For the past month or so, I’ve been feeling a little “eh” about all my knitting projects. But recently, I’ve been feeling my interest getting piqued again. To wit:
Yep, the matchmaker fair isle is coming along again! And I’m currently in NC and flying back to CA later in the week, so I expect I might get a good chunk done on it then also. It’s so exciting to be excited about my knitting again.
Or, if you want to be precise about titles, “Crimson Velveteen”. These are also from my cupcake go-to book, Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World. Essentially, they are a somewhat chocolatey cupcake with a little red food coloring thrown in. And they are delicious. I am pleased to report that texture-wise, they were also PERFECT–not too dense or chewy, which did, unfortunately, happen with the vanilla cupcakes I made last week:( Vegan baking is really not some strange and esoteric art, but it does require a little more care than regular baking with regards to mixing wet and dry ingredients quickly and getting them into an appropriately heated oven as fast as possible. Eggs give you a little bit of wiggle room on that front, I think.
Anyway, without further ado, the cupcakes.
Pre-frosting (note the total lack of center collapse!):
Group shot post-frosting:
And a close-up:
The icing is the one recommended in the book (old fashioned velvet buttercream, I think?) and the nut topping is a few chopped pecans. Yum!
I did make a few changes to the recipe–namely, that I was unable to find chocolate extract in the grocery store or the food co-op. So I replaced a couple tablespoons of flour with some extra cocoa powder. It doesn’t seem to have hurt anything. I also only used about 1/3 as much food coloring as was recommended because I didn’t have any more than that and I’m lazy about going out to buy single ingredients like that.
I’m seriously thinking I’m going to have to make a project out of baking everything in this book. Although I’m also trying to cut down on my sugar intake, and while I have been pretty successful with pawning these off on other people, I know I’m going to want to actually eat a cupcake at some point! Maybe some experimental baking with alternative sweeteners is also on the horizon.
Yes, I do still do it, occasionally. Here’s some of the latest on the tetris afghan:
Unfortunately my apartment is a mess right now. Which means limited photography space. Which means you only get to see this little corner. Don’t worry, there’s not much new on the rest of it so you really aren’t missing anything.
I’ve been wanting to do some baking lately, and an occasion mandating some observance has reared its head today. So, last night I got busy in the kitchen and whipped up some margarita cupcakes:
The recipe is from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, which is a GREAT cupcake cookbook, even if (like me) you aren’t vegan. My only complaint is that my cupcakes fell after I took them out of the oven–I think they weren’t actually quite done enough (even though they had been in the oven over 30 minutes). I saw some coarse sugar sprinkles at Michael’s this weekend so I decided to go all-out and do the “salt” edging like the recipe suggests.
Here’s a closeup of one of the prettier ones:
Nice, no? I have quite a bit of icing leftover so I think I am going to have to make some more cupcakes later this week for a picnic I’m going to. But maybe a more plain cake base…I think vanilla cupcakes and lime icing would be a good mix, no?
