Mexico and Marriage!

I just returned from Mazatlan, Mexico where my I gained a sister and my brother, in his words, became half of a new dynamic duo, and I am so elated for this new marriage (and my new tan!)

I have work to do in preparation for a week of travel for work (well, really, just an entire week spent on the campus of Dartmouth interviewing potential candidates) so I'll keep this update brief.  I just wanted to say HI! and I've been dying to tell everyone where I've been for a week! (I didn't share here or on Facebook because of all of those crazies that stalk such things in hopes of robbing people while they're on vacation).

So, Mexico.  Since images speak louder than words, I'll sum up our trip by showing you:

Mexico City is ENDLESS. It was nuts.

My wonderful brother, in the middle, who was one short day away from being a husband!

We're more alike that I'd like to admit, goofing around at his rehearsal on the beach.

There is nothing more gorgeous than a sunset in the background while your brother practices for the most important ceremony of his life.

Suffice it to say, there was a LOT of tequila and general drinking over the week.

Drinking for which we paid a price.  Topher on the morning after the wedding...

While Topher recovered (story coming soon), I hung with the parental units!

Did I mention there was a good deal of alcohol? Yes? Did I forgot the ridiculous balloon hats? Oh, ok.

Open air "taxis" are terrifying the best!

Of course, we gather classic kissing-with-the-ocean-background shots.

Perhaps second best of all (after a week at the beach celebrating my brother's marriage) is the chance to buy amazing chocolate. Kinder is my favorite.

How was your Thanksgiving? I didn't get to say it, so Happy Holidays!

Baking Up a Storm, Part Two

I could not rest knowing I had messed up something that I try to pride myself on doing somewhat well (baking).  So I went and bought all new ingredients and vowed to make these cupcakes correctly.   It started off well enough, and the brownie batter I made the night before was chilling in the freezer.  I crafted the cake batter with my lovely  yellow stand mixer.  I adore thee.

I spooned these yummy, much thicker batter into the muffin pans for try numero dos.

Then, I plopped those frozen brownie bites in the middle again:

Squish 'em down nice and tight for ultimate intermingling.

While those baked, I crafted the to-die-for frosting.  And, this is where f up number two comes in.  It started off well:

You don't want to know how much butter is in this frosting. Ok, five sticks.  It makes SO much frosting.  Enough for at least 50 cupcakes.

I had added the nearly entire can of unsweetened cocoa, butter, powdered sugar and nearly entire bottle of light Karo syrup and it looked yummy:

This is where I screw up.  Topher returned home from a couple of errands and I plopped my bag of chocolate chips with some butter in the microwave, not paying much attention to anything but my adorable hubs. I promptly set the microwave for 1:30 like I was melting butter.  Oops.

I burned the chocolate chips.

See how the top one is sort of rough and the bottom one is nice and shiny?  Top=burned, bottom=not burned.  Can't see? Here's a close up:

Poor Topher had to turn around and head right back out for a new bag of chocolate chips for me.  Thank you husband!

The frosting was NOT overly liquid this time, and was a lighter brown due to my different choice in cocoa powder (Ghiradelli instead of Hershey's Dark.  I liked it better!)

Don't you just want to lick the bowl? Now?

This time, they were less crater and more yumz.   The density of the brownie still causes some sinkage, but the pudding mix adds that much needed connector to firm up the cake mix.

So perfect together. Time to frost.

A wider slice in the bag this time, and yet, still doggy poo looking. Oh well.

Now, I'm going to turn it over to my cupcake porn. Enjoy.

Please go make these now. Trust me.  Amazing.

Oh, and cupcake fail number two? I made some Funfetti cupcakes and at first the batter was all weird and liquid.  I added some more flour, and they turned out fine, but I give up on making cupcakes for a while.

Happy Hump Day!

Baking up a storm (or, how I almost ruined three consecutive batches of cupcakes) Part I

Topher* has become obsessed with stumble upon.  You know, that interweb service that has you enter things you like (such as baking, cute animals and fart jokes- all of which, I'm pretty sure, Topher has listed) and then it has you "stumble" across websites that align with your interests.  Luckily, that baking interest is mostly for me, which is how he found perhaps the most amazing recipe for a chocolate concoction involving brownies, fudgey amazing icing and very dense chocolate cake. I've loved this website for free fonts (I used one for our wedding invitation envelopes!) but had no idea of the amazing baking recipes that awaited me.

One of my favorite co-worker's birthday was last week, and she's allergic to nuts.  For some reason, sweets people bring into the office always have nuts- so I promised to make her a delicious, amazing, chocolate filled dessert with NO nuts!  That's where these cupcakes come in handy!

Now, these chocolate cupcakes with brownies in the middle were delicious.  Even when I f-ed it up the first time and forgot a crucial ingredient.  This dense cake recipe is actually pretty simple, involving a devil's food cake mix and a box of pudding mix- and, strangely enough, still tastes pretty good when you forget the pudding mix.  Yeppers, that'd be attempt number 1 where I nearly failed at these amazing cupcakes.

Topher had Veteran's Day off of work, so he did the first step for me.  You create the brownie batter and freeze them in little balls over night.

This dough is VERY viscous and thick- it's hard to coax it into somewhat good looking balls.

 

Once we completed this step, I created the infamous forgotten ingredient cake batter.  After spooning these into muffin pans, we dropped the frozen brownie bites into the middle of the cupcakes: (there are much better pictures of this for round two, below)

I'm sure you can guess- especially if you are a baker- but forgetting the pudding mix wreaked a bit of havoc on the structural integrity of the cupcakes.  I realized five minutes into the first batch cooking that I'd forgotten the pudding mix, and spent the remaining ten minutes sitting on the floor of the kitchen, watching them bake.  Topher sat with me, trying to console me.

And...they sank. Like woah.  They became crater cupcakes.  Not so much "brownie surprise" as "brownie sank." Awesome.

I refused to give up though, and made the amazing frosting. Again, here I more than softened the butter and it took a few minutes for it to thicken up from this liquidy mess:

I lamented over my crater cupcakes:

Eventually, the frosting had matured enough to be piped:

I definitely cut my ziploc bag a bit too thin and these ended up looking like piles of doggy poo on top:

But they were delicious!  Even the healthiest of eaters at work gave in to these and I had three emails and a voicemail telling me how much they loved them- so if you're looking to make friends at work, make these!  But wait until part two so I can show how these should really be made!

Guess what Boomer did throughout this debacle? Chewed on her new comfy bed and avoided my camera.  Biotch.

There were too many photos for just one post, so I'll put up part two (where I nearly screw up the frosting, but make the cupcakes correctly) tomorrow!

*I began this post as Toph and I drove home from the Caps game on Sunday and after I read him the title, his first words were "I better get a lot of nods in that one!"  I had already composed the first sentence, so HA on him.  I think my blogging has gone too far when the hubs feels entitled to appear in the posts...

You're all so helpful...and I'm still awful at decisions...

Thank you so much to the 23 peeps who helped me narrow down the choices!  I said I was going to order them Tuesday, but I needed a bit more time.  I am going to get on the phone with Topher today and have him help me decide between the three I really like (which came out of the four that received the highest votes).  I'm really excited!

I really wanted to order them early enough to hopefully address them this weekend, but it's not happening. Oh well!

In case you were wondering, only three didn't get any votes (no one digs A, E or F) and four got over 5 votes (L, K, D, M).  So, I've chosen one of the four below. Can you guess which one we'll go with?

Now the trouble comes in how many to order...

Happy veteran's day, everyone!

I need your help: holiday cards!

I am notorious for sucking at making decisions.  True to form, I've been going back and forth on which holiday card design to go with for the last week.

What's strange and new is that Topher really doesn't have a preference- he just doesn't like the brown color tones nor the photo with our heads cut off (though I'm pretty sure I could actually convince him to go with whatever one I really end up liking).  Which leaves it up to me- thus the sucking at decisions thing. I need your help.  Badly.

I'd like to order these by Tuesday evening, so, please help!  Please forgive me for the THIRTEEN (yes, 13) options below.  Thank you in advance for any time you waste helping me.

Option A and B are quite similar, just different photos.  I love the full bleed and the colorful message, but wish I had more room to personalize the message too.

A

B

This next one, I think, is Topher's favorite. Simple.  Again, no room for personalization of messages.

C

I think THIS next one (D) is my favorite.  I like the juxtaposition of the color with the colorless photo and the many happy greetings.

D

I love snowmen- they're my favorite holiday thing- so this next one I dearly like.

E

F features the photo Topher dislikes (he thinks it's using an artsy photo for artsy's sake- but I like how it's less narcissistic of us, and I like the plaid lots o' lots.

F

Below, G has the brown but I love the greeting of JOY with Topher and I clearly so joyful:

G

I'm not sure how I feel about using more than one photo- does it seem contrived? I love the polar bear and detailing on this one though!

H

I really just like the room for messages in this next one. Thoughts?

I

 I think this one is one of Topher's initial favorites (until I went and found more options).  I could always swap a photo if this one is not so enjoyable.

J

I really like the black and white photo with the colorful Happy Holidays in K.

K

These last two are the same with different photos because I can't decide if I like the black/white or color photo look.

L

M

If you're a Weddingbee reader and you think I should use a different wedding photo, PLEASE help.  Choosing the photo options was the first hard part.

All images are proofs I created at the amazing Shutterfly (and no, this post is NOT sponsored :)

Please help.  Which, from A to M, would you like to see in your mailbox if you knew me?