Red Velvet and a DELICIOUS buttercream!

WHERE has the time gone?? Didn't I promise you all a red velvet cupcake recipe?? Pretty sure I did. Sorry! I'll get to that in a second! Unfortunately, I do not have step by step pics to go with it, but I am sure I will make them again soon, and then I will remember to take pictures! Promise...I hope.

How's your weekend been? Mine was pretty good! Hubband and I went to the Bacon, Brews and Blues festival at the fairgrounds. It was just kinda ok. So, that was disappointing...Had a few good tastings, and left after only an hour and a half! OH WELL! We are both recovering from being sick, so it wasn't too big of a blow to the weekend. Then we just watched movies and I baked. (did something fun with my chocolate chip cookie recipe!, you'll see later!) I also wanted to make us a new breakfast...that post to follow as well...It will be a baking failure post. Not too thrilled about that. Here are a couple pics of our favorite tastings from the festival.

 little blt sandwiches with extra sides of bacon. Beef bacon! YUM!

I can't even remember what they called this. Look at it. Does it matter?

Fried freakin pork belly! This was my fave! Holy crap.

I did rage a bit this AM when I went to make a "baked french toast recipe" that I had been wanting to try. I think I used the wrong bread...didn't work so much, and, well....I was PISSED. Almost tossed the whole damn pan out the kitchen door. Hubband stopped me. I do not take it well when my baking fails. It ruins my whole day, nothing can go right after that. I have failed at something I love, and for me, that means that the world is clearly ending...right?! Hubband disagrees and this is something I need to work on...says he. Anger management might be in order here.

In the past week or so, since we last spoke....er, read??? I have been making a few different things. The most recent treats were...Banana cupcakes with brown sugar buttercream, banana cupcakes with cinnamon buttercream (my new fave). Pumpkin cupcakes with cinnamon buttercream (ahhhhhmazing!) And my experiment with my chocolate chip cookies. The first attempt with banana cupcakes was also a failure. Rage set in and an ENTIRE stand mixer bowls worth of batter got tossed. I tried something else the following day and had success, but my rage pretty much lasted until then. Just like today, the rage lasted until I started making the cookies. Thank GOODNESS those were a success or there would have been trouble! Ugh, can't talk about the failures anymore, it upsets my tummy!

Here is your red velvet cupcakes! If you are a red velvet lover like I am, then PLEASE make these and leave me a comment and tell me how much you loved them. Even if you have (ugh) to make it with cream cheese frosting. (weirdo)

Red velvet cupcakes 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour 2 cups sugar 1 Tablespoon cocoa 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon baking soda 2 eggs 1 cup oil (this was at 1 1/2 cups. I lowered it to 1 cup and it is perfect!) 1 cup buttermilk 1 Tablespoon apple cider vinegar (I love using apple cider vinegar, original recipe is for regular) 1 teaspoon vanilla 1-2 oz red food coloring (depending on how red you want)  Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease cupcake tins or use paper liners. I prefer liners. Lightly stir eggs in a medium bowl with a wire whisk. Add remaining liquid ingredients including food coloring, and stir together with whisk until blended. Set aside. Place all the dry ingredients in separate mixing bowl and stir together really good with another wire whisk. Add wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix on medium-high for about a minute or until completely combined. Pour into cupcake pans and then drop the pans on the counter a few times to release any air bubbles. (if you want, I forget this step quite often and they always turn out great) Bake for about 15-18 min or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Or you can check when you start to smell them baking. Mine are usually pretty close to done at that point. Let cool a few min in the pan then remove from pans to continue cooling.   Then. Top with THIS buttercream! Light and creamy! PERFECTION! Kick Ass Buttercream  (Swiss Meringue Buttercream) 1 cup sugar 4 egg whites 3 sticks plus 2tbs butter (unsalted! I love the challenge brand unsalted) make sure the butter is room temp, not cold!  1tsp vanilla (or any flavor you like) Over a double boiler, whisk egg whites and sugar over med heat until sugar dissolves and you can no longer feel the granules. 5-10 min ( some sugar bits will stick to the sides, just scrape as you go, you won't get it all, that's fine. Just as much and as best as you can) Transfer mixture into a new mixing bowl (stand mixer, PLEASE I hope you have one! If not, that's ok, but it will improve your quality of life. I am sure of it) and whip until it turns white and about doubles in size. (when you put the mixture in the bowl to whip it make sure you wipe the condensation off the bottom of the bowl so that no water gets into the egg whites. This can keep them from whipping up properly.) Add the vanilla. Finally, add the butter a stick at a time and whip, whip, whip the shit out of it! If it curdles, your butter was too cold and it shocked it. Keep whipping, it will be like magic and come right together when you don't expect it to! If it is soupy and your butter was too warm, just put the whole bowl in the fridge for 15-20 min, the whip it again, repeat if necessary. Do not have a panic attack if this takes a while to come together. Sometimes it looks soupy, but just keep going and it will come together as a wonderful buttercream!! I have only had one time where I thought I ruined it somehow but a min after I panicked, it whipped into shape! Pipe or spread on to your cakes or cupcakes. YUM! Oh! Did I tell you...My co-worker, who received these for her birthday, has asked me to do the cupcakes for her wedding in May! So excited! She wants cream cheese frosting, I guess I can accommodate the bride! Until Next time! (Becky, I am working on my dark chocolate, I will have it for you soon!) Grumpy Baking! B A list of things to come: In no particular order... Dark Chocolate Chili Cupcakes Dark Chocolate cupcakes with maple buttercream and CANDIED BACON (I know you saw THAT post) Banana cupcakes with a brown sugar buttercream AND cinnamon buttercream Pumpkin cupcakes with cinnamon buttercream Chocolate chip cookies with some adjustments! Baked blueberry french toast FAILURE :( Banana cupcakes FAILURE :( Halloween cupcakes with candy melts shapes (ya know, bones and skulls and stuff!)

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Candied Bacon!!!

OK, So I have been behind on getting these recipes to you all! I know a bunch of you (I am guessing, the 4-6 followers I have) wanted to have some candied bacon (honestly, who wouldn't? Well, besides one of my besties, Marco, but he's a weirdo, I took bacon chocolate chip cookies to work when we lived in Hawaii, and he picked the bacon out and ate it separate from the rest of the cookie!). I even made more candied bacon to have in the fridge so it is there for a snack! Not just a cupcake topping, people! Oh the things we could do! Here you go, I hope it is not too terribly overwhelming for you! Here is where my inspiration came from. It was all I could do to not run right home in the middle of the day to make these with cupcakes!

Ingredients:
12 slices bacon
1/2 Cup brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
(optional) give it some spice and add some cayenne pepper! Yum!

Preheat oven to 350. Line a baking sheet with foil and put a wire rack (well sprayed) on top of said baking sheet.

* Mix the brown sugar, cinnamon and optional cayenne pepper.
* Press the bacon into the sugar mixture, coating both sides.
* Place coated bacon on wire racked cookie sheet
* Bake at 350 for 15 to 20 min. Until bacon is nice and caramelized and starting to look crispy. I always burn the very ends. But I really don't care. It's still amazing!
* Remove bacon as soon as you can, so it doesn't cool and stick to the wire rack.
* These are delicious, warm or cooled! I think there are so many other things we can try these on! Let me know what you do with them!

I may have forgotten to take pictures of the final product, but take my word for it. Delicious! ENJOY!

Until next time (which will be soon, you all need a red velvet and a buttercream recipe, don't you!?).

Grumpy Baking!

B

(Almost) EVERYBODY loves BACON!

HOOOOOLY COW! Hi guys! What's it been? Over a week??! So sorry! Things have been CRIZAZY with the Davidson's! (I'm so exhausted, I don't even know why the hell I said crizazy).  Here is a little break down. I will just start with last Monday.

Came home from work last Monday, and hubband called me to say he fell at football and needed to go to the ER. Landed on his shoulder and could have pulled/torn/broken something. Well, for those that don't already know the end result, he was right. Broken collarbone! Suhweet deal dude! No. No. Not so much. Hubband was put in a sling for 3 weeks. We did pick him up a super sweet figure 8 sling, at the request of a dear friend and physical therapist that I used to work with. Seems to be a bit more comfortable in that. One week down as of tonight! He is uncomfortable and cranky (understandably). Honestly though, most guys kinda sorta A LOT turn into giant babies when they are sick or hurt. Hubband is no exception. But, I love him to pieces, so I will allow it. He can be the cupcake tester since he's down for the count!

Thursday last week was a co-workers birthday. She LOVES red velvet, so I made red velvet cupcakes with  vanilla swiss meringue buttercream. I have said it once and I will say it again, I hate cream cheese frosting, I don't know why, I just can't get on board with it. So, her cupcakes were made with buttercream. It's fine, they're better that way. Trust me. Here is a couple crappy pics I took with my phone. One day, I 'll have a grown up camera.

 MMMMMMM! They were a hit.

Friday's I get off work at 2:00pm, I love that, it gives me extra time to get stuff done! Like bake new recipes! I came home and started making chocolate chili cupcakes (recipe to be blogged tomorrow night. I'm tired as hell). I think I'll re name them "chocolate red pepper cupcakes" because of the red pepper flakes and I do have some other variations I want to try with these ones also. I took them to the bar we go to every Friday night and they were a hit! Even the one that landed in my face when I tripped on the way to the bar was eaten! Score! Here is what those looked like.

Who wouldn't love chocolate with a little heat! These had some kick!

Saturday was the Navy Birthday Ball! Happy 237th birthday US NAVY! We got all gussied up ( I even paid to get my hair done, and learned how to apply make up! Big deal, people) and went to  the Naval Post Graduate School where they have a huge ballroom, dancing, food, friends, PHOTO BOOTH! (went back 3 times!) Always a fun time! I wish I had taken a picture of the cake, it was cute! However, they cake they served, which I found out was not the cake on display, was definitely not up to par. Bland chocolate, I don't think I'd even call it cake. It was weird. Jeremy had the lemon. That one was good!  Here are a few pics from the evening.

Isn't that sling awesome?! What a trooper!

Sunday, we drove up to Benicia to see some friends we hadn't seen in 4 years! Jeremy's friends Angelo and Chris were having a birthday party for their 2 year old son. It was at a great park, so the kids weren't all cooped up (around me) and were able to roam freely. (kids "roam", right?). Great weather and awesome to see them again! We will definitely head back up to visit soon!

That brings us to today. ALL day, for some reason, I kept thinking about wanting to make candied bacon. THEN I had to figure out what kind of cupcake/frosting combo I wanted to put it with. Here is what I did. DARK chocolate cupcakes with maple swiss meringue buttercream and candied bacon on top! Dudes. Seriously, this candied bacon rocks. I could just eat it as a snack by the fist full! But I wont. Tonight. Hubband loved these cupcakes, but has requested that there be candied bacon in every bite! We will see, I may have to play around with this one a bit more. I will post this recipe soon too. Like I said. Tired as hell. Here are the candied bacon cupcakes!

Seriously awesome. I will also post how to make the candied bacon. Super easy. So easy, you may find yourself making it, "just cause"

I really didn't have much to rant/rage about this time (sorry, Loper). It was almost like I was too busy to get angry, that can't happen. I knew I felt weird. I had so many things to get you all caught up on from the past week, but I do want you to know, I road raged pretty hard today. So with that, good night and grumpy baking!

B

DUN DUN DUUUUUUUNN!! Poll results! And why you should always chew with your mouth closed.

First off...the much anticipated poll results from the "cheese on a stick" post. The winners are......"NO"! Whaaat!? haha! Kidding, I thought that might happen. With a whopping 21 total votes on this poll, 11 of you voted that you would not, in fact, put ketchup on your cheese on a stick or grilled cheese sandwich. 10 said, "YES! Yes I will!" We didn't lose by much! 

Enough of that now. More polls on more fun things will come later. The real reason for this post today, is not because I was baking something (I did make banana bread last week though, I will post that recipe and pics later), it is because I have to rage about something that happened at work.

If you remember, from my "about me" page (go read it or re-read it if you are not familiar), I am NOT a fan of "mouth noises" I cannot stand...open mouth chewers, talking with your mouth full, smacking, slurping, sucking, crunching...just typing this makes me shudder. Sooooo, you can imagine what was going through my head today, when I was preforming an ultrasound on a patient and she proceeded to smack, suck and crunch on a hard candy! Hard candies are one of the worst! The anger built up in my tummy for the full 8 min that this ultrasound lasted, and believe me, I couldn't get away from her fast enough! (Additionally, she is crazy, but that is beside the point).

Now, I am deaf in one ear, so that itself is a bit of a challenge sometimes, and I do my best to put things  I don't want to listen to on my "bad side" (left). I always have to have the phone on my right ear and I do a lot of lip reading...you may have to yell at me sometimes, and do not try to talk to me when I can't see you. So, do you think these awful crunchy smacking noises could have happened when this crazy woman was on my "bad side"?? Nooooooo nooooo! Full on mouth noises going on right at my "perfectly functioning, hears REALLY well since it is the only working one I have", ear. Let's just say, it made my tummy hurt. I mean, hubband has to sit on my left side when he eats, just so I don't hear anything, and he isn't even an open mouth chewer! I think I have been preaching the whole "no mouth noises" thing since I was 11 or 12. Check with my dad, he can tell you. Poor guy couldn't even eat soup around me. Now he slurps it just to piss me off. It works.

Now, growing up, I was an open mouth chewer (not for long!) Let me tell you how I fixed that. My mom and dad taught us table manners, but my favorite uncle, Dick, scared them into me! Sadly, uncle Dick passed away back in 2005 and we all miss him mucho! But dammit if he wasn't a great time! My uncle Dick was awesome, he put up with ZERO bullshit, from anyone....could be where my cousins Becky and Kelli get it. Just a guess. (I may have learned a few things there too).  Now, uncle dick taught me many things that have helped me as I grew up. Personally, I think that the two most important things I learned from him were...1. always chew with your mouth closed! 2. How to use my e-break on a hill when driving a stick shift! (that's another post for another day, but I think of him often when doing this!)

Uncle Dick was a big advocate for table manners and respect and he made sure that, whether it was his own kids, or his nieces and nephews, he was going to instill these manners into you! It worked. Or.... the more likely option, the noises annoyed the shit out of him just as much as they do me, and he wanted us all to shut the hell up and eat quietly... I am going with that. Either way, because of his help I was able to teach others all about table manners...Enter, my baby sister, Marti! I just beat the manners into her. Now, she is good to go! No more loud eating from her!

I can sense that I rambled. Basically, EAT QUIETLY! If I can hear you, it's a problem. Remember, I am half deaf! If I can hear it, it must be loud! So please, if you want hard candies, please enjoy them in the privacy of your own home, car, or better yet, daily run. :) Like I used to tell my sisters and my dad. "can't you just let the cereal get soggy before you eat it? It's awfully crunchy".  Apparently too much to ask! If you "can't breathe" because of some nasal problem and you need to be an open mouth chewer, just get an IV and save the rest of us the the tummy troubles. I am going to quietly go enjoy some jelly beans now. Until next time! Grumpy baking!

B