Mean Little Cookie

I was overcome last week.  You know when you get an idea, and it just sort of burbles around in your head and you practically have to act on the idea in self-defence, just to make it go away?  Well, my brain conjured up an mental image of me, eating a cookie with Fat Ass emblazoned on it.  Not that I think my ass is fat or anything, certainly not.  But before this degenerates into a post about my buttock region, here's a picture:

This [cake] is bananas, B!A!N!A!N!A!S!

Apologies to Ms Stefani, but look at this, would you?

Pretty foxy huh?  You'd never guess they were *gasp* banana flavoured.  I don't know if you can see from there, but I even did teensy little stamen things on the flowers (spent a looong time picking out yellows out of the hundreds and thousands mixture... boy, do I suffer for my art).  Not that I brag or anything, you understand... I'm just particularily proud of the fact that I managed to hold my gorge for an hour and a half while I was baking these.

Habit Forming

So I'm trying to get into the habit of making muffins on a Sunday afternoon. My first attempt was blueberry, and let me tell you... not as successful as I would have liked.  Not, y'know, bad or anything, just not as light and gorgeous as they should be.  I really don't know if it was just the recipe I was following, possibly the fact that I didn't use buttermilk (like half the internet told me I should... in fact, do you know how hard it is to find a muffin recipe that doesn't have buttermilk in it?  I do, and trust me, it's hard).  This recipe wasn't a buttermilk recipe, but... I don't know, there was something about those blueberry muffins that didn't grab me by the tastebuds and whirl me around the room in a daze of wonderful.

Am I expecting too much from these muffins?  Whatever gives you that idea?

In the Very Early Morning Kitchen

Sorry, Maurice Sendack fans, I couldn't resist it.  

Unfortunately, these little beauties don't have that much in common with Mickey and his adventures in the milk of the night kitchen... Um, I suppose you do make batter when you're making cupcakes, but that's about where the similarity ends.  By the by, did you know that 'In the Night Kitchen' has been a banned book in some public libraries in the US, because of the *gasp* drawing of a penis!?  I know... but I digress. 

I couldn't sleep this morning... my husband is off to Germany on Sunday morning, and I confess to being a tad worried about him.  Not that he is at all incapable of looking after his fine self, but you know.  I sometimes think that I wouldn't be happy if I didn't have something to worry about, but (sheesh!) I digress again.  If I don't start talking about these cupcakes now, I guess I never will.

It's funny, with cupcakes, once you start talking to people about them, everyone has a fantasy flavour.  One of

 my workmates was telling me how much she lurves coconut ice, and wouldn't it be perfect if there was a coconut ice cupcake?  Well, now there is.  Again, I just used a basic scratch white cake recipe, but like the Peggy Bundy cupcakes, these had a slight deviation in the milk - I used a wee bit of coconut cream for a coconut flavour (what other flavour were you expecting?).  There was also meant to be a secret marshmallow inside the cupcakes, but I'd forgotten what commercial marshmallow does when you heat it... it froths, and it just doesn't stop 'til it reaches the top.  Or something.  *sigh* Now I'm all tired... Dang you, crazy brain!!  So as you can see from the photo, they kind of burst out.  But that's not something that a bit of frosting can't disguise...

Aah, perfection!  

And with a little toasted coconut too, just for kicks.  The frosting is usual buttercream with not so much butter, and a lot more coconut cream.  So its a wee bit more runny than usual, but that doesn't matter... at least not in my opinion.  These are just the right size to ram in your gob once you get all the wrapping off (easier said than done with that big hunk of sticky marshmallow inside).  Next time, no marshmallow.  In fact, next time, I'll just roll over and go back to sleep.... which is what I'm going to do now.