Recently in Cupcakes Category

The blogging has been a bit sparse in 2009, and for once, I have a good excuse. Two words: Battlestar Galactica. Yes, I've been sucked into the geekdom that is the BSG university. Free time is spent not only working my way through the episodes (thank goodness for the punctuality of Netflix), but reading up on the shows, pondering the plot twists and turns, the what-ifs, the theological and moral messages woven so brilliantly into every episode.

Now, just because I've been eyes glued to the TV does not mean that I have not been cooking and eating (although, the alcohol consumption on board the Galactica and surrounding civilian ships is fairly impressive, the food they eat is barely mentioned or considered, except for one crucial story arc. Moving on). I'm saving a few things for their own entries, but thought that I'd cover some topics:

Crispy Tacos. I am so in love with Smitten Kitchen. Her recipes are rock solid, her writing is fabulous and pictures are beautiful. I've made the crispy black bean tacos with slaw and feta cheese approximately a dozen times, and am still not bored. If the weather doesn't feel like bbq today, it's tacos for me. Speaking of tacos...

Rancho Bravo: Capitol Hill now has a taqueria, Rancho Brav. Woo-hoo! Originally a taco truck in Wallingford (tasty food in those taco trucks, as I've discovered since moving to Seattle), they've set up shop in a former KFC. Just about as good as Bay Area taquerias, plus with the added bonus of the soullessness of the former KFC as the taqueria. I'm eager to see how they morph and evolve and become even better.

Vietnamese Sandwiches: After hearing people rave about Saigon Deli in the International District, I finally gave it a try. Wow - the best Vietnamese sandwich I have ever had. Light fluffy bread, a generous helping of pickled vegetables and the meat, oh soo tasty. I have always loved the sandwiches, but Saigon Deli has raised the bar to a whole new level.

Pork and Vegas: I spent a February weekend in warm Las Vegas, visiting Adam and Aimee and their three kids (two more and they have a basketball team!) Somehow, I succeeded in eating some variant of pork with every meal: Adam grilled ribs for dinner (plus bacon in the beans and corn casserole), bacon both mornings for breakfast, pork leftovers for lunch, and I just couldn't resist the spicy shredded pork taco from Rubio's. I've been to Vegas at least a dozen times in the past 10+ years, but this was the first time that I didn't go for work. Except for seeing the hotel skyline - which, from a distance, looks a lot like the skyscrapers of every major American city, only those skyscrapers aren't filled with offices and condos, rather, hotel rooms - I barely knew that I was in Vegas. No crazy days filled with too many meetings in the LVCC, no presentations to stress over, no client/press events, no hangovers. It was really, really nice. Oh, and worth mentioning: Red Rock Canyon is exceptionally beautiful. I highly recommend. And Retro Cupcakes - honey and peanut butter, yum! Finally, I'm awarding Aimee with the best hostess ever prize: she actually emailed me before my visit asking for my breakfast food preferences!

St. Patrick's Day: Mom and Dad came to visit the weekend before St. Patrick's Day, and since it was the season, I decided to make corned beef. Elise at Simply Recipes wrote about baked corned beef, so I gave it a try. The corned beef wasn't bad, and the recipe for caramelized onions and cabbage absolutely rocked, but there is a reason most recipes call for boiling corned beef.

Finally, the weather. I'm not going to lie, and the following statement probably doesn't surprise you: this has been another long Seattle winter. Cold, rain and more snow than I ever expected in the Emerald City. Luckily, the 2008 snowpocalypse hasn't quite repeated in 2009 (although we still have November and December 2009), but there have been plenty of "oh my goodness, more snow" moments. Like when it started snowing about 2 minutes into my 15-minute walk to a bar to celebrate Pete's birthday, and I had to wait in line in the snow for another 10 minutes to get in (I still can't figure out why they didn't let me, a girl, into the *gay* bar). I walked in, found Pete, and he laughed and told me that I looked like a drowned rat. I then spent 5 minutes in the bathroom drying my hair with paper towels. (Pete was properly punished for that comment with a wicked hangover the next day). Or the St. Paddy's Day Dash: nothing really spices up a run more than running in a combination of snow, sleet and driving rain. Or, the Friday morning just a few weeks ago when I left my house at 6 for a run, and was greeted by cars dusted in a layer of snow. That was the most terrifying, when I did the math and realized that boot camp was starting in 6 short days. (First boot camp run: on mud-covered trails, in the rain). But, spring is now here, sort of. The cherry blossoms are gorgeous (check out this link for pictures of cherry blossoms in my neighborhood), flowers are blooming, the Mariners are playing, sunglasses are now worn more often, and I've been opening windows, sitting on my little balcony and renewed my spring relationship with Claritin. Yep, summer is almost here.

When I signed up to a bring a salad to a team holiday pot luck, someone threw a fit. Not quite what Grandma Luttrell would have called "a jazz horn fit", but close enough. I was finally forced to promise to bring dessert to our next meeting, just to stop the insanity.

The finished baked goods are pictured below - chocolate-peppermint cupcakes with peppermint frosting and crushed candy canes.

Sadly, the cupcakes never made it to the meeting, which happened to fall on the first day of Seattle Snowpocalypse 2008. But, the baked goods were in the car when I took my early morning drive through the blizzard. And, since I had the opportunity to eat more than my fair share, I can absolutely, positively say that the little cakes were delicious. Deep chocolate with a touch of peppermint and the added punch of a pepperminty buttercream and candy cane crunch.

Business travel is both a blessing and a curse. Blessing: the chance to visit new places, catch up with friends and family, possibly new adventures. Curse: the monotony of solo travel, or worse, travel with annoying people, managing home logistics while on the road (online bill pay, yeah, getting others to collect my mail, not so yeah), and the worst of all fates, struck by illness while on a business trip.

Since mid-February, work travel has ramped up and will likely remain at a steady pace through July – and the blessings and curses have reared their fabulous and ugly heads.

In February, I spent a week in Tampa, Florida. Not exactly a tourist/culinary destination, although I did get a chance to visit Lakeland, square in the middle of the state between the Gulf Coast and the Atlantic. I am still kicking myself for not trying the local café’s Coca Cola cake (I did find a recipe, hooray!). Tracy and I spent a weekend on Treasure Island at the Gambino family funded Thunderbird Resort, an island and resort stuck firmly in 1952. Absolutely fabulous, in so many ways. Rooms faced a large pool, bordered by a tiki bar and a vast expanse of beach, littered by more 1950s era resorts, hotels and cottages.

Life at the Thunderbird centered around the pool and beach; the spectacular sunset punctuated happy hour each day (I couldn't help but draw a comparison between the sunset at Salvador, where the horizon engulfed the sun, rather than the sun slipping below the horizon). And speaking of happy hour, Tracy and I discovered that Corona is actually available in cans and as the "young Seattle girls", politely accepted drinks from men old enough to be our fathers. As one would expect in the Florida area, the older set was fairly prominent.

A few weeks later, I booked a long business trip, extending it to spend Easter weekend in Boston and the following weekend in San Francisco, before heading off to Phoenix, where amazingly enough, I would have a chance to see Drew and Suzette.

Luckily, the culinary highlights in Boston were much better than in Florida. Alex, my 3 ½ year old nephew, is enchanted by all things baking. We made chocolate chip cookies (sans mixer), and later, raspberry chiffon pie for Easter Dessert. For the crust, I used Cook’s Illustrated’s new recipe (with vodka!), which was not as perfect as I'd hoped. Not cooked enough, it also shrunk a bit too much. Any number of factors probably contributed, including using all butter rather than half butter/half Crisco, an Alex meltdown (a nice reminder of how unfit I am in the parental arena), and baking the pie improperly weighted. Check out the picture - those are nails. It turns out that my brother, the non-baker, assumed that when I asked if he had beans for the pie crust, didn't understand that I meant dried, not canned beans. I'm not sure how fool-proof the recipe is, as Carrie had mixed results. In the end though, the pie was delicious. As a side note, if I make the pie again, I'll cut down on the sugar. I also substituted fresh blackberries for the fresh raspberries, and am thinking that any kind of fresh berry will work well. Hello strawberries!

Easter dinner was really amazing. Ed baked a tasty leg of lamb, studded with garlic and rosemary, and then covered with a mustard bread crumb mixture. The meat was cooked perfectly, a crispy skin surrounding deliciously pink meat. For sides, new potatoes with mint, and an asparagus lemon casserole. We eventually liked the casserole, but also came to the conclusion that some foods, such as asparagus, are better in a simple state. I should also point out, this year, the oven did not catch on fire.

I also hit Sauncie for dinner, a once upon a time favorite on Newberry Street. Dinner with the company of Amy was fabulous, but the quality of the food was not at such the high standard. Our main course, butternut squash ravioli with prosciutto, was decent, but just that. I thought that the prosciutto would have been mixed with the butternut squash, but rather, the ravioli was placed over two slices of prosciutto. A bundle of unseasoned spinach in the middle of the dish was distracting. This is my second so-so meal at Sauncie in two years, making me think that I won’t be going back. On a positive note, I did have one of the best French 75's I've ever drank at the Lennox Hotel bar after. Tasty!

All fell apart when I woke up in Boston with what I thought was just a sore throat, which got worse after 6 hours on a plane. By day two in San Francisco, my sore throat had morphed into the flu. I tried to cure my flu by treating life as normal, including somewhat normal food, in San Francisco and continuing to work. Take out Won Ton pho at the slanted door, lasagna from Café Delle Stelle delivered to the focus group facility. I decided that cupcakes could provide some type of restorative powers as well, so picked up a few to share from Miette. In my world of cupcake reviews, Miette ranks high on the list. The chocolate cake was full of structure and bite and incredibly moist. And the frosting, was well, frostinglicious. Not a typical buttercream, but an egg white frosting, so lighter and fluffier and not quite as cloying. Sadly, the restorative powers didn’t work.

I finally threw in the towel and skipped out on the weekend in Bay Area and seeing Drew and Suzette in Phoenix, which makes me sad, for so many reasons. Being sick is horrible…but being sick in a hotel room and not that close to home and having to fly to get home is really the worst of all worlds.

Sigh…There you have it, the blessings and curses of business travel.

If you've been reading my blog more than a few days, you've probably picked up on the theme that I love cupcakes. The perfect dessert - a little cake, a dollop of frosting, what more could you desire?

My newest cupcakery discovery: San Francisco's Kara's Cupcakes.

A few years ago, Jen told me about her friend Kara, who at the time had just launched a special order cupcake business. Appropriately, we were eating cupcakes at Citizen Cupcake at the time. "Kara's are better than these" she promised. Within less than two years, Kara had branched out from a side business and opened two of her own cupcakeries. Since July, I've had a chance to visit Kara's three times, each time just as delicious as the last. I've done the take-out route, bringing cupcakes home with me to Seattle.

For my first visit to Kara's, I enjoyed cupcakes with Rachel, then picked up a dozen for Carrie's birthday surprise; my second visit was between business meetings; the third, I purchased two to carry home with me on the plane, both of which survived the journey quite nicely. I should also point out that the first and second were on the same trip, where over the course of five days in the Bay Area, I had four cupcakes (three from Kara's, one from Citizen Cupcake. I tried for the fifth during dessert at Citizen Cake, but the siren call of a chocolate and beet concoction swayed me. And I don't regret my choice).

My favorite cupcake, not surprising, is the sweet vanilla, a plain cake with a dollop of vanilla buttercream. I also like the lemon, a light lemon cake filled with lemon curd and topped with a lightly flavored lemon frosting. It doesn't matter: every flavor is great. And every cupcake is decorated with a marzipan flower, something to pick off, admire, then bite into for an extra dose of sugariness.

I've had a difficult time deciding if Kara's cupcakes are better than Trophy. Luckily for me, Trophy is in Seattle and Kara's is in San Francisco, so I'll never really HAVE to make a decision.

BTW, my missing box never appeared. Either it was left behind at the Park Rose Terrace in the pile of stuff that I donated to the cleaning people (highly unlikely since I double checked everything in that place) OR someone nabbed the box off of the back of the truck (more likely). Sunday, at Crate and Barrel, after ordering the bar (set to arrive in two weeks!), I did a quick run through the kitchen section, picking up a few necessary items, including a new 12-cup muffin tin and pizza baking stone. I'm still ticked that my apron, baking dish, pot holders, some very nice clothe napkins and half my kitchen towels disappeared. I suppose that it could have been worse: at least the box with my grandma's cast iron dutch oven, which has tremendous sentimental value, didn't disappear. Or the one containing the alcohol. And, importantly, I'm now able to once again bake cupcakes.

A dozen of Kara's cupcakes:

Kara's car, which is absolutely adorable:

And because I know I piqued your curiosity with the description of the Citizen Cake dessert that I chose over the cupcake, I thought that I'd share a picture with you: