Happy Bday to Jared (or, The Story of How I Became Obsessed with Baked Goods)
So today is Jared's birthday -- but that is not the exciting part (well, not for a bunch of people who don't know him anyway). The exciting part for you is that I am going to link you to the recipe I used to make his COMPLETELY DELICIOUS birthday cupcakes!
The cake is chocolate with a bit of mint and the frosting a mint buttercream. The recipe comes from this lovely blog. They were actually not very difficult to make, though time consuming for a cupcake novice like me (about four hours from start to finish, including cooling time). The only changes I made from the original recipe were to use Green & Black's mint chocolate bar for a slightly minty cake, an increased baking time (mine took about 30 minutes to cook all the way through), and forgoing the ganache for the sake of my sanity.
But that is just the beginning! Before I was looking for the perfect cupcake recipe, I never paid much attention to food blogs. But now I can't get enough! I want to make every dessert found here and here and pretty much anywhere else where the recipes are delicious and the photography makes me want to eat it right off of the screen. It would be more useful if I wanted to make the type of foods I can actually eat for dinner, but they just don't appeal as much as the baked goods.
Unfortunately this new desire to bake everything in sight doesn't fit in with my grocery budget, my plan to lose ten pounds, or my resolve to be productive and not waste all my time looking a photos of cookies and cakes. Why is life so unfair?!
The cake is chocolate with a bit of mint and the frosting a mint buttercream. The recipe comes from this lovely blog. They were actually not very difficult to make, though time consuming for a cupcake novice like me (about four hours from start to finish, including cooling time). The only changes I made from the original recipe were to use Green & Black's mint chocolate bar for a slightly minty cake, an increased baking time (mine took about 30 minutes to cook all the way through), and forgoing the ganache for the sake of my sanity.
But that is just the beginning! Before I was looking for the perfect cupcake recipe, I never paid much attention to food blogs. But now I can't get enough! I want to make every dessert found here and here and pretty much anywhere else where the recipes are delicious and the photography makes me want to eat it right off of the screen. It would be more useful if I wanted to make the type of foods I can actually eat for dinner, but they just don't appeal as much as the baked goods.
Unfortunately this new desire to bake everything in sight doesn't fit in with my grocery budget, my plan to lose ten pounds, or my resolve to be productive and not waste all my time looking a photos of cookies and cakes. Why is life so unfair?!