Giant Cupcakes
You have a cupcake?…Good for you!
Well guess what? I have a BIGGER one! 😉
This here my friend, is one GIANT cupcake!
During this past holiday, I got myself the giant cupcake mode during a White Elephant event for work. Thus, I was obligated to make the team a giant cupcake which I was more than happy to do so! Since I put this together late Sunday night, I used a Duncan Hines white cake mix and Pillsbury chocolate whipped frosting. Nothing can be more simple than that, but the fact that it was 10x bigger than a “normal” sized cupcake, it was a a bit of a trial and error in timing for baking.
I did under bake the top part of the cake, so I had to pop it in back in the oven to make sure the top would hold up to the frost. However, I still lost some of the center, but it ended up being to my advantage:
As I used it to fill with more frosting in the center! The cupcake monster was a hit as everybody dug into it! Soft, light, and delicious.
No matter how old we get, we all get a little excited and giddy at the sight of a cupcake. Just imagine the effect when you make that cupcake 10x bigger!
Baking at home
This weekend has been a stay at home type of weekend. I decided to make some cupcakes since I have not baked anything at all to date this year! It is actually quite unusual for me since I used to bake a lot more. However, as work has consumed my life and I have been traveling, baking was just not on the top of my to do list.
Given that Thanksgiving is next Thursday, I decided what better time to bake something to bring to work than today. So I took out my equipment, cleared out the oven, and chose to make cupcakes.
With the help of my favorite Trader Joe’s Pumpkin mix and I wanted to spice it up a little. That’s why I decided to make them Chocolate filled Pumpkin cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting. I’ll let my pictures talk for themselves first before I interject again:
They look delicious right? I will report on it tomorrow when I bring and share them with the team at work. 🙂
Happy Holidays!
Update: The cupcakes turned out good and the team really enjoyed them. My only problem with it was that I should have make a ganache center instead. The melted chocolate had solidified so it was a chunk of chocolate in the center. Amateur mistake and I should have known better. Live and let learn! 🙂 Otherwise…I’d say it was a success!
Work, life, balance…no? Then it’s time to eat.
I was provided the Work Life Balance Equation by a co-worker of mine. His original equation was something along these lines:
Work + life = Work life balance
I have no life, thus…
Work life balance = Work
This was passed along to other co-workers and one suggested that we needed to use a weighted average model:
Work(8hrs) + life(8hrs) + sleep(8hrs) = Work life balance
Work(12hrs) + life(6hrs) + sleep (6hrs) = I better be making 6 figures and partying every night
Work(12hrs) + thinking about work(2hrs) + trying to forget about work(2hrs) + restless bad sleep dreaming about work(8hrs) = Public Accounting
Now which one applies to me? That is the real question at hand and I can definitely tell you right now that I do NOT make 6 figures. If I was, life would be quite different and I wouldn’t really be thinking about my work life balance as much because I am getting compensated to not dwell on such things. The first thing that actually came to mind was that this person was at least getting 8 hours of sleep each day, so I am already very jealous of this person.
The best equation for me would be along the lines of:
Work(12hrs) + personal hygiene (2hr) + life (3hrs) + trying to forget about work(1hrs) + restless bad sleep dreaming about work(6hrs) = My Public Accounting Life
Now where do I factor in my eating? I guess that’s part of the “life” variable because I live to eat, but although I sometimes eat to live because I need the energy to keep up that 12 hour work variable. However, when I eat, I try to eat things that I enjoy and makes me smile from the inside out. This is when we need that special treat every now and then.
When I was up in San Francisco a couple weeks ago, I had stopped by the Kara Cupcakes in Ghiradelli Square for a cupcake. I will admit that this was definitely influenced by the show Cupcake Wars on Food Network. The judges GUSHED over Kara’s cupcakes and my curiosity of whether or not it was founded drove this trip.
The shop was simple and let its cupcakes be the star of the decor:
I contemplated for sometime on which cupcake to get and given the season, the Pumpkin cupcake almost won out. However, the Chocolate Fleur de Sel had me convinced that if I was to try any of the cupcakes, this was the one to be inducted to her line of cupcakes.
It took everything in my power to limit myself to only one cupcake, so I got myself one and a bottle of water. To my surprise, the bottled water was made especially for the store!
Here was my little afternoon sweet snack. See that cute bottle? I was truly and highly amused by it. To think they put that much effort to their water bottles was a nice surprise. Also, I loved their boxes that they had to hold their cupcakes for transit. Although my cupcake didn’t need to go far (just to a table outside), it is a good idea for bakeries to have these holders because there’s nothing worse than a messed cupcake.
Look at my little baby. All safe and sound, neatly tucked in its own individual carrying case.
I don’t have a shot of inside the cupcake, but it was filled with salted caramel. The cake was a deep, dark, luscious chocolate cake and it was the moistest cupcake I’ve had in awhile. Topping it off was an equally delicious chocolate ganache frosting with a light sprinkle of fluer del sel. You would think that this cupcake would be immensely sweet, yet it wasn’t! The flavors were all there: sweet, bitter, and salty. The cupcake was balanced and it was a simple, really well crafted cupcake.
In retrospect, I feel like I could have had some more, but I was restraining myself from going completely overboard. It is all about balance in life right?
I don’t have a balance in my life and I can feel it. However, I am really bringing it upon myself by my own choices. I guess I just haven’t learned how to say no to my own life events. Just like how I learned how to say no to myself when I wanted more than one cupcake, I need to apply the same to my life at times.
My desire? To achieve this equation: Work(8hrs) + life(8hrs) + sleep(8hrs) = Work life balance.
Kara’s Cupcakes
Multiple locations in California
Weekday pick-me up…failed 50%
I had a nice little lunch with a couple of my old friends earlier this week. We had gone to Little Italy in Downtown and we ended up going to Burger Lounge. This entry will not be about the food served there because ultimately, I agreed to come here because I had heard how good their Red Velvet cupcakes were. Little did my friends know at the time, if it wasn’t for the cupcake, I would have suggested to go elsewhere.
When I stepped up to the counter to order my food, I looked at the little glass cake stand to see 4 of these pretties. They beckoned for me yet, even then I knew something just didn’t look right. However, I wouldn’t know until I got my hands on one!
I got one to-go and had my lunch with a pretty good salad (Vegetable salad with avocado ranch dressing) and a regular order of onion rings. Both were delicious, but my mind was with my cupcake and it took a lot of willpower to hold out from devouring the whole thing while at the restaurant.
Being a good gal, I actually took the baked good back to work, waited at least an hour before finally caving in! Grabbing a fork, I slowly peeled back the wrapper and as I did so, I knew something was terrible wrong!
What was this frosting?! Why was it so shiny and glossy? Cream cheese does NOT gloss like that…oh no…is that…BUTTERCREAM?! ON MY F*CKING RED VELVET?!?!?! (Insert silent maniac sitting in her cubicle waiting to punch her flimsy little wall) This was blasphemy! There are a few things that should ALWAYS go together in my world:
Peanut butter and jelly…
Cheese and crackers…
Bonnie and Clyde…
Chuck and Norris…
Red velvet and cream cheese frosting!!!!!
Despite my horror, of course I still took a full bite and it fully confirmed that buttercream should not be paired with red velvet. Granted, there may be someone out there who would not mind this and bless their hearts…maybe they are someone a traumatized victim to some terrible accident where cream cheese was involved. Maybe as a young child, you had a cream cheese delivery truck come plowing down your street where your puppy had run off away from you and met an unfortunate end. Hell…I’d be traumatized by cream cheese too if that was me! But that wasn’t me so where was my cream cheese frosting?!
Moving on…
The cake itself was actually quite good. It had the moist quality that cupcakes suffer the lack of and so I must give Burger Lounge their dues for their moist cake. It did not have a bitter tone of over coloring, but it could have done better with a little extra cocoa flavor. Otherwise, it was quite a success. If you had not guessed by now, I scrapped off the frosting after my second attempt to eat it with the frosting. I just couldn’t do it! It was just so wrong on so many levels.
Burger Lounge…please, PLEASE do away with that buttercream frosting and change to the cream cheese variety for your red velvet cupcake’s sake! Please?…
Burger Lounge
1608 India Street
San Diego, CA
Elizabethan Desserts
As the website title says, “Tasty Goodness in Every Bite!”
When you search for desserts, cakes, and anything baked in the San Diego County and the surrounding areas, Elizabethan Desserts will most likely come up in your search. This place is hidden in the Sunshine Gardens nursery up in Encinitas, not far off the I-5 freeway on Encinitas boulevard. At first I thought we thought we took a wrong turn, but then we saw the little sign…the sign of sweets to come!
Ah yes, my pretties…starting from the bottom left and going clockwise: Passionfruit Vanilla (special of the day), Red Velvet, Butter Cake, Almost Karot Cake, and the Peanut Butter Wag.
When researching for what the favorite was here, a lot of people gave good reviews for the Red Velvet. Maybe I came an off day since I honestly did not like it. The cake was too dry, the cream cheese frosting was not creamy enough, and it tasted kind of sub-par. I was a little sadden by this.
However, the other cupcakes were much better. They were moist, soft, and filled with flavor! Of the cupcakes, my favorite was the PB Wig! A devil food cupcake, topped with peanut butter frosting, then dipped in a chocolate ganache and capped with peanuts! Just to make it all the more visually appealing – add some white chocolate drizzle. It was a chocolate, peanut butter orgy in my mouth (I am drooling from the thought of it).
The passionfruit and carrot cake cupcakes were both good, but there was nothing that made them stand out for me. They were just kind of the middle road cupcakes.
The surprise was the butter cake. Oh jeebez…you know there’s pounds upon pounds of butter going into the batches of this cake. The fork easily dived into the soft, thick goodness and melted oh so amazingly in your mouth. I only wish I had some ice cream to go with all of these!
I knew from the beginning that I needed help because there would be too much that I’d want to try! Thus, I had my sister and best friend help me with this sweets overload. After we demolished what we could…this was the aftermath.
There were plenty of other items to try aside from the cupcakes including cookies as big as a baby’s head, dessert bars, chocolate dipped cheesecake, pies, and pastries. The hardest thing about Elizabethan Dessert is deciding what to get on your first trip! (…and possibly all subsequent trips)
Since our first visit, my friend has brought her sister and brother and they have had more of the wonderful baked goodies. Now it’s my turn to make my way up there again!
Elizabethan Desserts
155 Quail Gardens Drive
Encinitas, CA 92024
May-chan
Delighted Palate 