I vant to eat your cupcake!

Before I moved to the central part of the state, I was involved with a community theatre group that performed musicals every February. Since moving I've really missed being involved with the theatre.

I'm super excited to say that I'm going to be in a local theatre group's performance of Dracula this summer! It's just a small part but this is the first time I've auditioned with them, so hopefully in the future I'll be able to get more substantial roles. Either way, I am so happy to be doing theatre once again!

Tomorrow night is our first rehearsal/read through and it was decided that it would be a potluck type of gathering. Of course, I'm bringing baked goods!!!!!

I decided to make some vampire themed cupcakes!!

I call these "Kiss of the Vampire" cupcakes.

I started with a basic chocolate cake - Pillsbury Devil's Food Cake mix, to be honest.

Then, I used a simple butter knife to gently cut out the middle of the cupcakes, making sure not to put the blade in too deeply. I also ended up putting the blade in at a slight angle. This happens completely naturally just because of the position in which the knife and the cupcake are held. It creates a neat little cone that, by sliding the knife into the cut and applying gentle pressure, makes the center of the cake pop right out!



Next, I carefully spooned some raspberry pie filling into the hole, almost to the top. Leave a little bit of room to put the top of the cupcake back on. This will look like a bloody mess inside the cupcake when someone takes a bite. A delicious, bloody mess!

Take the little cone you removed from the center of the cake and cut the top off - just enough to fit into the remaining space you have left in that cavity. You can do whatever you want with the bottom half of the cone. Personally....when my work area started to get overrun with cake pieces...I ate 'em.

Next, gently place the top back on the cupcake. Try to get any crumbs off the top - a difficult task in itself!

I frosted my cupcakes with a basic vanilla buttercream, which I tinted to a peachy, flesh color. I'll include the buttercream recipe at the end of this post. I only made one batch so I didn't think I had enough to pipe it on, so I opted to smooth it on with a knife/spatula. The tricky part was spreading it over the cake without getting a bunch of crumbs from that cut I made! Spreading the frosting slowly and gently proved to work out fine - a few crumbs here and there but nothing I was very concerned about!

I used a toothpick to make tiny "puncture marks" in the frosting. I tried to use a swirling motion to do this but it turned out to be much easier just to use the toothpick to gently pull frosting away from the cake. If any cake shows through, don't worry - it just got bit, afterall!

Almost looks like a little face, doesn't it?


I then took another toothpick and put drops of the raspberry pie filling into the holes I made and dragged some of it down the frosting to make it look as if the bite marks were dripping blood. I initially thought of using cherry pie filling but opted for raspberry because...chocolate and raspberry is just such a delicious combinations! Mmm Mmm!! I'm glad I went with what I did, not just for taste, but the way the raspberries break up in the filling almost makes it look as if the "blood" is clotting. It worked really well, I think!

And there's a bunch of them! I hope they will be a hit at the rehearsal tomorrow night!

Here's a nice close up - you can see the berry bits where it looks as if it is clotted.

This cupcake was brutally nommed after this picture was taken.

Enjoy!!


Happy Baking!!


Vanilla Buttercream

1/2 cup unsalted butter (1 stick)
3 cups confectioner's sugar
2 tsp vanilla
2-4 tbsp milk

Cream butter until it is fluffy and smooth. Gradually add in the sugar and combine. Doing this gradually will help avoid a cloud of confectioner's sugar exploding all over your kitchen. Add in the vanilla and combine. Add in 2 tbsp of milk and combine. The consistency is entirely up to you - if you would like it to be thinner, add in more milk. I found that 2 tbsp was perfect for me!

To get the peachy, fleshy colored buttercream, I just added 2 drops of red food coloring and 4 drops of yellow.

Let's get Wibbly-Wobbly!

This post is a bit late in coming (like...by a month), so I do apologize. Two jobs, man...two jobs.

March 15th is the day Maine became a state, the day Julius Caesar was murdered and it's the day I was born!! I turned 30 this year.

God, I feel old....

I wanted to do something fun with friends to celebrate, though most of them were unaware that the gathering was in honor of the anniversary of my birth - didn't want to make a big deal of it! I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do so I did what any super awesome nerd would do:

I had a Doctor Who party!!!

Rather than write up a huuuuuuuuuuuuge description of everything we did, I'll share some pictures I took of the decorations and whatnot. Of course, I didn't get pictures during the actual party - cut me some slack, I'm still getting used to this new blog, man!! Everyone came dressed in their best Doctor Who attire - there were bow ties, striped scarves and nerdy t-shirts everywhere!  I'm really kicking myself for not going hog wild on taking pictures.

Next time.

On to the pictures I *did* get!!!!

First, I have two Doctor Who posters gracing the walls of our apartment. The Van Gough "Exploding TARDIS" is in my kitchen:



And I received this gem, currently in my living room, from a friend just before the 50th anniversary episode:

For decorations, I created a bunch of signs with random Doctor-related quotes and sayings, I printed and cut out several Bad Wolf signs and even created a crack in the wall:

(I had this one hanging above the banana daiquiri station. It was the first time I made banana daiquiris. ...I wouldn't call it a success.)

On the back of the bathroom door I had this little surprise. I was hoping it would scare someone. The first person to use the bathroom did so right after we watched Blink. I really wanted to freak someone out!!!

I hung Christmas lights from the ceiling in the living room and this was what our lighting looked like. (The computer and the junk on the coffee table were not there during the party. ;) Well...the pile of Doctor Who DVD's was out..cuz..y'know....)

All of the food was Whovian themed, even if it wasn't made to look like anything from Doctor Who. I had sugar cookies in the shape of TARDISes, K-9, Daleks, sonic screwdrivers and cybermen, I took pretzel rods and dipped them in blue candy coating then covered them with sprinkles and edible stars, I made blue "Sexy" Punch. Anything that wasn't obviously Doctor Who themed was given an appropriate title, such as: "Cheese and Crackers of Rassilon," chips were "Sontaran Crisps," and a veggie tray was called "Gallifreyan Vegetables." Everything had a sign. :)
Those who were really brave had actual fish fingers dipped in the pudding - pretty much everyone. It actually wasn't that bad! 

I had everyone write down the titles of their favorite episodes on pieces of paper, which were placed inside a TARDIS tea pot. We took turns pulling out the papers to choose which episodes we were going to watch. I'm happy so many of us wanted to watch The Unicorn and the Wasp!! :D It's one of the stranger episodes but I love it so much!!

And I just had to put these fine fellows on top of the tv!! (They're totally still there, too!!)

I apologize for the bluriness of the photos - I'm using my phone as a camera. And I PROMISE, I'll get more decent pictures for the next nerdy party!!

Until next time!

ALLONS-Y!!

Nomming o' the Green

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

I love this holiday - I've got a little bit of everything in my blood and I know there's Irish in there somewhere, so I can celebrate this day for realsies!
Plus, green is one of my favorite colors.

And I like beer.

One of the best things about holidays is festive baking!! Cupcakes and cookies can get super adorable to the point where you don't even want to eat them.

For St. Paddy's Day 2015, I went for "End of the Rainbow" cupcakes.

I started with a yellow cake mix (it probably would have been better to go with white but honestly, I was making these late at night and I just didn't want to separate the egg whites from the yolks) and added a bit of mint extract and a few drops of green food coloring.

I also had about 1/3 of a bag of mini chocolate chips, so I threw those in as well.

I used a tablespoon to scoop the batter into the cupcake liners. I always put two tablespoons of batter into each cup. I find that it's the perfect amount - the cupcakes plump up over the liner just enough!

I baked the cupcakes for about 20 minutes at 350 degrees.

After they had cooled, I used a can of store-bought vanilla frosting (I know, homemade buttercream is so much better, but again..late at night and I work two jobs. Limited time, man) I had tinted green. Because I found that the cupcakes weren't very minty, I added a bit more flavoring to the frosting as well.

For the decorations, I bought a package of AirHeads Extremes - the rainbow kind - and some Rolos.

I cut the AirHeads into thirds.



I put a few spoonfuls of plain white, vanilla frosting into a plastic sandwich baggie, then cut a small hole in one corner. I piped two small "clouds" on each cupcake, then gently placed the ends of the rainbows in each cloud.

On one side of the rainbows, I placed a Rolo - the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow!!!

They were super cute, super festive and, according to one of the grad students in the physics department, "f%&king amazing."

Welcome!

Greetings, friend!

Welcome to one of my few spots located here on the Interwebz. I have another blog for book reviews, located at Book Shop Girl, as well as a few pages that have been lost over the years.

If you're here than you're either a fellow knitter, a fellow baker, or you're a friend and I made you check it out! ;)

This is where I'm going to share some of my nerdy baking and knitting projects, as well as a few random ramblings when the mood strikes me.

It should get very interesting and super fun!

For those of you who don't know me personally, allow me to introduce myself! I'm from a small town in northern Maine, though I moved to the southern part of the state about three years ago. I've been married to my fellow nerdy husband for a little over a year now. No little ones yet, though we're starting to talk about it.

I currently work as a part-time secretary in a college physics department and as a part-time retail associate (I know its weird - I'm an English major but I work in the physics office. It was the first job I got when I moved downstate and nowhere else can beat the pay!! Plus, I've made some great friends there!). I'm waiting less than patiently to find out if I have been accepted into an English Literature Master's program. If so, I will be able to leave the retail job at the end of the summer!! If you have ever worked retail you know how awful it can be and I'm sure you understand why I want to get out as soon as possible.

I love to cook and bake lots of yummy things and give them to my friends and family. The smile on a loved one's face upon receiving a rubber ducky cupcake brings me immeasurable joy. I also enjoy knitting and while I still have a lot to learn in both the baking and knitting areas, I still have a blast trying new things and creating something wonderful from a few ingredients or skeins of yarn.

I'm a huge nerd so expect a lot of nerdy things to be posted here. I recently finished a pair of mittens with the Stark direwolf sigil from Game of Thrones. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of them before I gave them to a friend. Obviously, I just need to make another pair! One of my most recent epic knitting projects was the scarf belonging to the 4th incarnation of Doctor Who! Pictures have yet to be taken of this but will be added shortly!

I hope this will be a place for awesome, nerdy, crafty fun!

I look forward to sharing a bit of awesomeness with you!

<3,

D.