Quick post... Cake flavour related... BRILLIANT!
Guiness cupcake flavour domination is getting a tad alarming! I've more or less had to forsake all other baking to fill orders for these perfect little cakes... And its obvious why thats so. Guiness cupcakes with Guiness buttercream are a thing of absolute beauty!
I experimented with this cupcake for days and finally settled on a combination of flavours and techniques that are, in my humblest of opinions, BLOW-MIND!!! Not to toot my own horn or anything, these babies are amazing! I still can not wrap my mind around the fact that my hands are capable of making them. The cakes themselves are the most perfectly moist, airy, pillowy, delicious things I've ever baked! They're so moist in fact that when I first cut in to a cupcake from the final draft of the recipe I was sure it was under cooked! It was love at first bite though and I'm really happy with how well received they've been.
For our sale last weekend I topped them with Guiness buttercream that is the real Guiness vehicle in the equation. While the cakes are unmistakably Guiness, the buttercream really brings all of the flavours to the fore front and rounds everything out. I think that in future incarnations I will experiment a bit with Swiss meringue by either filling the cakes with the meringue and topping it with buttercream or flip that scenario.
A few quick notes before I get back to work (sorry for the distracted sounding post... sneaking some blog time)... Guiness cupcakes and all of their alcohol inspired cousins are, in actual fact, alcohol free. I flavour them with syrupy reductions of the actual alcohol and in doing that all of the boose is cooked off. Clever! It means that you get a serious quick of an unmistakable flavour with out the side effects of a night of binge drinking... Or eating in this case. I have a customer who is a little worried that when she over indulges on these c-cups she'll feel tipsy but its just not going to happen!
Look out for all my other C-Cup Delinquent incarnations coming soon! Tequila with lime curd filling and salted buttercream, Creme de Cassis, Puncheon Rum, Red Wine... I intend to spend many hours experimenting my way threw numerous bottles of booze!
Again... Apologise for the rushed nature of this entry!
Friday, August 20, 2010
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Yesterday Felt Like Christmas!
"Yesterday" had to make up somehow for the night I spent before "yesterday" broke... To put it nicely, I barfed up undigested goobs of lamb from dinner and was convinced that on of those globules would somehow lodge it self in my throat causing me to asphixiate, fall to the ground and die. Did I mention the fact that I am a professional hypochondriac? Talent all over the place! To give myself some semblance of credit, I really only turn in to a rabid hypochondriac when someone I know gets terminally ill and/or dies. I'd like to end this paragraph asking for a prayer for Kabir Hussain and his family and friends.
To add insult to the injury of the reappearance of my dinner, I chose the night before "yesterday' as the night I'd start on a new book. And which book did I chose? I needed a book that would pacify my panic over our present situation, a book that would make me kick myself in the ass for ever complaining about said present situation, a book that would remind me that no matter how dispearing our situation maybe, there are millions of people in desperate throws of cruel realities. I needed a book that would slap me in the face really. I scoured my Aunt's rather impressive library and chose... the most depressing, gut wrenching, HORRIFYING(!!!) book on the shelves... "Not Without My Daughter". I'd seen the movie and really didn't think it could be much worse than that. I seem to have developed a habit for being wrong somewhere along the journey of my life. Jesus Christ! It is single handedly the most disturbing book I've ever read! But that didn't stop me from devouring it between the bouts of barf and I put away two hundred and sixty (260) pages that night alone, keeping myself awake with tears and revultion until 4.30am.
So yesterday started much like any other... I woke up and had a little "what the fuck will this day bring" moment in my bed while Wee B got in her summer-time extra hour of sleep beside me. I fixed breakfast for myself and chatted with my Aunty A and then my blackberry rang and it was S.I.L Tanya calling me from Barbados! It was so good to hear her voice that I nearly cried when I heard her on the other line! We spoke for nearly forty (40) minutes, I chatted a bit with Miniature Carrie Bradshaw, caught up on live in Cotton Bay and how much I wasn't missing by being away. It was a wonderful way to start the day and I felt a tiny bit closer to the prize.
After Tan-Tan's call I called my horrible sister Evil who hadn't called me since she arrived last Friday and had Wee B and I wondering if we'd done something to vex her. She came over in the afternoon to take us to lime at her in-law's house and we spent the rest of the afternoon loving C-Boy up so much that I was sure he'd be happy when we left. While we were there Evil forked over THE SHOES and I fell head first in to love with them! Then she gave me the four accidental mini squeeze bottles that magically made their way from my "save for later" list in to my shopping cart (naughty Amazon!) and on a plane to Bim. I was going to sell them but I'm having an affair with them behind THE SHOES' back and I can't let them go! Trumping both THE SHOES and mini squeeze bottles came my old faithful soul mate, the one I'd even dump THE SHOES for...
When I was fifteen (15) my daddy spoiled me thusly... I'd been working in the kitchen of a restaurant he'd designed and droolled over my Chef's knives... They were Henkles of Germany, the blade was rivited in to the handles and they were engraved with his name on them... If knives can be sensual then these should have their own chapter in the Kama Sutra! My big brother John had sent me a kitchen catalog and I poured over this thing, repeatedly, every single night. I made notes in the margins and filled out two of the order forms (this was before the days of online shopping) and day dreamed about faxing through my request and getting a big ol' package in the mail. My list consisted of a starter block of the same knives my chef worked with... A 9" chef's knife, a 9" carver, a 6" serated and a 2 1/2" pairing knife. Also on the list was the item that has remaind my most prized material possesion EVER! A beautiful, gleaming, powerful, LIMITED EDITION(!!!) Kitchen Aid crank bowl mixer! I will never forget the day my daddy came in to my room to ask me if I was ready to fax threw my order! I nearly fainted!
To put it mildly, the THREE (3) months that I waited, impatiently as hell, for my precious knives and mixer to arrive felt like torture! My dad had arranged for them to be delivered to one of his client's homes in Miami so that said client could ship it with the shipment he was bringing in for the opening of his restaurant (that my dad designed also). In a taunting stroke of coincidence, the restaurant I worked in belonged to the nephew of my dad's client who was shipping my precious goods and it just so happened that the two restaurants were on side by side lots and when I was assembling desserts in my kitchen I could look straight in to their kitchen AND their delivery bay. I swear I ruined a number of required presentation thanks to the distraction of next door. I begged my chef to let me work the dessert station and even promised him the recipe for my cheese cake (which I never gave him) if he'd let me stay there. Thanks to that empty promise I watched three forty foot containers of industrial kitchen stuff offload in to the bay next door and saw the exact moment that my two large boxes technically landed in Trinidad.
I won't bore y'all with the details of my love for my Kitchen Aid mixer but I will tell you this... When I touched down in Trinidad on the 1st of July my very first thought was about the fact that I was in the same country as my Kitchen Aid mixer. I hadn't laid eyes on it in the four years its been since I've lived in Barbados. During all of our time apart my beautiful mixer has been, or so I thought, on Evil's mother-in-law's brother's (yup!) kitchen counter out in St. Augustine (East Trinidad). When I knew we'd be spending the afternoon in St. Augustine my heart started to feel like it was filling up with the same impatient excitment I remember from childhood Christmases. And when I asked Evil's mother-in-law if we could take a drive to her brother's house to get it she said we didn't need to because it was under the sink of her own kitchen!
I felt drunk with this heady excitment and I literally ran to the kitchen and pulled it out from under the sink with the same measure of joy that brave fathers who help deliver their babies feel! I couldn't believe I was seeing it, touching it even. It brought back such happy memories of my dad, cooking and youth to me! It may be silly to feel like this over an inanimate object but it means so much to me from a nostalgic stand point but for because I have had to beat EVERYTHING I bake by hand and that slows me down so much... I'll be a much happier MasterBaker with it back in my life again.
I love days like yesterday. Small things make me so happy! Merry Not-Exactly-Christmas everyone!
To add insult to the injury of the reappearance of my dinner, I chose the night before "yesterday' as the night I'd start on a new book. And which book did I chose? I needed a book that would pacify my panic over our present situation, a book that would make me kick myself in the ass for ever complaining about said present situation, a book that would remind me that no matter how dispearing our situation maybe, there are millions of people in desperate throws of cruel realities. I needed a book that would slap me in the face really. I scoured my Aunt's rather impressive library and chose... the most depressing, gut wrenching, HORRIFYING(!!!) book on the shelves... "Not Without My Daughter". I'd seen the movie and really didn't think it could be much worse than that. I seem to have developed a habit for being wrong somewhere along the journey of my life. Jesus Christ! It is single handedly the most disturbing book I've ever read! But that didn't stop me from devouring it between the bouts of barf and I put away two hundred and sixty (260) pages that night alone, keeping myself awake with tears and revultion until 4.30am.
So yesterday started much like any other... I woke up and had a little "what the fuck will this day bring" moment in my bed while Wee B got in her summer-time extra hour of sleep beside me. I fixed breakfast for myself and chatted with my Aunty A and then my blackberry rang and it was S.I.L Tanya calling me from Barbados! It was so good to hear her voice that I nearly cried when I heard her on the other line! We spoke for nearly forty (40) minutes, I chatted a bit with Miniature Carrie Bradshaw, caught up on live in Cotton Bay and how much I wasn't missing by being away. It was a wonderful way to start the day and I felt a tiny bit closer to the prize.
After Tan-Tan's call I called my horrible sister Evil who hadn't called me since she arrived last Friday and had Wee B and I wondering if we'd done something to vex her. She came over in the afternoon to take us to lime at her in-law's house and we spent the rest of the afternoon loving C-Boy up so much that I was sure he'd be happy when we left. While we were there Evil forked over THE SHOES and I fell head first in to love with them! Then she gave me the four accidental mini squeeze bottles that magically made their way from my "save for later" list in to my shopping cart (naughty Amazon!) and on a plane to Bim. I was going to sell them but I'm having an affair with them behind THE SHOES' back and I can't let them go! Trumping both THE SHOES and mini squeeze bottles came my old faithful soul mate, the one I'd even dump THE SHOES for...
When I was fifteen (15) my daddy spoiled me thusly... I'd been working in the kitchen of a restaurant he'd designed and droolled over my Chef's knives... They were Henkles of Germany, the blade was rivited in to the handles and they were engraved with his name on them... If knives can be sensual then these should have their own chapter in the Kama Sutra! My big brother John had sent me a kitchen catalog and I poured over this thing, repeatedly, every single night. I made notes in the margins and filled out two of the order forms (this was before the days of online shopping) and day dreamed about faxing through my request and getting a big ol' package in the mail. My list consisted of a starter block of the same knives my chef worked with... A 9" chef's knife, a 9" carver, a 6" serated and a 2 1/2" pairing knife. Also on the list was the item that has remaind my most prized material possesion EVER! A beautiful, gleaming, powerful, LIMITED EDITION(!!!) Kitchen Aid crank bowl mixer! I will never forget the day my daddy came in to my room to ask me if I was ready to fax threw my order! I nearly fainted!
To put it mildly, the THREE (3) months that I waited, impatiently as hell, for my precious knives and mixer to arrive felt like torture! My dad had arranged for them to be delivered to one of his client's homes in Miami so that said client could ship it with the shipment he was bringing in for the opening of his restaurant (that my dad designed also). In a taunting stroke of coincidence, the restaurant I worked in belonged to the nephew of my dad's client who was shipping my precious goods and it just so happened that the two restaurants were on side by side lots and when I was assembling desserts in my kitchen I could look straight in to their kitchen AND their delivery bay. I swear I ruined a number of required presentation thanks to the distraction of next door. I begged my chef to let me work the dessert station and even promised him the recipe for my cheese cake (which I never gave him) if he'd let me stay there. Thanks to that empty promise I watched three forty foot containers of industrial kitchen stuff offload in to the bay next door and saw the exact moment that my two large boxes technically landed in Trinidad.
I won't bore y'all with the details of my love for my Kitchen Aid mixer but I will tell you this... When I touched down in Trinidad on the 1st of July my very first thought was about the fact that I was in the same country as my Kitchen Aid mixer. I hadn't laid eyes on it in the four years its been since I've lived in Barbados. During all of our time apart my beautiful mixer has been, or so I thought, on Evil's mother-in-law's brother's (yup!) kitchen counter out in St. Augustine (East Trinidad). When I knew we'd be spending the afternoon in St. Augustine my heart started to feel like it was filling up with the same impatient excitment I remember from childhood Christmases. And when I asked Evil's mother-in-law if we could take a drive to her brother's house to get it she said we didn't need to because it was under the sink of her own kitchen!
I felt drunk with this heady excitment and I literally ran to the kitchen and pulled it out from under the sink with the same measure of joy that brave fathers who help deliver their babies feel! I couldn't believe I was seeing it, touching it even. It brought back such happy memories of my dad, cooking and youth to me! It may be silly to feel like this over an inanimate object but it means so much to me from a nostalgic stand point but for because I have had to beat EVERYTHING I bake by hand and that slows me down so much... I'll be a much happier MasterBaker with it back in my life again.
I love days like yesterday. Small things make me so happy! Merry Not-Exactly-Christmas everyone!
Thursday, July 15, 2010
We Dream In Colour
On a MUCH happier note... My friend Jade is a genius! She makes beautiful and wonderful things and here is her website...
http://www.wedreamincolour.com/
You're welcome! :)
http://www.wedreamincolour.com/
You're welcome! :)
Home-Sick / Home Sick
Officially we've been home for two weeks as of today. I don't know how to describe how I'm feeling. I suppose I could sum it all up in one word. And that word would be awful. Bella was sick... It was awful! I'm sick... It's been awful! I'm SO home-sick (for Barbados... thats a bit of a shock!)... It's fucking awful! I think I'm officially depressed... Admitting that, even to myself, is the most awful part!
I'd really rather post a happy, woo-hoo, life is fucking awesome type blog but life is not fucking awesome right now, its a real struggle and I'm so fucking scared! The next person who tells me that I'll look back on these days, from a stronger footing, and thank God that I've passed threw this shit will get a left hand in their face and kick in the crotch! The next person who asks me how I am or we are is going to get the whole truth... The unedited version of this reality.
:(
I really fucking hate this! I'm not even in a cooking mood.
:(
I especially hate re-reading crap like this.
I'd really rather post a happy, woo-hoo, life is fucking awesome type blog but life is not fucking awesome right now, its a real struggle and I'm so fucking scared! The next person who tells me that I'll look back on these days, from a stronger footing, and thank God that I've passed threw this shit will get a left hand in their face and kick in the crotch! The next person who asks me how I am or we are is going to get the whole truth... The unedited version of this reality.
:(
I really fucking hate this! I'm not even in a cooking mood.
:(
I especially hate re-reading crap like this.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Three Reasons I LOVE Being A Trini!
Three of the reasons I absolutely LOVE being a Trini!
Hilter Reacts to Trini Elections
And...
BRILLIANT!!!
And...
:D
Weeee!
Hilter Reacts to Trini Elections
And...
BRILLIANT!!!
And...
:D
Weeee!
Moving Day
Our apartment isn't modern or gorgeous or spacious... but it was our home and we were so happy there. My car isn't pretty or desirable... but it was the first one I bought on my own, not a vehicle from my dad or a company owned sweet ride, and I was so proud of it. Whatever little we've had I've cherished and I'm sure Wee B would say the same. The very admition to myself that Tuesday is officially the last night that I'll tuck my little girl in in her sweet little room and that Wednesday is the last morning that we'll wake up, sit on our couch, have breakfast together and then tidy up our wonderful little home, is making me feel like I could choke on this grapefruit that's become lodged in my throat. When I drive Zippy to my brother's office tomorrow I know I'm going to sob the whole way there and that sticking up the "for sale" signs will feel like stabbing myself in the heart.
I'm not being negative or wallowing in self pity, I know these things to be true of myself; I'm sentimental, probably to a fault, and if pealing off every single one of Wee B's stickers from their various resting places about the apartment (toilet included) could take me a week and a half to accomplish thanks to delays caused by taking a "minute" to blow my nose whilst crying so hard my nose stuffed up, I know all too well that turning those keys to lock the front door and my car and then handing them over to their new owners is going to be an ordeal of catastrophically heartbreaking proportions! I feel like we are saying goodbye to an old friend. And don't even get me started on the fact that I am going to have to learn to live without having Maria as my neighbor! That thought floats around in my head, wounding me.
I wonder when life will settle down for us. When we'll plant roots that can take a firm hold on the ground beneath us. I know this post has nothing to do with food but I'm coming to the conclusion that this blog, subconciously, was never meant for just bleating on about insane flavor combinations and my blossoming love for tomatoes.
One last thing... I thought long and hard about maybe leaving behind just one sticker, hidden behind her bed or on the underside of her dressing table, just one as a testiment to the life we loved there, but I began to imagine the next tenants finding it and ripping it off, crumpling it up, throwing it away and it was more than I could stand! I took a three hour long break (it was more like a sob-fest) thanks to that thought! I really hope that those new people, the faceless new tenants, love their new place as much as we loved it and that they make themselves a home there.
T minus 3 days and sobbingly counting! I promise a recipe for something divine and sinful as my next post!
I'm not being negative or wallowing in self pity, I know these things to be true of myself; I'm sentimental, probably to a fault, and if pealing off every single one of Wee B's stickers from their various resting places about the apartment (toilet included) could take me a week and a half to accomplish thanks to delays caused by taking a "minute" to blow my nose whilst crying so hard my nose stuffed up, I know all too well that turning those keys to lock the front door and my car and then handing them over to their new owners is going to be an ordeal of catastrophically heartbreaking proportions! I feel like we are saying goodbye to an old friend. And don't even get me started on the fact that I am going to have to learn to live without having Maria as my neighbor! That thought floats around in my head, wounding me.
I wonder when life will settle down for us. When we'll plant roots that can take a firm hold on the ground beneath us. I know this post has nothing to do with food but I'm coming to the conclusion that this blog, subconciously, was never meant for just bleating on about insane flavor combinations and my blossoming love for tomatoes.
One last thing... I thought long and hard about maybe leaving behind just one sticker, hidden behind her bed or on the underside of her dressing table, just one as a testiment to the life we loved there, but I began to imagine the next tenants finding it and ripping it off, crumpling it up, throwing it away and it was more than I could stand! I took a three hour long break (it was more like a sob-fest) thanks to that thought! I really hope that those new people, the faceless new tenants, love their new place as much as we loved it and that they make themselves a home there.
T minus 3 days and sobbingly counting! I promise a recipe for something divine and sinful as my next post!
So... I Bought A Pair Of Shoes...
I think I deserve to buy myself a little something every now and then. Without going in to the depressing detail, I really can't afford to buy anything for myself. Money, no matter how little, is strictly to be spent on survival these days. I'm thankful that we're just sqeeeaking by but every now and then, just because I work my arse off and need a major moral boast, I buy myself something. I buy myself something and then for ages (read "days", "weeks", "months", sometimes "years") after I am wracked, plagued even, by this all consuming, unshakeable guilt! The kind of guilt that eats you up inside. The kind of guilt that makes me wonder to myself, while I'm towelling off after a shower, whether or not I remembered to soap, so I get back in to the shower and bath again, only to remember when I've reached my legs that I did, infact, lather up the first time. The type of guilt that makes driving under the influence of alcohol, chemical drugs and three doses of Nyquil all in one shot pale in comparison to me behind the wheel of a car whilst hopped up on guilt. The kind of guilt that makes me wonder, while piping eclairs, whether or not I remembered to sugar the water for the pate au choux, pushing me to decide to dump the whole perfectly good batch and start again.
These are the culprits...
The bitches! That's right... Sequins!!! Hidden platform!!! Five inches to the naked eye, four to stand on!!! PINK(!!!) SKULLS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Shoe orgasm!
I've cuveted these babies for about three months now. I, literally, tried them on about 10 times. I'm sure the little sales girl (who is Selena Gomez's identical twim and just does not know it yet) rolled her eyes repeatedly and groaned everytime she saw me coming, taking bets with her co-workers about the fact that I'd never actually buy them! That particular pair has my foot smell in them I'm sure! Sadly, no amount of footwear territory marking could stop them from being sold.
So now I have a gorgeous pair of shoes en route from Canada... And I love them... I've planned an outfit around them... Even down to the earrings... But I feel so effin' shitty about them! So shitty I cried last night and I am DREADING their arrival, poor little things, no one to welcome them home. Not even a healthy dose of "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!-MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!-HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!-MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! To ME" is remedying my buyer's remorse! Ugh!!! Rahh!!!
I day-dream at length about guilt free purchasing power!
These are the culprits...
The bitches! That's right... Sequins!!! Hidden platform!!! Five inches to the naked eye, four to stand on!!! PINK(!!!) SKULLS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Shoe orgasm!
I've cuveted these babies for about three months now. I, literally, tried them on about 10 times. I'm sure the little sales girl (who is Selena Gomez's identical twim and just does not know it yet) rolled her eyes repeatedly and groaned everytime she saw me coming, taking bets with her co-workers about the fact that I'd never actually buy them! That particular pair has my foot smell in them I'm sure! Sadly, no amount of footwear territory marking could stop them from being sold.
So now I have a gorgeous pair of shoes en route from Canada... And I love them... I've planned an outfit around them... Even down to the earrings... But I feel so effin' shitty about them! So shitty I cried last night and I am DREADING their arrival, poor little things, no one to welcome them home. Not even a healthy dose of "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!-MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!-HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!-MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! To ME" is remedying my buyer's remorse! Ugh!!! Rahh!!!
I day-dream at length about guilt free purchasing power!
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