We Used to Vacation

Sweet Lord, how lazy can you get?  No posts in months, barely done any writing of any description, and no good excuse apart from the fact that it's summer (or nominally summer here, since it's frickin' windy and so rainy that the damn stuff is coming in the french doors... hence the towels strewn liberally around the house) and I've got better things to do than slave away in the kitchen over a hot cupcake.

Oh yeah, so welcome to 2010, y'all.  I'm not usually a one for New Year resolutions, but I'm endevouring to be better at the whole writing thing this year.  I'm about half way through a teaser for the comic that Ngaio and I are doing, a bunch of myths for my creepy magical friends.  I have a scary feeling that they are coming off a bit half-arsed or even worse, naff fantasy shite, but I'm trusting to Ngaio to keep me on the straight and narrow.  Hear that, girl?  Oh yeah, and I'm sorry I missed your birthday, but I'm going to come and visit as soon as I get my shit sorted, okay?

No Big Plans, But a Good Idea

Wowee, so my friend Anna came up with this delicious sounding cupcake combo... lemon and passionfruit. Oooooheeeeee... as someone who is very keen on the whole soury-sweety mixture, this sounds like a goer, but I'd have to change the name that she came up with for it. Not that the name that she came up with is bad, it just reminds me a bit too much of that song from Grease 'Summer Lovin', which I then start to sing in my head. Which I then start to sing out loud. Which is not a good thing. Oh yeah, I was thinking of calling them 'Sour Times' (with a nod and smile at Portishead.)

Buy Me a Pony

Oh my Godzilla, was that Cupcake Day?  More like Cupcake Two-Hours!  Yeesh!  If I'd have known what a ravenous pack of... ravens... was going to descend on our wee cupcake stand, I'd have baked more!

No, that is a horrible lie.  I would not have baked more.  I baked twenty four cupcakes on Sunday, in two different flavours, and with all the icing them and sticking them into cute little cellophane bags (which seemed like an awesome idea at the time, but turned out to be a truly unholy nightmare by the time I was actually doing it), I was SO over it.  But on some small level, it was worth it when I saw the flock of people who rocked up to support us and the SPCA.  We made $64 in donations alone, which was super, so our grand total for the two hours was $303, which is pretty darn awesome in anyones book.

Notes for next year would be to sell the cupcakes for more - maybe two dollars was too cheap?  Next year we might do three dollars or two for five.  And we'll bake other stuff too, turn it into a bakesale type thing.  But, Dang!  It was kind of exhausting organising it, but it was worth it!

Oh yeah, I didn't say which flavours I went with!  After much panicky reading of the ingredients lists of all the margarines in the supermarket (so many of them have milky type things in them!  Gah!)  I went to Commonsense Organics, as you do when you're looking for veganriffic things.  After much prowling of the aisles looking confused, I spoke to a charming assistant who assured me that Olivani has no milk badness in it, and is totally fine to use in baking.  Which it was.  Phew.  So... it was chocolate cupcakes with caramel frosting (with blue sugar crystal topping) and white chocolate and cherry flavours.  I really think the white chocolate and cherry has major potential for the White Stripes cupcake, and since now I have about seven thousand red cupcake papers with white spots, I'll have to think up a few more uses for them!  But for now, I don't think I even want to think about cupcakes for at least three days.  Maybe make that two.

Sugar Never Tasted So Good

So... after seeing 'It Might Get Loud' a few weeks ago as part of the New Zealand Film Festival, I've been a tad... not obsessed, strictly, but it would be close, with the imagery of the White Stripes.  I'll tell you a wee bit about the film - it's... er... stars?  Subjects is probably a better word, are Jack White (of the White Stripes), The Edge (from U2), and *gasp* JIMMY PAGE.  Yes.  He deserves all caps for being a rock god of the highest order.  He also comes across during the film as a rather charming individual.  They talk about guitars a bit, but they also talk about what made them love music... I was worried that this movie was going to be all guitar geekery, and although I can read guitar mags with the best of them, I wouldn't know a Humbucker from a wah pedal.  But it's really not - its a bit music geek in parts (especially The Edge's bits, that man is a technical genius) but that what makes it so fun! Anywho, I digress.

I have to say that I've always been interested in the way that rock (and I guess, musicians in general, but rock happens to be the main bulk of the music that I like) musicians surround themselves with images.  Oooh, actually, there is a fantastic book called Band ID   which is incredibly interesting, well, mostly it's pictures of band logos, but it's really fascinating to compare the logos of bands of the same musical type kind of look the same (even those from supposedly 'alternative' bands... we're all the same in our individuality, it seems).  That was a total digression again, but since it's my blog, y'all are just gonna have to put up with it. 

 

What does all of this have to do with baking?  Well, I'll tell you (you deserve it after persevering through all those digressions!) - since we here at the BCB are entirely motivated by external influence, I feel in my innermost soul that it may be time for a White Stripes cupcake.  Well, I'll start with the White Stripes anyway, because they have the most distinctive palate (har har) of colours, of pretty much any band I know.  Simple and delicious (hopefully) white cake, red-and-white peppermint frosting ... ooh, just had another idea... a Stairway to Heaven cupcake (jumbo size, Guinness and chocolate cupcake, cream cheese frosting, gold leaf sprinkles)...  I don't think poor U2 will make the cupcake grade - they need a proper big cake, maybe a layer cake?  Hmn, I might have to think about this, but it gives me something to ponder....  and I do love a good ponder.

The Heart and Stomach of a King

Well, now that I'm thinking of famous women to pay homage to in baked goods form, I can't seem to get past the idea of Queen Elizabeth I.  She is one of my favourite historical figures, just because she comes off as such a hardass, when really she seems to me to just have a big front so no-one would know how petrified she was of losing power.  I mean, you can hardly blame her, it was a psycho time to be a ruler of anywhere, but especially scary for Elizabeth when you consider how her claim to the throne was put under such scrutiny before her reign had even begun, and to be dogged her whole life with the ghost of her mother (not literally of course, but it must have left a pretty big psychological scare once she found out why Mumsie wasn't around) plus that crafty Mary, Queen of Scots lurking perpetually in the wings, and the Spanish and French always trying to do her in.  Tough times to be a queen.... Jeez, PLUS all the pressure to get married and start pushing out the babies.  Give a girl a break already!

The great thing about Elizabeth I from a stylistic point of view is that she has these very defined 'looks' that identify her... for one thing her famous red hair.  Elizabeth was apparently very vain about her hair, and was always interested in setting it off just so.  So she wears a lot of strong colours, mostly black and white combos, which I can totally dig (my wardrobe being heavy on the self-same colours).  She also loved pearls, as you can see from the above picture - girl is literally covered in them... pearls in her hair, on her dress, around her neck (you can't see her shoes, but I bet she would have had them attached to them too... hey, if less is more, then more is enough, right?!)

So, how does this sound: red velvet cupcake, a chocolatey flavoured one, not a vanilla.  A spicy (cinnamonny, nutmeggy, maybe a wee bit of ginger) cream cheese icing.  And pearl cachous to decorate.  Huh?  Huh?  My mouth is watering just thinking about it.  Or maybe it's just time for dinner... heehee.