Brainstorming: Easter cupcakes 2

I am sort of sick of dealing with powdered sugar and sticky, sticky vegetable shortening, so I was looking for an alternative to the VCTOTW buttercream frostings that I usually made.

I mean, it was exciting at first that I found that I could make (1) frosting in the first place and (2) vegan frosting at that, but I was a bit scared about how much powdered sugar and cocoa storms I was inhaling. And, it was cumbersome.

The VCTOTW chocolate mousse has been amazing as a topping so far and it is so easy to make! It tastes especially good after the cupcake topped with the mousse sits in the fridge for about half a day, in my experience.

Well, I wanted to try something new and since I had plenty or marmalade on hand, I wanted to see if I could incorporate that into a topping (that wasn't just the cupcake topped with marmalade!). I was inspired by this simple recipe and tried it out first with my orange champagne marmalade. That experiment resulted in a creamy looking glaze that had similar ingredients to but tasted different than what I whipped up for this Easter.



I used the powdered sugar and marmalade, but this time I used strawberry marmalade (and added a bit of coconut milk). I was doing figurative back flips when I saw how red/pink the mix was turning out to be! It's not really a substitute for the "all-natural" food colorings I have been looking for (BTW), but it was an awesome way to have a colorful glaze!



The decorations are the same as what I used in the cupcakes in my last post.

BTW: Homemade food coloring for colorful spring cakes!

Brainstorming: Easter cupcakes

Last week I went all out and experimented with my VCTOTW cupcake recipes.

I created what I refer to as chocolate mimosa cupcakes which consist of the VCTOTW golden cupcake recipe with McKay's orange champagne marmalade added into the batter and the VCTOTW chocolate mousse on top.



For Easter, I replicated the recipe and added some decorations that I picked up at Earth Fare: vegetarian jelly beans, cocoa dusted almonds, and Annie's Bunny Grahams (in Honey). Damn. Those Bunny Grahams just un-veganized the recipe. Wonder about the jelly beans, too. If they were vegan, it'd probably say that instead on "vegetarian". Oh, well! Almost doesn't count, but these tasted good! Finally, I have faith in the Golden Cupcake recipe!

A post about shoes.

I just got an email about a shoe donation drive and CBL malls (like Friendly Center) are participating in the drive for Earth Day. I just called Customer Service at Friendly Center but the office wasn't open, so here's the info I have.

Soles 4 Souls is a shoe donation drive coming up in the area. If you have shoes to donate, take them to Friendly Shopping Center, at Customer Service. The drive began over a week ago. Shoppers will be able to drop off their gently worn shoes during the month-long campaign which includes Earth Day. In exchange, Friendly Center is offering special discounts to stores such as Palm Avenue, Simple Meg's and Yankee Candle Co.

*****

I get it. I'm no fashionista but I get it: shoes are awesome. Functional, fun, fabulous, right?

I've gone through shoes phases for fashion, form and function: shoes for the house, shoes for work, shoes for recreation, shoes that can get wet without getting all...nasty...

I've got the high heels, the conservative (read: comfortable) heel, the heels I bought for one event and haven't worn them again. I have the pair of sneakers that were supposed to initiate my resolution to get more active. I've got the $5 pair of sneakers that I bought for the time being because I felt so bad that that first pair of sneakers is now four years old. I've got a pair of hiking boots that were almost as hard to purchase since I really didn't know what to look for. I've got a pair of rock climbing shoes that I bought way more than four years ago (and so, I had to beg my father to buy them for me since nay a job I had).

A few people criticize me because it seems like I have many pairs of shoes. Well, I don't think that that is the case. What one sees is the accumulation of shoes from years and years of trying to decide if I wear a size 8 or 8 1/2; what one sees is a pair that I bought for $40 next to a pair I bought for $10 over and over again; what one sees are the pairs of shoes that I got as gifts that had their practical uses...

Who buys shoes as gifts? I don't mean flip flops or anything like that...but, eh, I usually find uses for all gifts.

Anyhow, check out this presentation created by Sarah Embry, a student at at Lenoir-Rhyne University in Hickory. It is called "Soles4Soles" and, well, I can't think of an adjective to describe how I feel when I read the presentation. I guess that makes me a weak writer, a poor poet. It's...nice. I remember in middle school they told us that now, as older students, we had to move away from the word nice and take the initiative to discover new ways of describing life. So, I will move on to say that this was an intriguing presentation. I know intriguing is my fallback/cop-out word, but it just fits so often.

Though it probably detracts from the presentation I just linked to, I am now reminded of an old New York Times article on the topic of, yes, shoes. Check it out:

You Walk Wrong: How we’re wrecking it with every step we take.

Rollin'

I finally added a blogroll to TPI! Ok, and don't believe that I knew what a blogroll was before a month or two ago.

Luckily, Blogger also calls it a "blog list. :) I added the gadget which was super-easy to work with with the whole Google/Blogger deal since I could directly import the blogs in my Google Reader to the blogroll. I wish I could have organized the blogroll by category like in my reader, but they are now in alphabetical order and alphabetical order is sacred, so I'm good.

Basically, the blogs are a mixture of:

• just fun/random/entertaining blogs I go to
• blogs based out of and/or focusing on life in Greensboro
• cake and food in general
• languages and language-learning, and
• media and marketing

Well, that's that. You now have a glimpse into where I sift through for information in life! But, hey, I must say, if it weren't for my RSS feeds and Twitter, I wouldn't read the local paper and consume local media as much--which was minimal to none in the past.

Partly because I didn't pay to even have the basic channels and I didn't want to pay for anything but the Sunday paper but now I gots da inter-net so...no excuses!

Timeless?

I came across this at some craft store and thought, "If I wasn't scared of these characters as a kid, then I'm scared now."


Remember sticker books?

I can't even spell "tongue" half the time...

Yes!

"Previous studies have shown that bilingual people have tip-of-the-tongue moments more often than those who speak only one language." ...

I always felt like this, but I secretly also thought that it was just a lame excuse I had! Still pretty lame? haha Qué pena...

Science Explores "Tip of the Tongue Moments" By Sara Duane (@SaraDuane)

Rhyme and plenty of reason

I heard the term "roach coach" on the radio today.

I almost didn't need context clues. I knew exactly what it referred to. And, damn if it doesn't rhyme like it's getting paid to.

I was taken aback at the cupcake trucks that were popping up in--yes--the cupcake blogs I subscribe to. I guess I knew all along that there were taco trucks or something of that sort. Hey, even my parents had a food truck as a more suburban upgrade from their hot dog stand in Washington, D.C. back in the day.

Anywho, I will peruse this Wikipeda page and wipe my hands of this random collection of information for the day.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_truck

Read the Wiki article in Polski! haha just kidding, unless you can.