Odds and Ends: LA Edition

When I started my Urban Safari series, I borrowed the name from my co-worker Jenn who had an album on Facebook by the same name. Now Jenn has turned her album into a blog, so I've decided to change the name of my series to "Odds and Ends." I highly recommend Jenn's blog, San Francisco Urban Safari. Jenn and her husband take long walks around the city and capture photos of anything they find interesting, from oddities and curiosities to beautiful murals. Check her out!

In the mean time, I give you Odds and Ends: LA Edition.


I never would have thought that parking spot lines could be used for advertisement purposes. But there you go.

Elvis Cupcakes

Last weekend I decided to make Blondie and Brownie's Elvis Cupcakes, minus the bacon.

Unfortunately my photo is lacking, due to poor light in my parents' kitchen.

I would definitely make these cupcakes again with one minor change: the recipe says it makes 18 so I filled 18 cupcake liners. But the cupcakes don't rise much and I ended up just filling the rest of the liner with frosting. I would say I could make 12-14 really nice sized cupcakes next time.

The frosting is to die for. Different than the typical butter cream - the main ingredients are regular granulated sugar, egg whites, peanut butter and 3 (yes, 3) sticks of butter. Rich and delicious, yet lighter than the usual stuff.

I topped my cupcakes with Trader Joe's mini peanut butter cups. Next time I'll try the bacon :).

Cupcake Cover Art

Saw this book in Target:

The title makes me laugh.

Delicious Bakery

Scott and I went to this bakery in Northridge this past week called Delicious Bakery with the purpose of buying his parents their favorite cookies for Christmas - delcos. I am now in love with Delicious Bakery and although it is a pain in the hiney to get to, I forsee more trips in the future. Total old fashioned Jewish bakery. Loads of delicious looking breads, cakes, cookies, and of course, cupcakes.

I love butter cookies. They remind my of my Grandfather who used to get an assortment of sprinkled butter cookies in a pink box for me and my sister.

Clearly needing to join the craze, Delicious has their own set of beautifully decorated cupcakes. Unfortunately they aren't that great. Better than the average super market, not as good as the average cupcakery.

Hooray for Hanukkah!


I love the snowmen ornament ones. So pretty!

Odds and Ends

The building next door to ours has 2 stone lions out front. One morning, we came out to discover this:


Clearly someone decided the lions really wanted to play fetch. Also, what's with the sock?

Not all cupcakes are created equal

Everyone seems to be jumping on the cupcake band wagon. But there is a reason cupcakeries charging $3-4 per cupcake are doing so well: their cupcakes are good! Not all cupcakes are created equal as the two I had this week demonstrate.

Subject #1: Whole foods vanilla cupcake with vanilla frosting

One of my coworkers was so kind as to nab this cupcake for me when someone brought them to his meeting (thanks, Davidson!). I just knew, looking at the frosting, that it wasn't going to be very good. Frosting shouldn't glisten. It's a tell-tale sign of whipped frosting. Large supermarket chains love to use whipped frosting. I get it, butter is expensive. But there is a reason - butter makes everything better. Including frosting. Say no to whipped frosting! (Also, the cake wasn't very good. Probably a few days old).

Subject #2: Butterscotch cupcake with butterscotch frosting


Look, they even filled the cupcakes with frosting! I love the Google chefs and pastry chefs. They make most excellent food. But I am always underwhelmed by their attempts at cupcakes. This one has a really good cake. Moist, dense, nice butterscotch flavor. But the frosting falls somewhere between whipped and buttercream. The consistency and flavor were all wrong.

The moral of the story: don't cheap out. Use butter. Lots of butter.

Betsey Johnson Cupcake Jewelry

Betsey Johnson is clearly a fan of the cupcake. First (or at least first to me), was her Sweet Treats Large Tote which, among other desserts, features plenty of cupcakes.

Unfortunately it's been out of stock for awhile so one less cupcake accessory for me to own. 

Now she has a whole line of cupcake jewelry. I found different pieces on the Betsey Johnson website, Nordstrom.com, and Zappos. A lot of it seems to be part of her "Tea Party" line of jewelry. 

Betsey Johnson Cupcake Necklace

Betsey Johnson Cupcake Hair Clip

Betsey Johnson Cupcake Earrings

Betsey Johnson cupcake ring

(it even opens like a locket)

Betsey Johnson can be really hit or miss for me. She really walks a fine line between cute and tacky. Unfortunately some of this jewelry falls on the tacky side for me. I prefer the Juicy Couture cupcake earrings to the ones here. The necklace is cute, but I already have a cupcake necklace and really have no need for two. But with more and more designers incorporating cupcakes into their designs, I really don't see how the cupcake could possibly be becoming any less popular. The craze just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

Adventures at the Donut Shop

Scott and I stopped into All Star Donuts with some friends on Sunday night. Hadn't been in there since I was a kid.

Monster muffins. Seriously, those tops are on crack.

Collin (to sales woman): What's the difference between the 3 in the middle?
Me: They're all the same.
Collin: No, they're not! They are completely different!

I love donuts with sprinkles. Perhaps that was the birth of my sprinkle obsession. It's funny, though, because today, Threadless released this shirt, called "Playin' In the Sprinkler":

Really apropos I think. I give myself 24 hours before I give in and buy it.

Vanilla Peppermint Cupcakes

Tuesday night is my team's holiday party so of course I needed holiday themed cupcakes. I've come across quite a few peppermint cupcake recipes but I chose this one from Sprinkles, featured on Cupcakes Take the Cake.

Aren't my candy cane cupcake wrappers cute?

I doubled the Sprinkles recipe because 12 just isn't enough cupcakes. I also committed a sin in the art of baking: I made a substitution. The recipe calls for whole milk, which I didn't have nor did I feel like running out for. What I did have was buttermilk. I was really worried the cupcakes would turn out sour but they were actually really good. I'm not sure it makes much difference between the two. Will have to research this.

As with other Sprinkles recipes, this one calls for egg whites, which would normally bother me b/c I hate wasting things. However I actually have a use for yolks this week as an egg wash for a Challah I'm going to make on Friday. Always gotta be resourceful :).

I'm digging my decorations: crushed candy cane (bought pre-crushed at Surfas) + red sugar crystals. Red and white is always a pretty combo.

I also used store bought frosting since I was out of powdered sugar. 1.25 tsp of peppermint extract in one tub of frosting does the trick.

**********

VANILLA-PEPPERMINT CAKE
Makes 1 dozen

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon coarse salt
1/2 cup whole milk, room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon peppermint extract
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 large egg, room temperature
2 large egg whites, room temperature

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with cupcake liners; set aside.
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside.
In a small bowl, mix together milk and extracts; set aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter on medium-high speed, until light and fluffy. Gradually add sugar and continue to beat until well combined and fluffy. Reduce the mixer speed to medium and slowly add egg and egg whites until just blended.

With the mixer on low, slowly add half the flour mixture; mix until just blended. Add the milk mixture; mix until just blended. Slowly add remaining flour mixture, scraping down sides of the bowl with a spatula, as necessary, until just blended.

Divide batter evenly among prepared muffin cups. Transfer muffin tin to oven and bake until tops are just dry to the touch, 22 to 25 minutes. Transfer muffin tin to a wire rack and let cupcakes cool completely in tin before icing.

Odds and Ends

Since I'm always snapping photos of random things that interest/amuse me, I've decided to start a series called Urban Safari Odds and Ends. San Francisco is a never ending source of amusement, so I doubt I will have a shortage of material :).

First up: parking meter decorations. Apparently it's a "thing" in my neighborhood. I'm not sure who is taking it upon themselves to decorate all of the parking meters in the Marina for the holidays, but thank you, whoever you are.

Back in November, decorated in lovely Fall colors.

Candy cane colors for Christmas.

Cookie Decorating Class

This past Thursday I took my second cooking class at work. Yes, my work offers cooking classes. It's awesome. Anyway this one was all about cookie decorating which is one area I'd still like some help with so I signed up. The class was awesome. Much better than the cupcake one I took last summer.

Our lovely teachers, Brian and Amy.

Decorations ready to be used.

Cookies ready to be decorated.

The class.

Scooping coconut macaroons.

These cookies are just standard with some candy canes sprinkled on top before putting them in the oven. Genius idea that I'm totally going to use.

Some of the cookies we made in class. The palmiers cookies are so pretty and yet so easy to make! I'm really excited to make these at home. Just will take some puff pastry sheets and sugar.

Some of the cookies Amy decorated before class to give us ideas.

Busy decorating.

My cookies. You can see Amy's pretty snowflake on the left and my horrible attempt at reproducing it on the right. I am not a good piper.

Cupcake Discoveries at Paper Source

I was wondering through the Paper Source this week when I discovered a few cupcake related items. The photos are a little blurry since I took them with my iPhone.

I'm not sure what cupcakes have to do with this set of pens, but there was a cupcake picture on the case. Maybe it's like, "hey! you too could draw this!"

Cupcake stamps. I was going to buy one but I really have no use for it. This photo is really blurry but the stamp 3rd from left says "love muffin" on it, which I found amusing.

Not cupcake related but I found this whole punch to be hilarious. WTF would anyone use a moose hole punch for??

Meat Cupcakes

Last year after seeing this blog Scott insisted I make him a meat cake for his birthday. He loved it so much he insisted we have a repeat performance. Always needing to change things up, and given my endless love of all things cupcake, I did a quick search and came across Rachel Ray's Sausage Meatloaf Cupcakes with Creamy Potato Frosting. Clearly it needed to be attempted. The one change I made was doubling the recipe.

2.5 pounds of hot Italian sausage:


4 potatoes, which in theory should have been turned into Creamy Potato Frosting. I made the mistake of putting all the peels down the sink which caused the sink to back up. As a result I wasn't actually able to make the "frosting":


The final result:


The cupcakes turned out pretty damn good, if I may say so myself. I only wish the potatoes had turned out because they would have been a nice compliment to the spicy cupcakes. Oh well. There's always next year :).

Oh, I also made regular chocolate cupcakes. Of course.

Pho-ho-hoto Booth

Hilarity.

http://photobooth.unionstudio.net/photo/2514

Hi, my name is Jess and I'm a t-shirt-aholic.

Came across a new good baking-focused t-shirt (and other wearables) vendor - Bakelove Bakewear. My favorite:

Unfortunately, it looks like they come in the dreaded baby-tee style. 

(Look, Adam! T-shirt is actually being modelled this time :))

Sprinkles Cupcake Mix

I've had a few of the Sprinkles cupcake mixes in my cupboard for quite a long time. Since I'd been promising Scott pumpkin cupcakes I decided to try one of them out this past weekend. 

Sprinkles mixes are a bit different than your standard cake mix as you still use butter, instead of oil. They also make 12 cupakes, whereas the standard cake mix yields 24. I decided to use the cinnamon cream cheese frosting recipe I used a few weeks back rather than the Sprinkles version. I figure, don't mess with a good thing. The cupcakes turned out well but were a little dry (could have been my oven) for my taste. But given the ridiculous amount of ingredients in your standard pumpkin cupcake, this is a nice alternative. Especially with the cinnamon cream cheese frosting. Yum. 

(Scott's co-worker had my new favorite cupcake-for-breakfast-justification: "It has cream cheese frosting? It's like a bagel!")

Jess v. Adam - Clash of the Titans

I've been challenged to a game of Boggle. 2.5 hours until victory or embarrassment.

Update: I lost. Boo.

Hi, my name is Jess and I'm a t-shirt-aholic.

This t-shirt from Sugadeaux cracks me up:

They have it in several sizes and colors for men and women. There's also this one for the fellas:

She's got a bunch of other cute stuff like aprons but I just find that first shirt to be hilarious for some reason. A+ for originality :).

Crazy About Cupcakes

After 2 successful recipes over the Thanksgiving weekend, my new favorite cupcake book is Crazy About Cupcakes by Krystina Castella.

Scott's parents got this book for me a few months back and I had yet to try anything in it. Then I noticed that just about any flavor cupcake I looked up, this book had. And she has tons of cute decorating ideas. 

Recipe #1: Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting (I actually used mama's kitchen's frosting recipe from RecipeZaar)

These cupcakes turned out so delicious, I need to make them again ASAP. My mom's oven bakes a little cool so I needed almost 5 extra minutes on these and they were still underdone a bit in the middle. No matter, they were still delicious. The cinnamon cream cheese frosting worked on these PERFECTLY. Crazy About Cupcakes recommends cinnamon whipped frosting which I wasn't about to do (I don't believe in whipped frostings - frosting should have substance, not air). I used to think I didn't like cream cheese frosting but now I think I like it as long as it has a flavor in it. This frosting was so good I'm looking forward to putting it on just about anything I make. I want to try the maple version recommended by the book, but not for pumpkin cupcakes.

Recipe #2: Cranberry cupcakes with chocolate frosting, graham cracker and dried cranberry toppings.

Cupcakes: This recipe I played around with a bit (I noted my changes in blue below).  Crazy About Cupcakes advises that cranberry cupcakes can be made by replacing the blueberries in a blueberry cupcake with cranberries. I knew this wouldn't work. First of all, the cranberries I had were HUGE. I wanted them to be more spread uniformly throughout the cupcake and contribute to the flavor, not just when you bit in to one. So I chopped them. I still measured them whole so I wouldn't end up with too much. Also, blueberries are sweet. Cranberries are tart. Straight replacement didn't seem like the right way to go so I sprinkled a tablespoon of sugar on the chopped cranberries and let sit while I made the rest of the cupcakes. 

Now the book called for dark chocolate frosting which I totall screwed up.

..EPIC FAIL..

This was supposed to be dark chocolate frosting after 30 minutes in the fridge. I must not have melted the chocolate right. I should really stick to frostings that can be made in my stand mixer. If it involves the stove I shouldn't even bother. 

I ended up just using chocolate buttercream instead. It was good but it wasn't quite the right match for the cranberry cupcakes. The dark chocolate would have been better. The decorations/toppings are recommended by the Thanksgiving cupcake section of the book. She also advises marzipan turkeys, which I wasn't about to do. I scrapped those and stuck to the crushed graham crackers and dried cranberries.