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By Kate, 31 January 2010 12:49 pm

More cupcakes this week. This time, I returned to something my mom used to make all the time—black bottomed cupcakes. I haven’t made them in about 2 years so I forgot how awesomely good they are. This is made even better by how easy they are to make. So I’m going to post the recipe, because more than one person at work asked for it, and everyone should be able to make these as there’s no real trick to it.

I know Starbucks has these sometimes, but I’ve tried one of theirs, and as with almost every kind of cake they have, they make it far too sweet and ruin the chocolate and cheesecake flavour balance. Do yourself a favour and make your own. Not only will it be tastier, but also far, far cheaper.

Black bottomed cupcakes

For the chocolate cake:

• 1 1/2 c flour
• 1 c sugar
• 1/4 c cocoa
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 c water
• 1/2 c oil
• 1 tsp vinegar
• 1 tsp vanilla

For the cheesecake topping:

• 1 (8 oz) package cream cheese  (And don’t mess around with anything that’s not full fat.)
• 1 egg
• 1/3 c sugar
• 1/8 tsp salt

Optional:

• Chocolate chips or bits of a dark chocolate bar

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F.
2. In one bowl, mix all chocolate cake ingredients together (and no, it’s not a mistake, there’s no egg in the chocolate cake bit). It’s probably best if you do this with some kind of beater, but if you like your baking to exhaust you, you could whisk it up by hand.
3. In another bowl, beat together all the cheesecake topping ingredients.
4. Line a 12 muffin tin with cupcake cases and fill each about halfway with chocolate cake mix.
5. Top each with a tablespoon or two of cheesecake mix. Try to drop this in the middle of the chocolate cake mix. It will look kind of like it’s sinking, but don’t worry about it.
6. Top each cupcake with a few chocolate chips or bits of dark chocolate if you want to.
7. Bake for around 15-18 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. The chocolate cake part is extremely dense, so it will probably look a bit more moist than you’re used to seeing with other chocolate cake.

In general, the cheesecake bit is supposed to stay kind of in the middle of the cake bit on top. Mine was a bit runnier than usual this time so it ended up around the outside of the top. Either way, it tastes just as good, so don’t fuss too much over what it looks like.

These are ok right out of the oven, but they’re the best when they’re cold, so if you can resist long enough, wait til they cool, pop them in the fridge for an hour, then eat one. Tasty times.

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By Kate, 27 January 2010 7:00 pm

I tend to remember strange and interesting little things about people and situations in my life. Things that probably have little to no significance to anyone else. They’re just bits of history that pop up now and then to remind me that I’ve known such variety of occurrences and acquaintances.

I haven’t seen David Smith since high school, but I went to school with him from the time I moved to Maryland in 4th grade until we graduated from Frederick High. We were never close friends or anything, but he was in a bunch of my classes over the years, and he was always someone I thought of as a good guy. My clearest memory of him is from one of those awful Middle School dances that pretty much everyone went to in order to stand around and feel monumentally awkward for a few hours, even if a dance wasn’t really your thing (it definitely wasn’t mine).

David was the first person to ask me to dance. Ever. I declined because I was a wimp and I didn’t even know how to dance anyway. Though from what I’ve been reading, maybe he could have taught me a thing or two if I’d accepted the offer. In any case, he just brushed it off and went to ask someone else. I think it was just a matter of having fun for him, so it probably seems insignificant. But middle school is a time when a lot of kids could be and often were quite cruel about anything and everything. This particular dance was fairly soon after I was accosted in the girls’ bathroom and asked ‘God, what’s wrong with your face?!’ in ultimate disgust (by someone else I also remember quite clearly, and for that statement alone), referring to my erupting teenage complexion.

A statement like that wouldn’t bother me much now, but naturally it really got to me then. So being asked to dance when I thought I was the epitome of an ugly middle school mess was amazing. I think he probably boosted my self esteem by 110% without even realising it. And that pretty much defines what I remember about David. He was a nice kid. Nice to everyone, and genuinely so. There are plenty of other snippets from elementary school and high school that I remember, but that’s the one the pops into my head unprompted every now and then and makes me smile.

I didn’t even know David was in the Marines until yesterday when I heard about his injuries. Shows how good I am at keeping up with things. But according to the outpouring of love and memories on Facebook, he loved being a Marine. And while I really don’t agree with the war, I will always back the soldiers who fight it, because they have more bravery in an eyelash than I do in my entire body. So I’m glad to hear he was doing what he loved, because that makes all the difference in life. And because he was such a happy person, I’m pretty sure that everyone who remembers him does so in a positive light.

Obscure old memories and stories show you how a person really is, so it’s too bad that they don’t often come to the surface until they’re tributes. I may not have seen the guy in years, but reading everyones’s memories on his Facebook wall paints a great picture of a full, happy life.

People live on through stories. So keep telling them.

Frederick remembers beloved student, athlete, Marine

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By Kate, 24 January 2010 8:41 pm

It’s about time I start using this thing for what I meant to use it for in the first place rather than boring you with my rants and raves about society’s stupidity. So I’ll start with some craftiness and move on to the food.

My first embroidered elephant.

A while back, I mentioned that I had taught myself a new skill. Huzzah! But was not able to post the results of said new skill because the project in question was part of a super secret quilt meant for my best friend Kelsey’s baby, who was not yet born. Booooo. Well, Ms. Etta has now entered the wide world so the quilt is a secret no more.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a picture of the whole thing, but our friend Kedre got a bunch of Kelsey’s friends and relatives got together and got them each to do an animal square in their own style. I did see the finished quilt over Christmas and it’s awesome. All the squares are different but they pull together nicely.

For my square, I decided to dive into the world of embroidery. The results did not suck. And I found that I enjoyed doing it, especially because it’s something I can do while watching TV, which means I feel like less of a lump while sitting on my couch. Double bonus! I’ve done some more little projects since then (a stocking for my parents’ new dog Randle, who is awesome, and a set of dish towels for their new beach house), but this is the only one I’ve got a picture of at the moment.

Unforgettable Elephant from Sew Everything Workshop.

Continuing with the elephant theme, I made a little stuffed elephant with a pattern from Sew Everything Workshop by Diana Rupp. It was fairly easy except for sewing up the top seam. I’m absolute shite at handsewing, and even more hopeless at slipstitch, so I gave up on trying to hide the stitches and just did as neat a seam as I could. It ended up ok, especially because no one, let alone a baby, cares about a little visible thread when an elephant is involved. I also figured it was more important to make the stitch strong rather than invisible, because kids like pulling at stuff. In any case, I think I’ll be making more of these little guys, because I sort of want one, and there are other babies I know who are about to enter the world.

Back in the present, this weekend I decided it’s been far too long since I’ve done any baking of the cake variety. The urge to bake was further spurred on by a visit to the Cup Cake Caffe, which is basically the wee coffee shop extension of the restaurant in the main National Gallery Complex. I was in the gallery shop buying some stuff with the gift certificate I won in the staff drawing before Christmas (Score! Good way to start a new job.) and I had been meaning to try out these cupcakes I’d been hearing about. No cupcake in my world can ever go uninvestigated. Especially when the few I’ve bought lately haven’t been up to scratch. In any case, these particular Cup Cake Caffe cupcakes were actually pretty good. They only had two kinds left at the time, so we tried both. One was a coconut cake with vanilla frosting and fresh blackberry-ish jam, and one was pretty much victoria sponge with raspberries and cream. Both were super tasty. I’ll have to go back and try the dark chocolate and cherry one. Too bad there’s no employee discount on the cupcakes.

Mocha cupcakes with Kahlua and coffee icing.

As I said, all the cupcake sampling got me in the baking mood. I made Rachel Allen‘s mocha cupcakes with Kahlua and coffee icing today. They are pretty freakin’ good. I feel like maybe they could be a bit more coffee-ish. I used all coffee instead of coffee and water like the recipe says, but maybe next time I’ll go get some espresso and use that. The texture is awesome though, really light and moist and a good complement to the buttery icing on top. I may put more Kahlua in the icing next time. We’ll see.

As for the burger I mentioned, we went to Guilty Lily for lunch today and both had burgers. I think it may have been the best burger I have ever had in this city. Burgers in this country tend to be disappointing because I think the whole hoof and mouth thing a few years back freaked people out and they really don’t like cooking a burger any less than very, extremely well-done. I, as you may imagine, am not cool with this. Scott is even less cool with this, especially after he had an amazing burger at Brewer’s Alley in the states that was just about raw in the middle. Now, I don’t need my burger to be as bloody as my steak, but you just can’t cook the hell out of a burger, because it looses all its flavour and dries out and isn’t at all pleasant anymore.

The burgers at Gulty Lily aren’t quite pink in the middle, but I have a feeling if they were cooked about 2 seconds less, they would be. They were nice and juicy and fatty, as a good burger should be, and the sweet onion chilli jam that was on top of mine I could have eaten from a jar. They only had one beer in the cask, but I had a nice glass of wine (ok, two) and we’ve had the cocktails there before, which are fantastic. Highly recommended. And I think we’ll be going back and trying the breakfast, because I spied one or two plates that made my mouth water.

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By Kate, 15 January 2010 6:06 pm

Ok, I’ve been away for a while, but I’m coming back with a rant. Hopefully it will kick this blog off again.

I’ve just unfriended someone on facebook for the first time in ages. It’s not someone I know very well, so it’s no great loss. But why, you may ask, have I done this? Because this person was constantly updating their facebook status via text WHILE DRIVING on a long distance trip. And I don’t feel like I should waste my energy getting angry about this sort of thing every time I want to know what my actual friends are doing.

The kind of stress and fatigue caused by long distance driving takes enough of a toll on concentration, but texting while driving because you’re ‘bored’? No. You’re an adult. If a long distance car trip is too boring for you, you shouldn’t be doing it. Listen to some music, have a conversation with yourself, take a lot of rest stops, but don’t use your phone. Not for texting OR talking. It’s irresponsible, unsafe, and moronic.I can’t think of a single situation where sending or reading a text while operating a vehicle is necessary. If I ever discover such a situation, I’ll be sure to tell you, but until then, pull the hell over. If you don’t feel like pulling over, it’s not that important. And your facebook status? NEVER that important. In fact, not really important at all.

You may think it’s none of anyone else’s business that you text while you drive. You may feel like I have no right to tell you what to do. And I say if you get into an accident because of what you’re doing, you deserve the consequences. It’s a choice you made. But the person you crash into while you’re attending to your facebook status does not deserve it, and that’s why you need to stop. The people in your life who care about you also don’t deserve it, so you’re being selfish as well. And all to send some bullshit no one cares about.

I can’t believe it’s not illegal yet, but if you’re caught texting while driving, your license should be revoked. If you think this is harsh, take it up with someone who’s been hurt or killed because they got into an accident with someone who was sending or reading a text.

If you think I’m an asshole for thinking this, go ahead. I’d rather be an asshole for trying to prevent disaster by pointing out that you’re being unsafe than be an asshole for killing someone because I was too bored to pay attention to the road.