Zero to jam in twelve minutes.

Baltimore has been drop-dead sexy this week. Everything is in bloom, everyone's shed their ugly clunky boots for sexy strappy sandals and peep-toes. The weather has been great for the dumpster collective and my room-mate, Gabriella, brought home a bunch of blackberries. I added a pouch of cherry vegetarian gel mix, some bueberries, strawberries, pomegranite juice, and some domino organic sugar (my roommate and I are addicted to the stuff), seived those blackberries and threw it in a jar, this morning I woke up and I gotta say Gab and I are pretty damn excited about the stuff. If you've never tried Domino organic sugar, you should give it a go. It's pretty, a pale parchment color, and tastes not like chemical sweeteners but instead like something that did come from a sugar cane (amazing!). It's not that much more costly than regular sugar, and I find that I can use less of it since it adds a little flavor of its own, you don't want to make things sickeningly sweet with it, you want to find a balance. Anyway, that's my product recommendation of the day: Organic Domino Unbleached Sugar. I finally am starting to feel optimistic--I really think that it will all work out, that if I keep applying to these jobs, I'll get enough call-backs and interviews to really find a place for myself for the next year. And I gotta say that I am really looking forward to working some place other than MICA, to learn about a new campus culture and group of students. Not to mention to find a new city to spread my wings in.

Officially initiated

The other night I was officially initiated as a member of apartment 401. Then Kate and I made magnolia cupcakes (again). Last night, I fell asleep between two of my three room-mates, and I gotta say that falling asleep with other people is one of the nicest feelings the human body can experience. Like little baby cats, full of soothing oxytocin and comfortable, non-sexual intimacy. Cuddling for the win, ladies and gents.

Well-adjusted? who?

I'm doing some more packing, then heading back to the new place for a coffee-doughnut-Scrabble-Top Gun date. Moving sucks, but the new Sonic, playing Zelda, all these things pretty much rock my socks. I'm going to be okay. Of course, the more time that passes, the less consequence my actions have, the less it makes sense me resigning, the more bizarre and surreal my situation becomes. Which is, generally, where I stop thinking, defrost some butter, and make cupcakes.

And then, we made cupcakes!

As promised to Lisa of Pittsburgh Needs Eated fame, my latest cooking exploit was the other night making Magnolia Vanilla Vanilla  cupcakes from the recipes posted on recipelink.com.  We halved everything due to my only having one muffin tin instead of two, (it being college and all)  but here it goes: Magnolia Vanilla Vanilla Cupcakes Makes about 2 dozen cupcakes (depending on the size of your cupcake papers and muffin tins) CUPCAKES: 1 1/2 cups self-rising flour 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened 2 cups sugar 4 large eggs, at room temperature 1 cup milk 1 teaspoon vanilla extract Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two 12-cup muffin tins with cupcake papers. In a small bowl, combine the flours. Set aside. In a large bowl, on the medium speed of an electric mixer, cream the butter until smooth. Add the sugar gradually and beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the dry ingredients in three parts, alternating with the milk and vanilla. With each addition, beat until the ingredients are incorporated but do not overbeat. Using a rubber spatula, scrape down the batter in the bowl to make sure the ingredients are well blended. Carefully spoon the batter into the cupcake liners, filling them about three-quarters full. Bake for 20–25 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted in the center of the cupcake comes out clean. Cool the cupcakes in the tins for 15 minutes. Remove from the tins and cool completely on a wire rack before icing. At the bakery we ice the cupcakes with either Vanilla Buttercream or Chocolate Buttercream. And then the frosting: The vanilla buttercream we use at the bakery is technically not a buttercream but actually an old-fashioned confectioners’ sugar and butter frosting. Be sure to beat the icing for the amount of time called for in the recipe to achieve the desired creamy texture. Makes enough for one 2-layer 9-inch cake or 2 dozen cupcakes* 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened 6 to 8 cups confectioners’ sugar 1/2 cup milk 2 teaspoons vanilla extract Place the butter in a large mixing bowl. Add 4 cups of the sugar and then the milk and vanilla. On the medium speed of an electric mixer, beat until smooth and creamy, about 3-5 minutes. Gradually add the remaining sugar, 1 cup at a time, beating well after each addition (about 2 minutes), until the icing is thick enough to be of good spreading consistency. You may not need to add all of the sugar. If desired, add a few drops of food coloring and mix thoroughly. (Use and store the icing at room temperature because icing will set if chilled.) Icing can be stored in an airtight container for up to 3 days. The result was a frosting that was a little on the sweet side for someone like me who generally makes a cream cheese icing, but the cake was not overly sweet, the organic sugar was a well-made substitution for the much-cheaper Sav-A-Lot white sugar and gave a less chemicall-y aftertaste than the Sav-A-Lot variety as well. Anyway, the cake was pretty transcendent, though the batter is a little thick, and I had to buy 5 lbs of self-rising flour for the less than a cup that I ended up using. But, for someone who has never baked cupcakes from scratch (gasp! horror!), this was relatively painless and pretty rewarding. How rewarding, you might ask? Better than going all the way to NYC and standing in line for hours for the same thing! I don't know if I'll go free-range on the eggs next time, as it hurt my wallet pretty bad.