Cupcakes

Just before Easter (literally one night) I decided to make some cupcakes. Now, one thing worth knowing about me is that if I get something interesting to do stuck in my head generally won’t stop until I achieve whatever it is I’m thinking of, that’s just how I am. Just think of my ice cream business or my smoker! Anyway, I started watching videos on cake decorating and that evolved into buttercream techniques which in turn became cupcakes so, thanks to my compulsive personality (we can thank my dad for that one) I naturally had to try my hand at cupcakes. I decided to make a straightforward cupcake: chocolate cake with a vanilla buttercream. I have to say, they were pretty awesome. I mean, when you think about it, there’s no way a cupcake could be bad; they’re just tiny cakes with the icing to cake ratio way off! In favour of the icing of course. Also, they were super fun to make. I won’t give you the recipe for the cake because you could easily find one you enjoy (if you don’t already have one) but the recipe for buttercream I found is pretty good, also, just because it confused me, use: 3 cups butter, 2 cups sugar, and 1 cup egg whites, just so you don’t need to weigh anything, but, here it is: http://fillinthecake.blogspot.ca/2008/07/wedding-cake-day-1-swiss-meringue.html (just be sparing with this frosting because it is very rich)

So, get inspired!

 

Why Ice Cream? More Like why NOT Ice Cream!

During the months of February and March all of my family had a brush with sickness. Most recently was my mother who was running a fever of 102. During this time I had a craving to break out my ice cream machine, because… I love ice cream. So, I came up with the idea to make a lemon, honey and ginger sorbet. How did I come to this idea? I based it off of a the lemon honey ginger tea that we make when we are sick. So, by cooking a high concentrate tea (boiling water, lemon honey and ginger together and steeping it), chilling it and (once sufficiently chilled) pouring it into my favorite kitchen tool, the ice cream machine. After spending the allotted time in the machine we were ready to eat! And this is what I love about ice cream, you can have an idea come from anywhere and make an ice cream of it, you truly have the power of ultimate creation. So let your creative juices flow free, and make ice cream!

It’s Smokin’ Time

I love having things to do, it’s just who I am; in short, I hate  being bored, that’s for sure. My current culinary project involves: a) an oil drum, b) miscellaneous parts from home depot and c) a bunch of meat. What am I  building? A smoker of course! Yes indeed, my plan for the time from now until the begging of summer is to build an ‘ugly drum smoker’ or ‘uds’ for short. I plan on using this handy little machine to cook allot of beef brisket and… allot of pulled pork cuz that’s just how I roll! Seriously though I am thoroughly stocked to have something that I can build with my friends and have a relatively cheep yet awesome tool to cook up some amazing barbeque! And, to top it off I only need a few parts left until I can start building so by the end of school (at most) I will be blazing that baby up every chance I get. I’m using the plans for the smoker I found here: http://howtobbqright.com/udssmoker.html just in case you feel so inclined as to take a look how it’s done. So, I’ll let you guys know once it is up and running. Until next time: Max.