That Feels MUCH Better!
I didn’t get to cook over tour. Which would’ve been fine, except my roommate and I watched a lot of food network. A lot. Pretty much every night. I would always get inspired to make something and wasn’t ever able to go down to the kitchen to make anything.
I got back from tour a few days before Christmas, and I still haven’t been able to cook anything. I have been working quite a lot, and after work at 2 in the morning, I don’t want to cook. I am lucky that Matt loves to cook to, so he has cooked a lot for me in the past few weeks. But I’ve been aching to make something. My problem is that Matt is a little picky. He has a long list of things that he doesn’t like. I always want to make something that he will eat to, even though he tells me to make whatever I want to.
A week ago or so, Matt and I were in Bed Bath and Beyond and I wanted to get some baking gadget. I settled on a cupcake plunger:
Cupcake Plunger
I really have been wanting to use it, and last night after watching Sherlock Holmes with Matt, my roommates and friend Shawn, I decided to make cupcakes. I dragged Matt to the store at 10 at night throwing ideas at him that I thought sounded good. I threw around chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting stuffing, or strawberry cupcake with strawberry stuffing, nothing sounded good to him.
I decided to pumpkin cupcake with cream cheese frosting stuffing. I had actually tried a cupcake similar to that when in York, PA. They called it a pumpkin roll cupcake, so I went for it. I knew it was going to be good, but I didn’t know how good until Matt ate 4, and Neil and Maureen had 2 each. I’ve always said, you know something you make is delicious when everyone goes back for thirds. I only had one myself, but that was because I wasn’t feeling to well (it’s worse now, but lets not talk about that). There are only 3 cupcakes left out of the dozen batch, I’d say it is a success!
Don't you want one?
Pumpkin Cupcake
(from http://southernfood.about.com/od/pumpkins/r/bl40104c.htm)
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, sift before measuring
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/3 cups sugar
2 eggs, beaten until frothy
1 cup mashed cooked or canned pumpkin
3/4 cup milk
3/4 cup chopped walnuts or pecans
- Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, and nutmeg into a bowl.
- Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy; beat in eggs. Blend in mashed pumpkin.
- Stir in the sifted dry ingredients alternately with the milk, blending until batter is smooth after each addition; stir in chopped walnuts or pecans. Spoon batter into well-greased and floured or paper-lined muffin pan cups. Fill about 2/3 full.
- Bake at 375° for 25 minutes, or until a wooden pick or cake tester inserted in center comes out clean.
- Let cupcakes cool, prepare cream cheese frosting, plunge the middle of cupcakes.
Cream Cheese Frosting
1 – 8 oz block cream cheese
1/2 cp powdered sugar
1 tbsp vanilla
pinch of cinnamon and nutmeg
- Cream cheese and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add in vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg. Insert into pumpkin cupcakes or spread on your favorite treat.
