Yup, that's right. I've never made cupcakes before. The only reason I made them today was for a friend's birthday. As I happen to call this friend Cupcake, it seemed only appropriate that he get cupcakes for his birthday treat.
Here's what I liked about baking cupcakes:
Less clean-up! I only needed to wipe out the cupcake pans.
Here's what I did not like about baking cupcakes:
The frosting. I will not be receiving any awards any time soon for cupcake decorating.
The recipe came from:
I got it this summer up in Minneapolis. I debated--literally--for days before I finally bought it. I just have so many cookbooks, that I really hesitate before buying a new one. The day we left, I made Ryan take me back to Barnes and Noble so I could buy this. I am so glad I did. On the way home I went thru it, and I was thrilled with all the recipes in it. Strangely, today is the first time I've used one of the recipes. Despite my substitution of 2% milk (the recipe called for whole milk), the cupcakes turned out well. I do suspect that they may have been moister (is that a word) I had used whole milk, but I made do with what I had.
What I like most about this cookbook is that there are no "cheater" recipes in it. When I first picked it up, I was ready to roll my eyes. I was fulling expecting 200 recipes that called for a box of cake mix. To my delight, not one of them does. In fact, the book is written by a former pastry chef, so all the reipes are top rate (but not at all difficult). This is a book I'd highly reccommend.
Our wedding recently (as in, today) got moved from Dec. 22, 2007, to May 3rd, 2008. Since I will no longer be pregnant at our wedding, my excitement in looking for wedding dresses has increased. Except for one minor problem: I deplore most modern wedding dresses. I hate strapless dresses, and spaghetti straps aren't much better. I finally Googled "modest wedding dresses." While I was taken to mostly Latter Day Saints related sites, I've been thrilled with the dress selection. Dresses with actual sleeves! What a novel idea. Though there's no way I can afford it, here's my favorite so far:
(From: http://www.totallymodest.com/gp3.html )Realistically, this dress probably wouldn't look great on me; I'm not big on cap-sleeves. But, it's a beautiful dress, and it's encouraging to find a modest dress that doesn't scream "old lady."
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