Happy Friday Everyone!!

This has been a very long week – I have been gearing up to take over teaching next week. I start my long practicum to becoming a teacher! I’ve slowly been taking over the class the last week, teaching most of the day. I have also began helping out with the girls basketball, which reminded me that I need to brush up on my rules of the game. Next week I will be teaching 80% with units and lesson plans that I have prepared myself, until April  - I’m a little nervous! But, I am also super excited. I get to be a kid again – I get to do all sorts of fun art projects (which means I get to create all the examples), and science experiments, and my favourite thing; reading. I am a book worm, and crazy about spelling. I love reading to my class. I’m also excited for teaching Gym and Math.

This weekend I’m having a girls night for all the girls in my program as a little last hurrah before we no longer have social lives! The consensus has been that we go to sleep and dream about teaching (maybe have a nightmare or two), wake up, try and teach, go home think about teaching and plan/do our prep to teach, then go to bed and do it all over again. I am definitely looking forward to the weekend!

This week was pretty good actually, it started off on a sweet note. One of the faculty members at our school had a baby over the holidays so we had a baby shower for him in the staff room. I’m beginning to realize the staff lunch room is going to be a problem – there is always sweets / treats / snacks being brought in for us. Sometimes It’s other teachers, sometimes its from the students (leftover from class treats), birthday, holidays, and parents even bring in or drop off food for teachers. Plus, I learned that when there are leftovers they go in the freezer. I wish I hadn’t have known about that, because frozen brownies during recess sound like a pretty good idea to me.

One of the reasons I was excited about the baby shower was because I could finally make something blue – all the baby showers I had been to over the last year had been for girls. I was prepared though with baby blue on hand for any surprises (I had full faith that Adam’s sister was going to have a boy. Needless to say I am very happy it was a girl! Who also happens to turn one NEXT month!! crazy how time flies)

So I decided to bring along some cupcakes for the shower. Nothing extra fancy, dark chocolate cake with swiss meringue buttercream with a tint of blue. I also realize I haven’t made any cupcakes on here in a while, so thought I needed some.

{Making the batter with my new love}

{Swiss Meringue, well, technically this is just the meringue part}

Dark Chocolate Cake Recipe

Ingredients:

Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Ingredients:

• 5 large egg whites, room temp.
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 sticks butter, chilled, cut into cubes

Directions: 

1. In a metal mixing bowl, preferably from your stand mixer, place over a pot of simmering water, not boiling. Add sugar and egg whites. Be sure there is no yolk or oil in the egg whites, they will not whip properly otherwise. I do one egg at a time in separate bowls and then add them so that you don’t have to waste an entire bowl for one bad egg ;)
2. Whisk constantly, until thermometer reads between 140-160 degrees F. If you do not have a thermometer, heat until sugar is completely dissolved and the egg whites are hot. This takes about about 10+ minutes.
3. Transfer metal bowl back to stand mixer, with whisk attachment and whip until the egg whites are thick and glossy and cool. The bowl itself should be cool to the touch, again this takes about 10 minutes on high.
4. Once the glossy thick texture is achieved, switch to a paddle attachment, and on medium add the chilled cubes of butter, one at a time, until fully incorporated.
5. The texture will begin to change, to a heavier, silky texture. It may look curdled, but continue to mix and it will become smooth once again.
6. Add in two-three drops of food colouring (of desired colour) and pipe ( I use ATECO #848)

FINALLY.

The sun has graced us with it’s presence in Vancouver.

After a long weekend, rather a very long month, of rain it appears that Summer has officially arrived. I woke up this morning with a glimmer of light shining through the blinds. There are a few clouds in the sky, but there are giant pockets of blue sky that we have not seen in some time now.

This morning I’m baking a carrot cake for a family dinner tonight with Adam’s family, his aunt and uncle are visiting from out of town. I made a three layer, and one of the layers got stuck in the pan. I’ll just piece it back together with frosting later. There’s nothing more cream cheese frosting can’t fix.

At this very moment our house is a mess. I usually can’t stand it when everything is all over the place, and have to clean up asap. But right now, I’m packing for my trip (any travel advice?? tips for packing??), and for the house move. So, our condo looks a little like an episode of hoarders. I did manage to vacuum this morning, because I really can’t stand walking on bits and pieces of things. I also may have spilled some sugar in the kitchen. Walking on sugar is a pet peeve. Can anyone relate?

We’ve already packed a lot of boxes, and now we’re on the constant search of boxes. We’re frequently asking at grocery stores when we’re shopping. Produce boxes are great, because the fruit packaging helps insulate and protect things like dishes and serving ware.

These cupcakes are part of my ‘summer cupcake series.’ Another summer staple besides Watermelon, are drumsticks. I remember walking to the corner store when I was younger and getting a Drumstick. Last week we were at my Zia’s for dinner and my little twin cousins were eating drumsticks, one Strawberry Vanilla, and one original with Caramel. The cupcakes are vanilla, stuffed with Caramel like in the cones, topped with vanilla swiss meringue like the ‘vanilla ice cream,’ dipped in chocolate and topped in peanuts, just like the real thing. They are also sort of like a Dairy Queen Peanut Buster Bar – which are equally delicious. Though I think I would need a different caramel, a stickier, harder caramel unlike this one, which is more liquid.

I refrigerated them to allow the chocolate to harden, and I had to ‘taste test’ one, and they are actually quite good cold. I love anything crunchy, and the crunch of chocolate and peanuts is perfect. Although I was paying for it later, due to my peanut/wheat allergy :S
I gave these away to a friend, and to my mom. She likes to microwave hers for a few seconds as well.

Do you have any nostalgic summertime treats?

Drumstick Cupcakes

You will need:

24 vanilla cupcakes, baked and cooled.

-Caramel sauce, I used the pre-made in the squeeze bottle, for extra convenience
-1/2 cup chocolate chips, baking chocolate, melted and slightly cooled
-1/2 cup peanuts, chopped

Vanilla Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Ingredients:

5 large egg whites

1 cup sugar

3 sticks butter, chilled, cut into cubes

Directions: 

In a metal mixing bowl, preferably from your stand mixer, place over a pot of simmering water, not boiling. Add sugar and egg whites. Be sure there is no yolk or oil in the egg whites, they will not whip properly otherwise.

Whisk constantly, until thermometer reads between 140-160 degrees F. If you do not have a thermometer, heat until sugar is completely dissolved and the egg whites are hot. This takes about 7-10 minutes.

Transfer metal bowl back to stand mixer, with whisk attachment and whip until the egg whites are thick and glossy and cool. The bowl itself should be cool to the touch, again this takes about 7-10 minutes on high.

Once the glossy thick texture is achieved, switch to a paddle attachment, and on medium add the chilled cubes of butter, one at a time, until fully incorporated.

The texture will begin to change, to a heavier, silky texture. It may look curdled, but continue to mix and it will become smooth once again. This time my butter was a bit too warm, and my frosting was curdling and soupy. I place it in the fridge for 15 minutes, added a couple more pieces of chilled butter and began to whip again. It became smooth once again.

To Assemble:

Using an apple corer, or a knife, cut a circle in the middle of the cupcake, and fill with caramel. Replace a bit of the core of the cupcake back on top to ‘seal’ the cupcake and caramel.

Pipe, using a large open tip, vanilla frosting onto cupcakes. You want them sort of rounded, so I just make mine regularly, and once you cover them in chocolate you sort of round them out.

After you pipe each cupcake, place in freezer to chill for a few minutes.

Once cupcakes are chilled, dip into chocolate, you can reference this post here  and sort of press the icing into the chocolate to round it out. Once it is fully covered let excess chocolate drip off, and immediately sprinkle chopped peanuts on top. Place into fridge to harden.

Repeat with remaining cupcakes. Chill in fridge until chocolate has hardened. Serve room temperature or chilled. Can be kept in fridge for up to three days.

Happy summer!

{And if you want a little more caramel… }

Happy Birthday To… Me :) 24… yikes!

I wanted to celebrate with some cake of course, but wasn’t so keen on making an entire cake. I’ve seen cakes baked in jar’s, so I thought why not a mini-birthday cake for one (maybe I’ll share with Adam..) Simple chocolate cake with vanilla swiss-meringue buttercream, depending on jar size, bake at 350 for 15-18 minutes. And bonus, it’s portable! You can make this for someone special on their birthday :)

Make a wish…

… until next year!

.. Stay tuned this afternoon for another, outrageous, birthday treat I created.