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:
- 3/4 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
- 3/4 cup hot water
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 cup butter
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 4 large eggs, room temperature
- vanilla
- 1/4 cup apple sauce, or sour cream, or plain greek yogurt
Directions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees
- Line baking tins with cupcake liners.
- Whisk together cocoa and hot water until smooth.
- In medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda and baking powder.
- Melt butter, and add the sugar. Pour into a mixing bowl.
- With an electric stand mixer on medium-low beat until mixture is cooled, about 5 minutes.
- Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition scraping down sides of bowl as needed.
- Add vanilla (as much as you like), then cocoa mixture, and beat until combined.
- Reduce speed to low. Add flour, and apple sauce or sour cream or plain yogurt, beating until just combined.
- Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each three- quarters full. I use a 1/4 measuring cup to do this or a pancake batter dispenser (works like a charm)
- Bake, about 18-20 minutes, until toothpick inserted comes out clean with a few crumbs.
Swiss Meringue Buttercream
Ingredients:
- 5 large egg whites, room temp.
- 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. 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 😉
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Add in two-three drops of food colouring (of desired colour) and pipe ( I use ATECO #848)
5 Comments
Ohh staff room treats always killed my diet. :$
they are the worst!!
Love it !
Very cute presentation! I have never made that icing, I like the idea of heating up the egg whites, I guess the 3 sticks of butter equals 1.5 cups butter? I’d like to try this, however I would only be able to eat one:( I remember my Andrea your cousin, comming home and showing what they made in kindergarten class “ants on a log” which was celery,peanut butter, and raisins ! Humm… now no nuts allowed! Luvs A Lo
haha yes – it is a very rich frosting. You can definitely make a regular buttercream, with one cup of butter, icing sugar etc. But egg whites make it healthy 😉 😉 haha