Baking, with some photos!

My last baked treat for the bachelorette tomorrow night are the carrot cake cupcakes from . . . Ok. If you don't know where I got this recipe before clicking the link, you haven't been keeping up with this blog at all. I'll give you a hint though - it rhymes with "blitzen mitchum". And they're suuuuuuuper tasty!

Strangely enough, I doubled the spice (which is why my dough turned out so much less orange than the original). There's never enough spiciness for me. Except the nutmeg, which I used very sparingly. That is a very unforgiving spice - too much and you have soap-flavoured everything. Which I don't like all that much, for some reason.

I haven't frosted the cupcakes yet (as they're still warm, the cold room isn't cold enough at this time of year to set the frosting, the icing needs to chill more, and I'm going to do that tomorrow anyway so they're perfect for the party. I might even take them over unfrosted and then do it there), so you'll have to wait for a photo of the final version ;)   I can't wait to frost them though, the cake is very earnest and healthful (especially since I added a zucchini and an apple, and reduced the sugar in them to 1.5 cups from 2), so it'll be a great contrast to the cream cheesey/maple (and veeeeery rich) frosting.

But here are a bunch o photos of me making the cupcakes and frosting:

I was going to upload the photos for another Newfoundland post. But the photo uploader is being an asshole, and I really don't want to learn a new step by having all my photos hosted on another site (à la Flixster or Photobucket). . . I am more seriously considering migrating this blog to WordPress. . . I don't know if you'll notice the occasional horizontal photo that would actually look better in vertical. Stupid uploader.

We'll see. 

Are you as frustrated as me today, Dear Internet?

This week, in baking. . . part 1

Hello, The Internet!

I said that I'd be posting some more this weekend, and here's one of them. Let's see if I can get all of the posts I wanted up by the end of the weekend - but I'm pretty sure that I'll only get two of the four done by the end of this weekend. I'm working this weekend, and for some reason that takes up a lot of time that I could be spending blogging. Ah well. You'll get them when you get them.

Let's look at the making of. . . Thick, chewy granola bars!! I, of course made a few alterations, as well as two - that's right, two - different flavours. One used dried cherries and blueberries, maple syrup, white chocolate chips, and apple butter. And the other used the same dried fruit, buckwheat honey, hazelnut butter, and semi-sweet chocolate chips.

mmmmm apple butter. . .

mmmmmm hazlenut butter. . .

My only excuse is that I had to try apple butter but I wasn't sure it would work out using that instead of a nut butter. The irony being that the apple butter granola bars ended up working out better than the hazelnut butter ones - though that might have been also due to not cooking them quite long enough to set fully (see note below) . . . Live and learn. I'll just have to make several more batches of granola bars to see how different flavours and ingredients work. It's a hard knock life, isn't it?

Now, a string of photos of creating the bars!

gathering ingredients and preparing the tins

mixing dry ingredients

 Just a quick note - I used a bit less than half a cup of dark brown sugar, instead of the 1/2-3/4 of a cup of white sugar. I dislike overly sweet anythings, and dark brown sugar has so much more character than white that I thought I could get away with less than the required amount of sugar. And the bars were still a little bit too sweet. Though, if I made the bars without chocolate, the amount of sweetness probably would have been perfect.

measuring out the tasties

1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon?? Hah! That's a
heaping teaspoon for you

mixing the yumbly stuffs together

pouring out some buckwheat honey

action shot! whisking the wet ingredients

adding the hazelnut butter

squooshing it all into the pan

ready to bake (über-blurry. . . wheee)

I tried something arty. Didn't work

Baked!

A second note - notice the closer square is less evenly golden-brown? The tin I used was slightly smaller than the other, and so the squares were a bit thicker than the first batch. My inner-expert-baker was having a nap and this didn't occur to me as an issue until I was starting to cut the squares. . .

listen to the original recipe - use a
serrated, not sharp, knife

They weren't the prettiest bars - I should have waited to cut them until after they were thoroughly cooled. But they were certainly tasty. After giving some to my friend, and some to the boyfriend, we have very little left today, only a few days after they were made.

Yup. Two left. Oh wait, I ate one. . . So just one left now.

And I have lists of ideas for other flavour combinations. I can't wait! Two more baking projects to share with you, Dear Internet, coming up in the near future. I hope you're having a phenomenal weekend!