Home

Science made fun by Bobby McFerrin

This little snippet is so incredibly cool! Bobby McFerrin demonstrates how the human mind intrinsically recognizes the pentatonic scale.

World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale from World Science Festival on Vimeo.

YouTube has lots of fun Bobby McFerrin videos. Check 'em out!!

Birthday cupcakes

For M's birthday a couple of weeks ago, we decided that we wanted to celebrate a deux, and I promised to make cupcakes, instead of buying a birthday cake. I looked around the internet for different recipes, and finally settled on white chocolate cupcakes with raspberry filling from Good Things Catered, one of my favorite cooking blogs. However, I did not want to use shortening in the filling (shortening still kind of creeps me out), and Sharone was kind enough to forward me a low-fat, non-shortening recipe, so I used that instead. Then, I searched around for easy and waist-line friendly frosting recipes and found a chocolate cream cheese frosting (forget where). I was so excited to get a-baking, until I realized that I had pretty much none of the necessary tools. For one, I did not own a mixer. So off I went to Sur la Table, and back I came with my tail between my legs. Obviously, they were under the impression that money is falling out of my ears, because the cheapest hand mixer they had was around $70. So off I went to Target, and came home with a handy-dandy hand mixer which I already fantasize about trading in for a stand mixer. Sadly, this will probably only come to my counter when money is falling out of my ears...

I also did not have: cupcake paper cups, cornstarch, chocolate (white or milk), sprinkles, cream cheese, filling bags/tips ... basically anything involved in making my cupcakes! The only ingredients I had were flour and sugar... enough to make a sugary paste, but not enough for super duper birthday cupcakes!

After much fun was had exploring the baking isle at Safeway, I was revved and ready to bake!

Everything but the kitchen sink

Fresh out of the oven. Smelled delicious!

Now comes the filling! A bit messy but sooo yummy!

Ooey, gooey

Finished product

Recipe, as adapted by moi:

White Chocolate Cupcakes with Raspberry Filling

Cake Ingredients:
8 oz. Ghirardelli white chocolate chips
1 3/4 c. all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 c. sugar
1/2 c. (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/4 c. oil
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
1/2 c. canned unsweetened coconut milk
3 large egg whites

Directions:
-Preheat oven to 325 degrees and prepare muffin tins with paper liners.
-Place white chocolate in metal bowl set over pan of barely simmering water.
-Stir until melted and smooth (this was really fun!).
-In medium bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, and salt.
-In bowl of stand mixer, beat sugar, butter, and vanilla until blended and fluffy, about 2 minutes.
-Slowly add in oil while running and mix until combined.
-Add hot white chocolate to sugar mixture; stir to combine.
-Add flour mixture in 3 additions alternately with coconut milk in 2 additions, beating batter just to combine between additions. (I think I could have gotten better quality coconut milk, or maybe I'm just not used to its texture, but it was kind of clumpy).
-Using clean dry beaters, beat egg whites in medium bowl until soft peaks form. (umm white peaks didn't really form... this is where I need more practice)
-Gently fold egg white mixture into batter.
-Divide batter among muffin cups (about 1/4 cup each).
-Bake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 25 minutes.
-Cool completely. (try really really hard not to eat the cupcakes)
-Using melon baller, ball out small portion of the top of each cupcake and discard. (or, as I did, EAT).
-Fill disposable bag with raspberry filling and pipe into scooped out portion of each cupcake until just reaching height of top of the cupcake. (this was a big mess!! definitely need practice with the filling bag!)
-Ice as desired. (I made a chocolate cream cheese icing that turned out a bit runny but I did not use as much sugar as the recipe had called for. I think that would have made it stiffer). I also sprinkled colored sugar on each cupcake for a more festive, birthday-ish feel :)

Raspberry filling:

1 1/2 cups raspberries
1 tablespoon cornstarch
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/4 cup sugar
a small handful of Ghirardelli milk chocolate chips

In a small sauce pan, combined all of the ingredients and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Let cool. Take little scoops out of each cupcake with the fruit scooper thing, and using the frosting bag, inject a bit of the filling into each cupcake. Mine turned out a bit messy but no biggie. The filling turned out tangy and very raspberry-ish, which was perfect!

Gourmand ambitions

Something very exciting has been happening lately -- amidst a subtle and ongoing midlife crisis, I have discovered that I really enjoy cooking and baking; this is probably a felicitous discovery considering how much I like eating!

Since domesticity has never been among my strong suits, at first I was surprised by my own epicuriosity. I blame three people for this new interest: my mother, M, and Sharone. While my parents visited, my mother cooked almost daily, reminding me of how much I love her food. At first, I didn't understand why she wanted to spend so much time slaving away cooking, especially with some of the more time-consuming dishes she made. But then, I started realizing that cooking wasn't just meant to be a means of feeding us, but rather an expression of her creativity, ability, usefulness... in short, identity. When you cook something, you put yourself into that food, and it becomes a signal to those eating the meal that you took the time and effort and pleasure to create this food for them. You are nourishing them in a very particular way - your way, and at the same time telling them that they are important enough for you to cook for them, and that you are important enough to be trusted with this responsibility. I guess I am realizing that when not done out of sheer necessity, cooking can become an outlet for one's personality much like creative writing, painting, playing an instrument can. But unlike all these other outlets, it yields tasty, delicious food!

The second person I blame for my newly discovered passion is M. If he wasn't so supportive of all my whacky ideas, and didn't encourage me to do whatever it is that makes me happy, and didn't like to eat as much as I do, I may have been prevented from obsessively creating Amazon wish lists of all my new "must-have" cooking and baking needs! Our apartment would not suddenly feel too small because it cannot house all the hundreds of spice jars, dozens of baking molds, etc etc etc that I suddenly want to spend half my paychecks on.

Thirdly, reading Sharone's blog encourages me to take chances on things I never previously wanted to make. Her amazing ability to squeeze in time to create Margarita Cupcakes and gorgeous fluffy clouds of deliciousness while juggling wedding showers, work, grad school, and life has convinced me that there is always time for a tasty treat!

I think this cooking thing is part of a bigger picture. Lately, I've been overwhelmed by new hobbies that I want to pursue, from camping and backpacking, to spin classes and running, to cooking and becoming the next finance guru (okay, that's a bit far-fetched. But I do have this fantasy of creating a super-duper portfolio that is chock full of diverse investments, and participating in conversations in which I confidently command the usage of words like "maturity," "municipal bonds," and "hedge fund.")

Wherefore these interests? Wherefore now? I blame the clock. The clock that in a voice akin to Chinese water torture tells me each day, "You are getting older." And, without magical ear plugs to shut out this evil clock, I somehow along the way decided that "older" will not mean "boring," will not mean "settled," will not mean "slow" or "fat" or "dowdy." I have decided that if fate must be left to her devices and pull me into adulthood and all the things that come with it, I will do it on my own terms.

So, for now, I spin, I run, I ache. I eat, I cook, I bake. (I couldn't help myself!)

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Ridiculousness

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith


My rating: 1 of 5 stars
Oh, Jane... Jane, Jane, Jane. Seriously, let me just begin by saying that the only redeeming aspect of PPZ is Austen's text.

I began this book entirely open minded, but expected it to be what it claims to be: P&P with zombies in it. I expected the characters to be the same people I fell in love with so many years ago, and I don't want to give too much away, but they simply aren't. For some reason, Seth Grahame-Smith felt compelled to provide a completely contrived and ridiculous back story to the Bennett girls -- they are trained in Chinese martial arts in China by some famous Master Liu, and entrusted to be the defenders of their sleepy little British town, which for years has been terrorized, like the rest of England, by "unmentionables" (umm, I thought that was underwear). Even Lydia is a super-duper warrior, albeit one obsessed with boys and bonnets.

Other than the ridiculous character changes, there are also really stupid plot decisions, especially one involving Mr. Collins. Poor, poor fat, insipid Mr. Collins...

Let's talk about the men for a second. Actually, let's expand and talk about the sexual undertones in PPZ. I suspect Grahame-Smith felt really proud of himself for the seventh-grade humor that stains this book like a greasy hamburger leaking oil onto an Austen classic. However, while maybe a "balls" joke may have some giggle appeal the first time around, the second, third, ad infinitum time it loses its charm. There are other lewd moments, and the most enervating thing about them is that they appear as private jokes between Lizzie and Darcy.

I am convinced that even had I not known the PP plot and characters prior to reading PPZ, I still would have found this book ridiculous. Which, I suppose is the book's main goal, but it succeeds so well as to render it baffoon-ish rather than droll.

Now all I want to do is read Pride and Prejudice and revel in the banter.

View all my reviews >>