New Baking Stuff

Ta-da!  Yes, I am lucky enough to share possession of a relatively new KitchenAid stand mixer, however my only attachment was the whisk.  It wasn't long before that broke so my mixer was rendered unusable for a VERY long time.  But I finally got the replacement parts!  That combined with my recent birthday gift of silicon baking cups, it was time to break in the new stuff and bake some cupcakes.  And have some fun with Photoshop.

Given the ingredients I had on hand, I went with Bakerella's recipe for Red Velvet Cupcakes halved and with some modifications.  Blue food coloring makes them Blue Velvet and I used far less food coloring than required.  I also used whole wheat flour, and milk mixed with lemon juice as a substitute for buttermilk.

Baking in the silicon cups (apologies for the dirty window)

cooling, some of them fell a bit

I know cream cheese frosting is the classic topping for this dessert.  Alas, no cream cheese in the house, so I went with this Buttercream Frosting recipe.  I also didn't have enough powdered sugar and had to supplement with granulated.  The texture was a bit crunchy but still delicious.

frosting piped on

frosting spread

delicious

I figured out pretty quickly that silicon baking cups require a slightly different eating approach that paper cups. Removing the cake from the cup takes away that lovely beveled edge but they still look pretty good.  If I do say so myself.

And I leave you with some more Photoshop fun.

So many things!

I've never felt so overwhelmed with ideas!  Pinterest has so inspired me.  Every time I start browsing there, I think of something else to make.  Therein lies the problem.  I want to bake delicious treats, learn HTML and design my own blog, work on a design project for my parents, knit a sweater, read my stack of Dwell magazines (or the shelf of books I posted about last time), touch up my photos, the list goes on and on. I have so many things I want to do that I feel like if I work on one I won't be making any progress on the others, so I end up doing nothing. 

This blog post for example.  I went to San Francisco over a week ago and I'm finally writing and posting the pictures.  I hope you enjoy:

We were only there for one night, but we still managed to see quite a bit.  We walked from our hotel in the Marina district to the waterfront and then up to Coit Tower.  This was the view of Lombard street from just below Coit.

Coit Tower

The views from Coit Tower were amazing.  360 degree view of the city and the bay.

 

On the way back down the hill we passed these houses.  I really liked the colors and the contrast of them to the rest of the pale beige buildings.  My point-and-shoot did a pretty good job capturing them, but I did get to practice my Photoshop skills.

The view from the opposite hill was just as nice except for this lovely lamp post.  In my efforts to get around it, T.J. gave me some great advice.  If you can't beat it, embrace it. Thus the photo with the lamp post as the center piece.

The next day we went on a city tour and explored the Presidio and northern neighborhoods.

Crissy Field

Palace of Fine Arts

Lucas Studios

We made our way to Golden Gate Park to see the Buffalo and the de Young...

...after which we stumbled upon this house which my wonderful friend dubbed the Hobbit House.

I feel much better; that's one thing off my list.  Now on to the million other things...

Books to be Read

My co-worker recently told me about this new "social networking" site called Pinterest.  (This is the same crafty co-worker who told me about Ravelry, but that's a whole other post.)  It has become my latest obsession.  The idea is that you create "pin boards" with images of ideas, things that you're interested in, or just things that you like.  They make it really easy to add pictures from other websites so you can pin as you surf the web.  Here comes the social networking aspect: you can follow other people's boards and re-pin their stuff to your boards.  As you may have guessed, my recipe board is exploding.  

I recently decided that the big cardboard box in the hallway to my bedroom was wasting valuable space and was downright ugly.  So already having some salvaged MDF waiting to become a shelving unit, I searched Craigslist for some free bricks and put together a temporary bookshelf.  Ta-da!

This shelf now contains mostly books that I have not yet read. :(  Many of them are my mother's books and have been waiting years for me to get around to reading them.  I'm determined to get through them and return them to their owner, so the question is where to start.  I need your help.  The list of books can, of course, be found on my Pinterest board.  I'm not sure if that's accessible to people without a Pinterest account, so the list can also be found here.  Some are bestsellers and some you won't have heard of.  Take a look and give me some recommendations on which books to read first.

 Blandings Castle - PG Wodehouse

 Dreams from My Father - Barack Obama

 Three Bags Full - Leonie Swann

Darcy's Story - Janet Aylmer 

 Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood - Rebecca Wells

 Cocktail Time - PG Wodehouse

My Life in France - Julia Child

 Death in the Truffle Wood - Pierre Magnan

 iCon - Jeffrey S. Young

 The Mark of the Moderately Vicious Vampire - Lionel Fenn

 My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business - Dick Van Dyke

 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

 Earth: The Sequel - Fred Krupp

 Snow Falling on Cedars - David Guterson

The Book Thief - Markus Zusak 

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

 The Princess Bride - William Goldman

 Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke

 Son of a Witch - Gregory Maguire

 Three Cups of Tea - Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

 My Mother's Lovers - Christopher Hope

 Santa Clawed - Rita Mae Brown

 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

 Small Wonder - Barbara Kingsolver

 The King's Speech - Mark Logue and Peter Conradi

Coffee Tea of Me? - Trudy Baker and Rachel Jones 

 Sinister Sudoku

The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand