I think I’m developing a dangerous trend of upping my game every time I bake cupcakes. I broke out the patstry bag and star tip this time, and I think these may be my prettiest cupcakes yet.

The icing is all swirly, and I even added cute garnishes.

Did I mention I was frosting these at 7 am, before work? Becuase I was. That explains why they aren’t all quite perfect.

It’s the holidays, so I made Peppermint Mocha. The cake is from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, and it’s the mocha modification to their standard chocolate cucpake. The frosting is the Vegan Cream Cheese frosting, but with half the vanilla added, and the difference made up with peppermint extract.

I also made Lemony Gingerbread cupcakes, also from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. I used the lemony cream cheese frosting option; I have to say that I think I prefer cream cheese frostings that don’t use half butter or margarine both for taste and color (I had to tint both of these because I didn’t like the off-white tint.) The garnish is crystallized ginger.

Still…I think these might just be my prettiest cupcakes yet.

One of the things I’ve done to try and connect more with the Earth is to try to plant some herbs. Traditionally, I’m not so good with plants. I tend to forget to water them, and the light in my apartment isn’t the best. But we do have a small patio in my building, so I planted some basil, oregano, rosemary, catnip, chamomile and lavender. The catnip, chamomile, and lavender were in one container, which withered and got turned over (I suspect the neighborhood outdoor cat had a hand in that one) but the other container has been growing. The oregano and rosemary have struggled a bit, but the basil took off like crazy.

I was waiting until the full moon to harvest my basil, so it went a little longer than it probably should have, and I’m absolutely terrified that I killed it by harvesting so much. (On the advice of a friend, I left four leaves on each stem; hopefully the plan will rebound.) But it was lovely and fragrant and so great to bring in herbs from my own garden. (I also took a bit of oregano to use, and a snip of rosemary for Aphrodite’s altar.)

The magical properties of basil include luck, love, money, wealth, and courage. Basil is also used for protection–place basil leaves in the corner of your house for protection, or in your car. Carry the leaves with you for luck or wealth. Basil can also be used in potions for love or wealth. You can also sprinkle basil on computers to help them work–especially useful during Mercury retrograde!

Most of my basil is hanging in my broom cupboard to dry, but I also whipped up some late summer harvest pasta to celebrate. Containing basil and garlic, it’s a good dish for courage and protection.

Ivy’s Summer Harvest Pasta

Mushrooms, sliced
Artichoke hearts, quartered (I used marinated, but only because they were on hand)
Fresh basil
Crushed garlic
Olive oil
Cream (regular or soy)
Grated cheese (I used romano because I can have sheep milk but not cow; parmesan would work too, or nutritional yeast)
Angel hair pasta

While you’re boiling water for pasta, heat the olive oil in a pan and begin sauteeing the mushrooms and artichoke hearts. About halfway through, stir in the garlic and a few torn basil leaves. You could get fancy and chop the leaves here too, if you like.

When the water boils, add the pasta for 5 minutes. While the pasta is cooking, pour the cream over the mushroom mixture and cook down, stirring. Don’t let it boil. With two minutes left (or less) throw in the cheese and stir to thicken.

Sever the mushroom sauce over the pasta and garnish with more fresh basil. Eat for courage and protection!

What did I do this long weekend? I made cake.

Lots  and lots of cake.

That’s five–count ‘em, five–birthday cakes for a gigantic Virgo birthday celebration. It was actually really enjoyable, aside from the disasterous, powdered sugar-covered state of my kitchen at the end. (Not that my kitchen was a paragon of organization before, and Thora was kind enough to come and help me clean up today. I would have been thrilled just to get the cake dishes cleaned up, but by the time she left my there were 3/4 fewer dirty dishes, the floor was clear and swept, an entirely new work surface had been uncovered, and my pantry was organized. And that was only an hour and a half. I love Virgoes.)

That’s what my apartment looked like on Saturday night. The cakes are on top of my bookshelves because there isn’t enough counter space in the kitchen, and it’s one of the few places my cats aren’t interested in jumping on top of.  I baked the cakes on Saturday, and did the icing and decorating on Sunday for the party that afternoon. Ideally, I’d have the cakes wrapped in the freezer, but they can survive this way too. Freezing them would enable me to bake them earlier in the week, but then I’d also have to have room in my freezer.

So, here’s a run down of the cake, for the curious.

Maia’s birthday cake was rosewater cake, with rosewater buttercream. The recipe is adapted from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World; I left out the pistachios because I haven’t found a source for pre-shelled pistachios and shelling that many is just not going to happen for me. This was one of the vegan cakes.

Abby’s cake was my take on a Tennessee Jam Cake. I used the vegan spice cake recipe from Cookie Madness, blackberry jam for filling, and adapted this caramel frosting from RecipeZaar to be vegan. The vegan spice cake was amazing–I’m definitely keeping that one around–but the caramel frosting proved too much for it and the cake cracked into thirds. No one seemed to mind, but I think next time I’ll look for a caramel buttercream; the strictly caramel frosting is a little too much for vegan cake, which tends to be moister.

Ladybug’s cake was a hazelnut chocolate cake. I used yellow cake and chocolate buttercream frosting from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, and hazelnut ganache from brown-eyed baker. This was non-vegan, owing to the ganache, as I haven’t yet figured out a good sub for heavy cream. I also think it could be improved by using a dark chocolate frosting, rather than the buttercream, which I chose for expediency’s sake.

Thora’s cake was a pineapple cake. I modified the Pineapple Rightside Up Cakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World (why yes, I do love that book quite a bit) and used the pineapple topping as a filling. I frosted it with a rum cream cheese frosting, modified from this cream cheese frosting recipe. I wound up using a LOT of powdered sugar due to the addition of rum; I think I’d cut down on the margarine and omit the vanilla next time. I have a LOT of frosting left over.

Kismet’s cake was a choclate cake with chocolate buttercream, both from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, with a raspberry jam filling. This was one of the most straightforward cakes, but still turned out really nice.

Clearly, my decorating skills are a little rusty, and the warm weather (NOW you decided to warm up, Oakland, sure) didn’t do too many favors for my icing. I also learned a few valuable lessons:
* Waxed paper strips under the cake while you’re icing it? Really do help things look nice and professional
* Cake levelers are a rip off, especially with moist cakes. Use a long, serrated knife.
* You know how they say you should pipe a circle of icing around the outside of the cake if you’re using a filling, to create a dam? Don’t ignore that like I did.
* Most tasty icing sucks for decorating. Rather than try, next time I’ll just make up a batch of the super sweet, kind of gross, stiff Wilton icing for decorating purposes only.
* Beg for helpers, at least for the icing stage. (That’s when the organization always goes south for me.) People like cake. A lot. I’m sure minions will be easy to find.

Regardless, the four birthday girls that were able to attend seemed happy with their cake! As did the rest of the party.  I still have some leftover rum cream cheese and chocolate frosting in my fridge–if I feel up to it, I might try to bake some cupcakes. I feel bad tossing it, but we’ll see…maybe I’ll feel motivated in the next few days. If not, I can always toss it later.

Now that that’s over…who’s planning the Libra party?

So, I’ve got another crazy-ass baking project in the works. I’m calling this one Cakeapalooza, becaue making up names for my insanity somehow makes me feel better about it.
We all have our quirks.

I’m actually really excited about this; I can’t post too much detail here yet, but I love getting a chance to play with new and different flavors. There are so many different things to do outside the realm of basic cake. (Have I ever even made basic cake? Well, I made chocolate peanut butter cupcakes a while back but that was only because I made up my mind last minute and had to make do with what I had at home. I need to come up with a better stocked baking shelf in my pantry.)

I also go my first produce delivery this morning! I’ve signed up for a produce delivery service/CSA. I got the small box, but I’m actually thinking I could have gone with the regular since I’m trying to eat less meat.

My small box included
–2 giant (1 lb each) heirloom tomatoes (one not quite ripe, it’s in my windowsill to ripen up)
–2 pears
–1 bunch of grapes
–1 heat of lettuce
–1 basket of cherry tomatoes
–2 red bell peppers
–1 bunch of parsley

I’m already planning what I can do with these for next week. I think the big tomatoes will become tomato sauce (probably rounded out with some canned tomato, fresh herbs from my patio garden, and mushrooms), and the lettuce and cherry tomatoes will become salad. (Yes. You heard me. I’m going to eat salad. Theoretically.) I was planning on stuffed peppers, but my peppers are kind of wonky so I’m thinking I might roast them and make up a roast red pepper risotto. The parsley is another tricky one, but I’ve got a lot of chicken (I’m planning on making Chicken Tikka Masala) so I’m thinking I might make some gremolata.  And the pears–well, I’m sure I can find a desert or baked good inolving pears. Mmm, pear.

It’s so exciting to hae this again; if I manage to use up the small box and still find I’m buying lots of groceries, I might have to step up to the regular box!

Amazingly enough, the Great Cupcake Caper of Ostara ’09 went off very smoothly. Just in the nick of time, but everything was baked, frosted, transported and consumed. I didn’t get to try them all, but I did try to collect opinions! So…what did I make?

Lemon Honey Cupcakes

These turned out pretty well. The cake was a little dry, but the frosting was a big hit! I didn’t think the honey flavor was strong enough–there are a few honey cake recipes out there that I think I’d like to adapt to cupcake form, and top with some sort of glaze for as stronger flavor.

Lemon Rosemary

These were my least favorite. I loved the idea, but not the execution. Partially my fault–the rosemary wasn’t chopped fine enough (I need better kitchen tools) but they were also disappointingly dry. I think I’m going to tinker around with adding more oil, or possibly soaking the cornmeal to ease the grittiness.

Coconut Key Lime

I didn’t try these, but I heard good things. I did try the frosting–very good. But next time I hope that I can find key lime juice, because squeezing the little buggers was awful. Note to self: get citrus juicer. Really, though, how can you go wrong with coconut and key lime?

Apricot Almond

One word: sticky! But delicous. I liked these, and everyone else seemed to as well. Though in the future, I might go to the extra work of filling them afterwards, instead of baking the jam in. Because I’m that obsessed with things looking pretty.

Pistachio Rosewater

These smelled divine when you ate them. These are definitely on the make-again list. So delicate and fragrant, and I felt so pampered, eating something that smelled deliciously of roses. These would be great for a wedding or bridal shower, I think. Very romantic and girly.

Chai Latte

I have to say, these were my favorite. I’m not a huge frosting fan, so dusted with powdered sugar was perfect. I think I’ll actually be making some for breakfast–they’re almost muffin-y. And they made my apartment smell amazing while they were baking. Definitely a recipe to  hang on to!

The most amazing thing about this was that I’m not totally sick of baking! I do need to clean my kitchen up a bit more before I do any more, but this was not as hard as it sounds. Most of the recipes were super  quick to make, and once I get organized, it will only get easier. Though if I agree to make quite this many again, I think I’ll enlist helpers…

The Great Cupcake Caper of Ostara ’09 has officially commenced. Last night I began the actual baking.

These are coconut lime vegan cupcakes (on the left) and apricot almond vegan cupcakes (on the right). The coconut ones will be iced and topped with coconut later, and the almond ones will be glazed.

I’m being good, and not taste-testing, but the batter was delicious for both! My only disappointment is that the coconut ones didn’t rise as much as I’d hoped–I can’t tell if that’s because they are vegan, or because my baking powder is kind of old. Probably the baking powder.

So far, I’m right on schedule–so onward I go!

Tarot Card of the Day: Six of Pentacles

So, this weekend was a lazy, stay-at-home kind of weekend, largely due to the migraine that killed me ded on Saturday. I made it to knitting and to run essential errands (food for cats, food for me) but after that, all I felt up to was lying on the couch with a blanket over my eyes (What? I’m out of clean washcloths!) waiting for the pain to vanish.

It’s a shame too, since I had all sorts of ambitious baking plans. Some of those were postponed, but I did manage to bake some bread for this week. I love homemade bread, and it just tastes so much more like, well, bread than the store bought stuff! As I was eating it this weekend, tasting all the yummy bread goodness, it just reinforced how much store bread tastes like air. With a side of preservatives.

Sunday for dinner I made Shepherd’s Pie. This was mostly a success–it makes a ton, but I’ll bring it for lunch and have leftovers, so that’s not a problem. But it didn’t turn out quite like I had envisioned.

I should preface this by saying that I’m used to my Mom’s Shepherd’s Pie. Not being British, she’s made her own alterations to the recipe which include adding a boatload of garlic and not adding as much water. She also usually does her own mix of seasonings, since the cute little packages of Shepherd’s Pie Seasoning aren’t so easy to come by in North Carolina (or at least they weren’t when I was a kid).

However, since I some how have one of those cute little packages, I decided to follow the recipe on the back. It definitely turned out different–much more liquid than I’m used to. I’m kind of torn. On the one hand, it’s a comfort food to me, and my Mom’s Shepherd’s Pie never had gravy.  On the other hand, I love gravy and would practically drink the stuff by the glass if I could, so part of me is over the moon about so much delicious gravy. (The other part is pouting that it’s not like Mom’s.)

I also vastly underestimated the amount of mashed potatoes needed. Much like gravy, I love mashed potatoes, and I should have gone with two packs of instant instead of one. At least I know for next time, and it still turned out pretty well. Even if it did make quite a bit–luckily for me, this is one of those dishes where I’m sad when I run out of leftovers instead of relieved.

Tarot Card of the Day: Judgement