- Go to www.kitchenlink.com to find Magnolia's Chocolate Cupcakes. The flavor of these cupcakes was mild and sweet enough to appeal to a large range of taste buds. The top had a crackled appearance and was a bit crisp like a cookie, but not in a way that was bothersome. My taste testers ate these the quickest. I made 30 cupcakes rather than 24. If the muffin cups were filled much more than half-way, they rose too high. This recipe also could not tolerate an oven temperature above 350 degrees.
- I wasn't happy with the Vanilla Cupcakes I made from www.thejoyofbaking.com - they were heavy, grainy and flour-flavored
- I thought the Peppermint-Vanilla Cupcake recipe from Sprinkles that I found on http://www.oprah.com/food/Vanilla-Peppermint-Cupcakes was an okay option. I just substituted out the peppermint for an extra teaspoon of vanilla extract
- www.cupcakeblog.com had quite a few interesting ideas and some great pictures
- I noticed that whole milk was a decent substitute for buttermilk in most recipes if I used a bit less
- If a recipe called for cake flour I used 7/8 all purpose flour and 1/8 cornstarch and got acceptable results.
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| Dark Chocolate Cupcakes with Fudge Frosting |
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| Old-fashioned Chocolate Cupcakes with Ganache |
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| Practicing some decorating skills |
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| Sprinkles Vanilla Cupcake Recipe |
I think life resembles this process in some ways. While all cupcake recipes may appear to be the same at first glance, even slight variations can produce drastically different results. You may say, "They all contain flour, sugar, some type of leavening, a fat or two, and some flavorings. You blend everything together, put the batter in a cupcake wrapper, then throw the muffin pan in the oven for about 20 minutes. How different could the end results be?"
Many times in the kitchen of life we taste the end product we have created and are disappointed, or we look around and are wish we could have what other's lives have produced. Our immediate response might be to blame someone else for the cupcake that came out of our own oven, or envy what we see in our neighbor's kitchen window. If we don't move past blaming and coveting we will be stuck continually tasting something we didn't even enjoy in the first place.
When I don't like what's coming out of my kitchen, I can either do nothing and keep getting the same results or I can make a change in my ingredients or technique and try again. I wouldn't keep the leftovers around, display them to everyone, talk about how awful it was, reheat them and serve them to others or post a picture just to remind myself! Rehearsing all the "bad" things that have happened in our lives, the wrong that others have done to us, or how we've been hurt, abused or disappointed is like framing the leftovers of life. We can never leave the stink behind and it doesn't usually take long for other people around us to get tired of smelling it, too. Pretty soon the only friends you have will be the ones whose leftovers smell worse than yours!
Proverbs 18:20 in the American King James Version says, "A man's belly shall be satisfied with the fruit of his mouth; and with the increase of his lips shall he be filled." One of the most important ingredients in our kitchen is the words of our own mouth. It's true more than most of us realize or many of us will admit.
Today's recommended recipe: Combining love, thankfulness, peace, joy and expressions of gratitude will be sure to produce a smell sweet enough to make you smile and it will even draw others into your kitchen.
