Cupcakes!

L has joined the astronomy softball team and last week they had a post-game pool party at one of the guy's homes. Never one to pass up on the opportunity to bake for other people, I decided to make cupcakes. I don't make cupcakes all that often, so I don't have real go-to recipes as for cookies or brownies. But I figured I'd use the chance to feed other people as a chance to try not one, but two, new recipes.

For this get together I made:
- Cook's Illustrated Ultimate Chocolate Cupcake . This is a dark cupcake made with coffee, bread flour, and a dab of ganache on the inside.

-I also made the Cupcake Project's Ultimate Vanilla Cupcake. If you don't know the cupcake project, you should. She got recruited to make unique cupcakes for a friend's wedding and has really tried a million flavors and review. Her notes and recipes are both unique and helpful. This cupcake uses some interesting techniques and a wide variety of fats and liquids (oil, butter, sour cream and whole milk)

For frostings, I made 2 Sprinkle's Cupcakes recipes for chocolate and vanilla buttercream.

We'll start with the easy comments:

Frostings
Both frostings were good, not too sweet and most importantly, didn't melt off the cupcakes. I'd make both of them again, although I'd add cocoa powder to the chocolate to cut the sweet a bit more. They were good, basic, go-to recipes, but not anything all that special or out of the ordinary. And, so someone who has had Sprinkles fairly recently, despite the claim from the bakeshop that they are the real recipe... they aren't. I suspect that Sprinkles bakeshop uses a bit of pastry cream in their frostings. These recipes are good, but the "real thing" is still a guarded trade secret. (I'm late to the Sprinkles craze and thought the whole thing was overblown until actually trying them. Yeah, they live up to the hype and are hands down the best cupcakes I've ever had. And I'm picky about my sweets).

Vanilla Cupcakes
These were really fantastic and I will absolutely make again. They require a lot of ingredients, and the wrappers were a bit greasy after baking, but the cake was moist, light, airy, and really complex for a vanilla cake, just a touch on the tangy side. If you're looking for a step up from your boring vanilla, make these. I also think they'd be great with a splash of bourbon or rum in the batter... of maybe with a buttercream/rum based frosting.

Chocolate Cupcakes
You won't believe me when I tell you this. You'll think your IrishRed has been kidnapped by aliens and a doppleganger stole her life... but for the first time ever I preferred the vanilla cakes to the chocolate. These were very rich, and frankly, way too much chocolate and sugar. The ganache melted into the cupcake and was, frankly, over kill. I used the suggested amount of frosting per cupcake, and if the ganache was overkill, the frosting took the deadhorse of this cupcake and beat it some more. It was just way too much of everything, like it was trying too hard. The cake was good and I might use it again, but I'd skip the ganache filling and consider using just a very thin coat of ganache on the top of the cake.

Honestly, they don't hold a candle to cupcake project's Better Than Sex Chocolate Cupcakes. More interesting chocolate flavors, better crumb, not oily, and not overly sweet (which allows the chocolate flavor to really shine). I made these a few years ago and filled them with a dab of orange blossom-water butter cream, finished with the ganache per the recipe. They were outstanding and sophisticated, while the CI cupcakes just felt like they were trying too hard.

Baking

Light at the End of the Tunnel?

Friday I finished a major re-working of my last analytical chapter for my diss and sent it to my adviser. Now I turn to make his recommended edits for the first 4 chapters (really only 3 chapters because he told me to cut all but 16 pages from Ch. 1. sob). Once I have those edits complete I can finally send the chapter drafts to the other to members of my committee for comments/review. In the meantime, I have to write my introduction and conclusion. Then I'll have to make the second round of committee member changes. Then send out the intro for comments. Then compile the whole thing (anyone want to help me battle Microsoft Master Document?). It's a lot of work yet to do, but I feel like I've turned a major corner and am getting closer to the end. Here's hoping I'll be finished by late September, early October.... because I need my letter writers to be able to say my PhD is submitted and do job applications (due early-mid November).

So here's hoping the light I see is the end, and not the headlight of another train barreling right at me.

Woohoo!!

Ron Barber beat Jesse Kelly with a 8% win to claim Rep. Gifford's vacant seat. This is a huge win for the dems in a republican state. In fact, Giffords only won her seat by 2% in her last election (also against Kelly). He only gets to hold the seat until the fall election (where he'll run for a seat in district 2), but this is the first time since I've moved here that I've woken up to political news and actually been happy.

Thoughts on Writing

Now that I"m on a solid 18 months of full time dissertation writing, I've learned a few things:

1. Writing, when it's flowing, is actually quite easy. Analysis is a breeze for me, so much so that I can get lost in it. Thinking is hard, but once I figure out my argument I can generally produce a lot of material very quickly.

2. When I'm writing, I'm sure that what I'm writing is brilliant.

3. When I'm writing, what I'm writing is never brilliant. I always hope and pray that my first draft will be close to my final draft. I am always wrong. My first (and second, and third, and fourth) drafts are rough, sometimes much rougher than I'm willing to admit to myself.

4. Writing takes time. Not because the act of writing takes time but because of the truth in statement #3. I need several weeks and preferably months in between drafts in order to get the distance necessary to recognize that my brilliant first draft is in fact a few glimmering sparks in a mound of shite, buried even further under run on sentences.

5. Editing is hard. Not typo fixing, but real editing and fundamental re-writing. It's hard because you have to 1) re-read the crap-you-thought-was-brilliant (see steps 1-3), 2) figure out whether there's material worth saving, and 3) then figure out to make material you previously thought was brilliant into material that is basically comprehensible to a reader other than yourself.

6. It takes a lot of writing and re-writing, but incremental progress is being made.