my new leather couches and eat cake with me.  And then watch me grade 2 mountains of class work!

Chocolate Cream Cheese Cupcake Google Event

I had big plans for the first recipe of this blog - honey lavender goat cheese chocolate blackberry cupcake tart fancy something or other.  That's not how it went down today.

The Weekend.  Yesterday, the house was being cleaned.  I took Ayla for a walk around the park with a friend, went to lunch, then took another walk in the woods with another friend.  I felt good in my body until the end of the second walk, when my body became super unhappy with my choices for lunch.  I spent the rest of the day watching netflix in my jammies.  Hubby was away until late last night.  Maybe I just underestimated how much down time I really needed.  I am so glad the house got cleaned though!  I recently admitted that I am not capable of cleaning myself anymore.  A few people were recommended and I ended up going with my friend's nanny.  She's been doing a great job.  Not sure how often I can afford it, but now all the deep spring cleaning has been done (even my gross microwave).

Sundays are tough sometimes.  I often get headaches or generally feel crappy from overdoing it during the week and Saturday.  Today I stayed in bed until 1pm which was a good way to avoid feeling crappy.  It's almost 5pm now and I still haven't showered or gotten dressed.  We have made Sundays a lot more fun these days by playing cards with our friends, Rob and Sue.  Sunday we head over to their house around 6 or 7 and play cards until 9 or so.  It's really changed my outlook on Sundays.  We laugh a whole lot, snack, and enjoy each other's company.

So, while I was lounging with my sweetie dog, Ayla, I googled "chocolate cream cheese cupcakes" and was led to a cupcake from childhood.  Do you remember these cupcakes with the black bottom and cream cheese middle?  With and without chocolate chips?  Yeah, me too.  I haven't seen these anywhere lately so I'm assuming they are out of style, but they are fresh in my memories.

These are so easy I couldn't resist.  They are so simple it will take less than 10 minutes to get them in the oven.  I suppose you will all have to wait for honey lavender.

I combined a few recipes here from the Joy of Baking website and All Recipes.

Cream Cheese Middle:
1 package cream cheese (room temperature)
1 egg
1/3 C sugar
Vanilla
Lemon zest
Mix in a mixer for a few minutes to combine.

Chocolate Cake Part
1 and 1/2 C flour
3/4 C sugar (I use organic cane)
1/3 C cocoa powder
Vanilla
1 t baking soda
1 C buttermilk
2-3 T water (to get the right consistency)
1/3 C vegetable oil
Chocolate chips (I used semi-sweet normal size)

Sift dry together, then add buttermilk and oil.  Add water until it's batter consistency.

Put chocolate cake mix in cupcake paper lined muffin tin - fill to 1/2 to 3/4 way up.  Dollop the cream cheese mixture on top.  Sprinkle top with chocolate chips.

Bake at 350 for 20 minutes until the cheese part is set and the cake comes out clean with a toothpick or knife.