Small changes can make a big difference in your weight and health, as I keep a-sayin’ and a-sayin.’ Here’s a great small change you can make:
STOP BUYING SNACKS.
As I’ve said before, you can exercise three seconds of self-control as you pass by the cookie aisle, or the candy aisle, or the “salty snacks” aisle, and just refuse to go down into that valley of temptation, or you can bring junky stuff home and then have to resist it every time you walk by the pantry or the bowl on the coffee table. Just don’t buy it in the first place! In fact, here’s the question you should ask yourself whenever you see a bag or box that attracts your attention:
Image by jerriek from Pixabay–not my cupcakes, but the cupcake stand looks identical to mine
I had a comment on my previous post asking about what went right for the wedding food I made this past weekend, so I figured I should write a little more about that. (Although I did have a few positive things to say in my previous post, I always figure that warnings to someone who may be doing the same thing are more useful than my raving about how delicious everything was. Which it was!)
For one, the little lemon tarts were fabulous, with the crusts staying crisp even after sitting for awhile. I’m not going to re-write the recipe here but instead will direct you to “A Set of Sweet Mini Tart Variations” earlier in this blog. The lemon recipe is the fourth one down. The brownies also came out well, and as it turned out these two items had the most leftovers, for some reason. In spite of my agonizing about the oversized cupcakes and cheesecakes there weren’t really all that many left when all was said and done. The tarts and brownies were the most freezable of the items I made, so they’re now safely ensconced in freezer bags out in our extra garage freezer.
Here’s the brownie recipe, which is so great for making little brownie bites because the recipe is easily scaled for doing that. It’s from the Taste of Home website, and I added a few flourishes (of course):
BROWNIE CUPCAKES
(from Taste of Home online magazine)
Yield: 12 mini brownies for each recipe made with amounts given; easily multiplied to give yield needed.
Sugar Content: 5.5 grams per brownie, not including extra chips or glaze
Ingredients:
¼ heaping cup (1 ½ oz.)
dark chocolate chips
or chopped dark chocolate
¼ cup (1/2 stick, 4 T.)
butter
1
egg
¼ cup
sugar
¼ tsp.
vanilla
¼ cup
flour
¼ cup
chopped nuts, toasted
optional, your choice
Instructions:
Melt chocolate and butter together in a microwave-safe bowl, preferably the bowl you’re going to use for mixing the batter. For this small amount try 45 seconds at 50% power, then check. You may need another 30 seconds or so. When the mixture is partially melted stir it until smooth and completely melted. Let cool slightly. Mix in sugar, egg and vanilla, then fold in flour and nuts if using.
Divide batter among 12 mini muffin cups, preferably with liners. For extra chocolatiness, you can put 3-4 chocolate chips in the bottom of each cup. I did this for the wedding brownies. Bake at 325O for 8-10 minutes, or until still somewhat soft in the center. Let cool completely before frosting. These cupcakes are specifically described in the recipe as not needing frosting, so the choice is up to you. Buttercream (plain, chocolate or peanut butter) or chocolate ganache would both be great if you decide to go that route, though. I used chocolate ganache, with a ratio of 2 parts chocolate chips to 1 part heavy cream, nuking it at 50% power in the microwave for 2 minutes, stirring, then doing 2 minutes more. Don’t ever heat chocolate on high in the microwave! These ganache proportions resulted in a nicely-set, beautiful glaze. I sprinkled some gold decorating sugar on the tops, but I think people may have thought that it was salt. Oh well.
I will also say that, in spite of my having to rescue my frosting at the last minute with great gobs of powdered sugar, the piping I did with it looked pretty great. I have something called a “frosting gun” or “frosting press” which I bought through Amazon. Any real decorator worth her salt would turn up her nose at this item, as its capacity is very limited. I would say that it can hold enough frosting at one time to do maybe 10 normal-size cupcakes, and it is somewhat of a pain to refill. But it’s so much easier and less messy than those dratted plastic frosting bags that are the norm, and it doesn’t require much work for your hands. I have carpal tunnel problems that can flare up, but I don’t have any issues using this tool because it has this nice lever or trigger that you use to dispense the frosting. I just wish they’d make one with a bigger capacity, but there it is. If I were doing a whole big wedding cake (which is never, ever gonna happen), I would probably ask my mother-in-law if I could use her Wilton cake-decorating set. But for what I do, and especially if I’m doing mini items, this tool is perfect. If and when I wear out the one I have, I’ll probably go with the stainless-steel one from Wilton.
Okay. Enough positivity for one post! Want you to know that I’m working very hard on my cookbook/entertaining manual/handbook of easy hacks/etc. It’s expanding as I work. If you’re a subscriber to this blog you’ll get a special deal! Score!
I’m not a vegan myself nor do I plan to ever become one, but it’s an interesting challenge to have a vegan guest for dinner. My friend Aubrey had made some vegan chocolate tartlets last year for our church Christmas party and I just about passed out when I ate one of them. Astonishing! I couldn’t believe that it didn’t have any butter or eggs in it. So I set out to reproduce this experience as part of our desserts for my sister-in-law’s birthday dinner on Dec. 30 since a vegan friend of hers was coming, and I found one online that sounded pretty good. The original was also gluten free, but I had no need for that and didn’t want to buy tapioca starch and sweet rice flour. I can’t stand being told that I need some specialty ingredient but only a small amount! The original called for only two tablespoons of the tapioca flour, so I’d be buying a whole bag that would then sit on my pantry shelf. But one item that the recipe does call for and which you should always have on hand is tahini, that is, sesame-seed paste. I’ve bought high-end tahini through the mail (and paid a pretty high-end price), but actually I like the stuff you can find at the grocery store just fine. Tahini and chocolate are an inspired combination.
Well, this past Friday, Nov. 1, was supposed to be an encouraging day because I had scheduled an A1C re-test, using the second kit in the two-pack that my in-laws gave me for my birthday back in March. (As I’ve said before, the A1C test measures what percentage of your hemoglobin cells have glucose molecules stuck to them, and since those cells live for only three months your results are seen as a three-month view of your blood sugar rather than the one-time reading you get from a simple glucose monitor.) That March test had registered as a 5.3, which was super, super great–but I wasn’t completely sure that it was accurate. Although the brand I had (from Walgreen’s) is pretty well rated, I just didn’t think I could possibly have a score that low. There’s been one time that I hit 5.7, which is the threshold for what is called “pre-diabetes,” the yellow warning zone that comes before the red alert of 6.5 of higher. Once you hit 6.5 you’re considered to have full-blown diabetes. I’ve usually hovered in that 6.0-6.4 range, and as far as I know I’ve never hit 6.5 My doctor told me at one point that he didn’t think I would ever topple over into full-blown diabetes, and I sure hope he’s right.
Anyway, we had a lovely, lovely wedding at our church Saturday. The colors were navy blue and yellow, the flowers were sunflowers and baby’s breath, and all in all it was truly charming. They even had little packets of sunflower seeds at each place setting, and while normally I think such things are a total waste, somehow this little gesture seemed quite fitting even though I have no plans to actually, like, plant them. (I’ll probably give them to my mother-in-law.) People had labored to put up draped
I’ve decided that I will be making two pies a year from now on, the Brandied Butternut Squash Pie from the peerless Melissa Clark that I made for Thanksgiving last year and this apple pie for July 4th. (I don’t think pies count as “massive.”) While I’ve made apple pies in the past, and I liked them okay, there were problems:
1. The apples always seemed to be partly raw.
2. The crust tended to be soggy on the bottom.
But in spite of these drawbacks I wanted to make an apple pie sometime during the July 4th weekend. This desire was mainly fired by a Sally’s Baking Addiction post in which she demonstrated how
I hope all of you had a blessed Easter Sunday, with time to reflect on the day’s spiritual significance and a chance to connect with friends and family. We had a great gathering at around 5:30, and there was one super-duper hit and some kind of misses. I’m writing this in the hope that you’ll try out the hit and be warned about the others. I was especially disappointed with the cake, as I don’t make desserts very often and had been looking forward to this one for weeks.
Sunday is Easter, and we’re having about 15 people over for an early dinner around 5:00. I asked if I could do the meat, potatoes and dessert. And rolls, of course—that goes without saying. Yes, I’m making dessert, a very special carrot cake with a custard-based cream-cheese frosting from the great Stella Parks over at Serious Eats. Remember, sweets are treats. They are for special occasions, and I’m dying to make her cake for our company dinner. (Stella’s recipe for whole-wheat bread was kind of a disaster and I don’t know why, but I’m
Alas. I have no pictures of these wonderful items, but I plan to make them again soon and will try to get myself together a little better then. I look forward to having one or two of them whenever I make them because they are so absolutely incredible. I’d put them in the same category as my pumpkin-chocolate timbales. And they’re so rich and so strongly flavored that you just can’t eat too many–not at once, anyway The best kind of treat if you’re trying to limit sugar.
A number of years ago I found a recipe in the King Arthur Flour catalog called “Chocolate Stout Cupcakes.” I thought they sounded so good, got some chocolate stout (which is a type of strong, dark beer), and made them a number of times. People seemed to like them, but I always thought that they were a little dry and lacking in flavor. Then last year the great, the peerless Sally McKinney at Sally’s Baking Addiction posted a recipe called “Guinness Brownies.” Guinness is also a strong, dark beer. Hmmm, I thought, I’ll bet that would work well with chocolate stout, which is probably about the same as the Guinness, but who can resist the idea of chocolate-flavored beer? (Although I have to say that I tasted the stout once and found it unbelievably bitter.)
This has been a favorite recipe of mine for many years. The sour cream gives the cupcakes a great texture and fits in well with the tang of the lemon flavoring. I especially love the combination of lemon and raspberry, so I have you make the cupcakes small enough for a raspberry jam and lemon buttercream topping. They shout spring!
Makes 48 small cupcakes. These are very moist and delicious but not terribly lemony. Very good with a topping of a layer of raspberry jam and lemon buttercream. The original recipe is from Taste of Home, but had a yield of only 30. By dividing up the batter to make 48 I've made the recipe yield smaller cupcakes that have room for the jam and a nice layer of buttercream.
Course
Dessert
Cuisine
American
Keyword
lemon, raspberry, cupcakes
15minutes
Servings48small cupcakes, so 8 grams of sugar per cupcake, plus an additional 6 grams from buttercream and jam, so 14 grams of sugar altogether
AuthorDebi Simons
Ingredients
1 cup butter softened
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1/8 tsp lemon oil or 1 tsp. grated zest*
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups sour cream
Instructions
In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Add lemon oil or zest and vanilla; mix well. Combine dry ingredients; add to creamed mixture alternately with sour cream (batter will be thick). Fill foil-lined muffin cups enough batter to fill about 1/3 of the muffin tin. (Yes, only 1/3. You want these to be small. And foil cupcake liners work much better than paper ones, as they are easier to peel off. A quick spritz of baking spray makes them even easier.) Bake at 350 degrees F for 15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes; remove to wire racks and cool completely.
Spread a thin layer of raspberry jam over each cupcake and then spread or pipe lemon buttercream or frosting on top.
Recipe Notes
*I keep lemon oil on hand and always use it in place of zest. It is pressed from lemon peel, so it is the substance that gives lemon zest its flavor and is extremely strong. Be very careful not to overdo this ingredient, as you can ruin a whole batch that way. If you taste the batter and feel that it's not lemony enough, add additional oil literally drop by drop. Citrus oils last forever in the fridge.
Well, this past Friday, Nov. 1, was supposed to be an encouraging day because I had scheduled an A1C re-test, using the second kit in the two-pack that my in-laws gave me for my birthday back in March. (As I’ve said before, the A1C test measures what percentage of your hemoglobin cells have glucose molecules stuck to them, and since those cells live for only three months your results are seen as a three-month view of your blood sugar rather than the one-time reading you get from a simple glucose monitor.) That March test had registered as a 5.3, which was super, super great–but I wasn’t completely sure that it was accurate. Although the brand I had (from Walgreen’s) is pretty well rated, I just didn’t think I could possibly have a score that low. There’s been one time that I hit 5.7, which is the threshold for what is called “pre-diabetes,” the yellow warning zone that comes before the red alert of 6.5 of higher. Once you hit 6.5 you’re considered to have full-blown diabetes. I’ve usually hovered in that 6.0-6.4 range, and as far as I know I’ve never hit 6.5 My doctor told me at one point that he didn’t think I would ever topple over into full-blown diabetes, and I sure hope he’s right.
I’ve decided that I will be making two pies a year from now on, the 
