Weekend Cupcake Update!

Last weekend I excitedly prepared to make the above cupcakes, Chocolate Graham Cracker Cupcakes with Toasted Marshmallow from Seattle's Trophy Cupcakes. I'm a sucker for recipes that let me use my butane torch. I watched the video. I read the user comments. This is what I ended up with.


They looked like sunken flourless cakes. They tasted OK, they were fluffy. But all of the delicious graham and chocolate topping sunk to the bottom. The batter was WAY too thin, and I even subbed buttermilk for the regular milk. So I had to try AGAIN, and used a buttermilk chocolate pound cake recipe I made up with ingredients I had leftover from the original failcakes.

Yay! Second time they came out. The cake tasted weird, but it held up to the toppings. Nothing like cupcakes with a huge swirly peak of meringue, toasted caramel brown on top.

Beforebear and Afterbear

Giantbear attacks Happysteak.

Puppy bear went to the groomer this week. Before Bear is pictured above. Look how cute and fluffy. And knotted and hot and uncomfortable. Now, Afterbear!Oh boy does she look stupid. At least she's more comfortable.

Thinking Bobby Flay things

Today someone asked me what I thought of Bobby Flay. I said that I think he seems like a bit of jerk, like he would make comments about ladies being fat behind their backs (or sometimes NOT behind their backs(!)) and would laugh at inappropriate things like if you touched your eyes after chopping a hot chili, or if you didn't know what kind of tequila was the best, but also he would sometimes be fun to be around and have a couple drinks with, and I bet he likes dogs, too.

ZOMG UMBRELLAS!

My French-Canadian umbrella arrived today. I got it in navy, with silver screenprinted text. It is the most lovely thing, and it makes me almost wish it were raining. It has a solid wood handle and wood tips and should stand up to the Chicago winds.

I'm going to try and bring this back, friends, really I promise.

Tea+Vodka=Mmmm

Things I want for my birthday: A bottle of Firefly Vodka, Sweet Tea Flavor. Mixed with lemonade, served poolside. It tastes like sweet iced tea, except that it is vodka.

Dessert as Dessert

What's better than just having dessert? Combining something that already exists on it's own as a dessert into another one! (Think chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream.) The NYTs has a great recipe up for Jelly Doughnut Pudding.
This is like a better plan than the one time I tried to cook jelly doughnuts french toast style, but it only resulted in an inevitable molten jam explosion.

Two Thousand Nines

Happy New Years! OMG, Sammiches has been on a holiday hiatus due to a family health crisis. But now there is a whole new year of delicious and fun things to discover- new things you can do with eggs, lots of at-home French pastry attempts, and the braising of meats! I have gotten pretty okay at macarons, my batch of salted pecan shells are pictured below.
Will have more shortly!