Triple Threat Cupcakes: Chocolate, Sprinkles and PBJ

Once upon a time, there was a girl who randomly became obsessed with making cupcakes. Cupcakes held her brain hostage, and she couldn't stop thinking about them. It was like her brain was going cupcakescupcakescupcakescupcakescupcakes nonstop. She was inspired; ideas were sprouting left and right: chocolate flavor... jelly filled...peanut butter frosting! Cream cheese frosting...cream cheese frosting with sprinkles...truffles...(oh my!)

Game. Over.

Knowing she had no choice, she acted upon these cupcake-impulses that night. It was then that she realized she had an obligation, not just to herself, but to society at large, to recreate all her brain's envisions into reality...

I wonder who this lovely heroine is? Har har har.

Simultaneously watching the Olympics with the Parents, I used this base recipe for the cupcakes, except this time I was able to use a real cupcake pan! Thanks Ma!!! I officially hand in my resignation from the kiddie pool and formally request to be granted access into the big leagues. Thank you very much.

Not wanting a repeat of last time's near diabetic episode, I carefully adapt my ingredient measurements so that I didn't end up with 24 extra cupcakes and 240 extra pounds of fat. It says online that a mini muffin tray holds 4x more than a regular cupcake pan, so I adjusted accordingly, using my superb, unworldly mathematical skills. (For those who know me...L-O-L) Sadly, originally wanting to make 3 cupcakes, I ended up with 9.....oops....but NOT because of a math error, mind you. And at least 9 < 12.

By the time I started to actually bake, I had already been obsessively thinking, googling, and mapping out my plan of execution for the past 4 hours (while, of course, being ridiculously productive in the office. Who do you think I am!?)

I was going to make my batter and separate it 3 ways: one for chocolate, plain, and plain with sprinkles.

Then I was going to make two different frostings- cream cheese and peanut butter.

(peanut butter...and more butter,  oh joy) 

(cream cheese, butter and honey substituted for sugar)

Real talk, one of the main reasons I became obsessed with making cupcakes is because of frosting. I wanted to frost until I dropped. And spoiler alert: it's just as fun as you think it's going to be.

Again, L-E-G-I-T? 

Yes, this made me feel legitsies indeed

What I didn't plan on: running out of milk. So I used my gross sugarless pudding+H2O again. The batter then took on a more viscous texture, becoming thicker than the last time I used this recipe.

On the opposite spectrum, my peanut butter "frosting" likened to more of a glaze than a thick coat of frosting. I had a good time licking clean You can see it spilling over te edges, unable to solidify the way the cream cheese frosting did. Refrigerating the cupcakes overnight solved this problem.

                                       

                                       

You can see the peanut butter cupcake post-refrigerated, the glaze solidified as a thin layer on top

Difficulty: 8 

Willingness to make again: 5 (special occasions only, now that I got it out of my system) 

Over-all: 8.5 

Notes: 

1) PB frosting should be built off the cream cheese frosting recipe next time to make it thick 

2) The truffle in the center was ingenious, but also too sweet. Use half of a truffle or a less sweet chocolate next time 

cream cheese frosting

peanut butter frosting/inspiration

                                     

It's funny because leading up to these cupcakes, I was completely possessed. But after spending the entire night slaving over these little beauties, I am surprisingly at a loss of words to write about them. (Me? Not having much to...say!? Who is this alien and what has she done with the real Jennifer) I think this may be one of those instances where a picture is worth a thousand words. So I will just conclude my post with a jumbo-thousand words, in the form of these: 

                                      

This was my jelly filled cupcake, which rose much more than the others

                                     

Here you can see my sprinkles cupcake. Sprinkles=confetti version of fun&happiness, wippee!

                                     

Chocolate with the truffle center, ooOOo baby

                                     

                                     

                                     

                                     

Next day: nice and solidified. Yay

Yep, I think that pretty much says it all.

Reminiscent "Chicken" Tikka Masala (READ: Jennifer tries to make Indian food)

Back in Berkeley, I have an amazing core group of friends who I call the Floormates. They are my support group, biggest source of laughter, and essentially my second family. They define a majority of my college experience.

Meet my psychotic, dysfunctional, crass, nerdy, offensive, weirdasballs family. 

One of the things the Floormates and I love to do is go to Indian Flavors and eat their chicken tikka masala. ONLY this.

so. many. ingredients. (not pictured: red pepper flakes)

Honestly, Indian Flavors isn't extremely above average when compared to what else Berkeley/SF has to offer. But for some reason we can eat this dish once a week for a whole year and still not tire of it. And now, it's just so...us. 

I don't really get it either. But when it comes to me and the Floormates, there's a lot of things no one would ever get. Honestly. 

Frying: onions, ginger, garlic and spices

The Indian food cravings started pretty much the first weekend summer vacation started. And I haven't really gotten a chance to hunt down some good Indian food around here, so I finally caved and bought those stinkin', over-priced spices because DANGFLABBIT I was finally going to try and make Indian food.

Adding the yogurt and milk...and I had a bad feeling that I royally messed up. Because this looks horrifying.  

Well, obviously this chicken tikka masala was nothing like the one from Indian Flavors, though I didn't really think it would be. But just the idea of that dish reminds me of the Floormates and makes me look forward to returning to campus (happy vibes!) And since I used curry powder, I am going to consider it Indian food and call it a day.  #setthebarhigh 

Oh, this dish was also JENNIFER VERSUS CHICKPEAS ROUND 2.

hey look guyz it's a picture of the devil taking a bath in boiling water

I decided to substitute chicken with tofu and chickpeas to give myself a good source of protein. And the first thing I did when I got home was boil those little fckers in a pot of hot water.

HA, I thought, I will boil those little fckers until they are as soft as a baby panda, that's how soft. And they will hate it, because in my mind I envision these chickpeas have feelings. And I wanted them to feel the same amount of the pain they caused me weeks ago and then some.  ...did I tell you I am the nicest girl on the floor?

Can't call this tikka masala, so I'll just call it Jennifala? Or just, Jennifer's Indian Food.

Except some how, even when I boiled these chickpeas like I was supposed to, they still found a way to shaft me. WHAT.

Because guess what guys, boiling chickpeas takes eons. Like, the dinasours already had their party and peaced out and these fckers still were not done. GUHHHHHHHHHH....foiled again.

Luckily though, I kept my resilience, and I had my stupid peas, and I'll admit...they did add to the dish. I still have a lot left over, but since they are already boiled I just refrigerated them and can microwave them next time. HMPH.

Difficulty: 6 -lots of ingredients to prepare, but it felt like it took longer because of THOSE PEAS.
Willingness to make again: 6-7 -with canned peas I bet it will be a lot better.
Over-all: 7
http://www.skinnytaste.com/2011/06/skinny-chicken-tikka-masala.html#more

Notes:
1) The flavor wasn't as strong as the Indian food I get in restaurants. But it was still good as it was thanks to the spices/red peppers.
2) Substitued "garam fancyspicename" with curry powder and cumin. I like indian food but I am not going broke over it.
3) Thank god for canned tomatos.
4) Maybe could have used more onions/garlic?
5) The curry paste wasn't that thick. Maybe because the tomatos were watery or needed to use more yogurt?
6) This would be great on rice or makeshift Naan of some sort

 Missing these fools: the Floormate thanksgiving 9th grade

the Floormate thanksgiving 10th grade

TL;DR: chickpeas STILL suck. STILL! 

An Epic Fail with a side of Broccoli Fritters

Sigh. Remember that strawberry cobbler I made? The one that looked like an inverted corpse? Yeah, that was a definite flop. But I had said that, all obnoxious joking aside,  there were bound to be some mistakes sometimes. Well, that time has come once again...already. But ten times worse.

Why was it ten times worse?

Because I may have stupidly thought that the bagged chickpeas were already cooked.
Because I may have just dumped an entire cup of raw, rock-hard chickpeas into my skillet while cooking all my other vegetables
Because it did not occur to me that I would need to boil those M'fckin' beans first
Because after I realized I had scattered my dish with miniature pieces of titanium, I desperately tried to pull out every single one in an attempt to save my dish (THAT'S commitment)
Because even after I did that (with the help of Dad) and reboiled them, I still did not boil them long enough
Because I thought once the water boiled that the beans would automatically be ready, not that they may need to sit in the hot water longer until the beans are actually of edible texture.
Because after all of that effort,  I still ended up with a dish filled with SEMI-hard, SEMI-edible beans
Because it is also 100 degrees again, and our ac is in a weird funk, which makes everything infinitely worse.

Yeah, talk about womp. 

In the end, the dish was un-savable. Mostly because of the beans, but even the flavor was a little wack. (we didn't have nutmeg in the house) Here's a picture to commemorate my effort at least:

Attempted recipe: http://www.howsweeteats.com/2011/12/warm-winter-chickpeas/

Difficulty: stfu I hate beans

Willingness to try again: stfu I hate beans

Over-all: stfu I hate beans 

I felt extra defeated because I let my expectations get way out of hand. My parent's had a friend  come over to visit, and it was decided that I would get to cook dinner for us. All the sudden, the spirit of Julia Child got the best of me. I was seeing Food Network worthy dishes being produced from the magical tips of my protegee fingers. I was seeing everyone's speechless faces as they ate my food. I was seeing amazingness, NOT some giant plate of raw beans. 

Yeah, f*ck off stupid beans. You're too high maintenance. I hate you.

Normally, I like to take my sweet time when I am cooking. I get the kitchen to myself and play some music in the background; it's a very relaxing experience. It isn't just about the end result after all, but the process, right? (insert douchey artist voice here)

Tonight was too stressful for me. Mixed in with the heat, I was expected to cook dinner at a certain pace so that everyone wouldn't go hungry. Normally, my parents are okay with having to wait for me, but it was a little different with a guest over. And I don't have any reason for starving this nice lady. So I felt really stressed, on top of the heat and my series of stupid mistakes. This definitely added some negative stress-vibes to the food. Meh.  

Luckily, I got some broccoli fritters out of this that were actually edible:

side of lemon, +10 fancy points.

Difficulty: 6 -the recipe made this seem easier to make than it actually was. You had to mix up the flour and broccoli, making this recipe a little too messy for my liking. Even though the concept is simple, the messiness of having to glop it together onto the skillet was a little much for me. Did I tell you it was really freaking hot today too? 

Willingness to make again: 6 -I am not heavily opposed to it, but I am not super eager to, either. It's meh. I do like how this recipe is really flexible. You can pretty much cut up any combination of vegetables that you like. 

Over-all: 6 

Notes:

1. The recipe came with a yogurt sauce you could eat it with. I can see that making it a lot better, if I ever made this again.

2. By itself, the fritters were kind of bland. They definitely have to be eaten with something. We used lemon juice today, which I really liked.  But maybe put more salt and red pepper next time. 

3. Dad suggests that next time the broccoli be cut smaller. 

4. Recipe says it serves 9, but I got 4. Jipped!

http://smittenkitchen.com/2012/06/broccoli-parmesan-fritters/

And as if all of that shitfest wasn't enough, OKC is on the borderline of losing the NBA finals to the Miami Heat in game 5.  And as of now, they're losing, BIGGEST MEH OF ALL. At least I have a lovely cheesecake sitting in the fridge (my normally outspoken ego was pretty badly bruised today and needed to be redeemed. Also, a nice, cold, no-bake cheesecake sounded like a good way to combat the heat. Also, it's cheesecake. Do we even need an excuse to be making and consuming a cheesecake?) that will be ready to be consumed soon. Most likely as a comfort food...meh. 

#istillaminlovewithyou