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I'm typing this with frosting-sticky fingers surrounded by a cloying cloud of icing sugar.
It's cupcake making day to raise funds for something or other.
So after L burst into tears when I suggested Mommy send her in with ten dollars rather than 6 cupcakes, Mommy stepped up to the plate. I got books out of the library, I bought a series of nesting cups to make sure I had the precise amount of each ingredient. I replaced my ancient baking soda and baking powder, bought cake flour, pretty pastel cupcake liners. I baked not one but two versions of my chosen cupcake, lemon/lime with lemon frosting.
They were...okay.
So this morning I abandoned it all and whipped up some banana and choc chip cupcakes with chocolate buttercream frosting.
Yes, I'm an idiot, but what can I say. It meant a flying trip over to Sobeys for cocoa and orange juice (and a cup of Timmies where my roll up the rim once again told me to play again, damn it) but that only took 15 mins.
Cups. Cups baffle me. I know they're about 8 ounces and that's usually what I do, but the nesting cups weren't expensive so I gave them a go. OMG, so hard! All these books kept saying that weighing ingredients was for super serious professionals and most people couldn't do it at home and I was like, huh? What? Why? I have a set of scales; they're not at all expensive. Cups on the other hand...unless you keep flour and sugar in bins, it's really hard to scoop out what you need and slice across to get an accurate read. Then you have things like butter; how do you squish it into a cup when usually it's still a little hard and angular?
Maybe you have to be born here to understand cups.
Anyway, they came out looking gorgeous, risen to a mound, gently springy. I made the frosting and flushed with confidence cut out a circle of parchment paper to use as a piping tool. The test ones were great so I cut another and went to town.
Disaster. The stuff was oozing out of the top AND the bottom of the tube, dripping everywhere. I abandoned the sculpted swirls and used a knife.
Next came the artful sprinkle of colored chocolate beads. I took a few and scattered them over the frosted cakes.
They bounced.
Over and over, they bounced instead of plopping gently into the mounds of creamy goodness.
They're all over the floor and, after I stabbed them forcefully, they're now in the frosting.
The kitchen is a mess like you wouldn't believe.
If the kids don't buy the lot, every single one of them, I'm going to cry salty tears.
I guess I should taste one to see if they're okay...
It's cupcake making day to raise funds for something or other.
So after L burst into tears when I suggested Mommy send her in with ten dollars rather than 6 cupcakes, Mommy stepped up to the plate. I got books out of the library, I bought a series of nesting cups to make sure I had the precise amount of each ingredient. I replaced my ancient baking soda and baking powder, bought cake flour, pretty pastel cupcake liners. I baked not one but two versions of my chosen cupcake, lemon/lime with lemon frosting.
They were...okay.
So this morning I abandoned it all and whipped up some banana and choc chip cupcakes with chocolate buttercream frosting.
Yes, I'm an idiot, but what can I say. It meant a flying trip over to Sobeys for cocoa and orange juice (and a cup of Timmies where my roll up the rim once again told me to play again, damn it) but that only took 15 mins.
Cups. Cups baffle me. I know they're about 8 ounces and that's usually what I do, but the nesting cups weren't expensive so I gave them a go. OMG, so hard! All these books kept saying that weighing ingredients was for super serious professionals and most people couldn't do it at home and I was like, huh? What? Why? I have a set of scales; they're not at all expensive. Cups on the other hand...unless you keep flour and sugar in bins, it's really hard to scoop out what you need and slice across to get an accurate read. Then you have things like butter; how do you squish it into a cup when usually it's still a little hard and angular?
Maybe you have to be born here to understand cups.
Anyway, they came out looking gorgeous, risen to a mound, gently springy. I made the frosting and flushed with confidence cut out a circle of parchment paper to use as a piping tool. The test ones were great so I cut another and went to town.
Disaster. The stuff was oozing out of the top AND the bottom of the tube, dripping everywhere. I abandoned the sculpted swirls and used a knife.
Next came the artful sprinkle of colored chocolate beads. I took a few and scattered them over the frosted cakes.
They bounced.
Over and over, they bounced instead of plopping gently into the mounds of creamy goodness.
They're all over the floor and, after I stabbed them forcefully, they're now in the frosting.
The kitchen is a mess like you wouldn't believe.
If the kids don't buy the lot, every single one of them, I'm going to cry salty tears.
I guess I should taste one to see if they're okay...
From:
no subject
A cup is 8 oz, either dry or wet measure. A tablespoon of butter is half an ounce. If you don't keep your flour in a container, how are you keeping it that you can't dip a measuring cup in and level off the top with a knife? And measure before you sift, if you sift; it makes a difference (some recipes tell you to sift first, but I've given up on that.
I have tried the 'weigh the flour' method and I end up with it all over the kitchen.
From:
no subject
Also, as someone who owns a digi-scale and weighs flour, it's not that hard, but you might end up with more dishes, because you need to put the flour IN something to weigh it. Also, recipes that don't have weights drive me batshit now, but YMMV.
And liquid cups and dry cups? Measure volume, and liquid cups are a little bigger. Baked things tend to come out better, if you're measuring with cups, if you remember to measure dry things with dry cups and liquid things with liquid cups, and that sugar counts as a liquid. (I don't know why. Consult Alton Brown?)
Sorry Jane! Buck up!
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My scale has a built in dish so there isn't much extra to wash: like this
http://www.oldwillknottscales.com/salter-021.aspx
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I keep everything in what it came in and pour it out into my scales:
http://www.oldwillknottscales.com/salter-021.aspx
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FWIW, I move flour into glass or plastic containers because of weevils, moths and other critters that are perfectly able to drill through the paper of a flour sack but don't get into hard containers as easily. But that may be a function of living on the East Coast; it may be different where you are.
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Most butter in the US comes in standard sizes with the number of cups/teaspoons marked off on the wrapper, so you can just slice off exactly as much as you need. Maybe Canadian butter is packaged differently...
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I was raised with cups, so I don't mind them so much, but I did learn to bake by weighing and it is very easy.
A stick of butter is 1/2 a cup. Guesstimate the amount you need to slice off :-)
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