I sorted out my email woes and I will be returning to the world of BLOGGING!!!! REJOICE! Which probably means more cooking. Oh and I will also be talking about my new road to becoming a script writer.
It’s gonna be a hell of a ride. One delicious and AWESOME, hell of a ride.
See you soon.
Matt
I am back! I am the worst blogger in the history of blogging I think. But here I am, writing a quick little diddy about Canada Day. Well, the cupcakes I made anyway.
Canada Day in Bath, Ontario is the biggest event of the year. The tiny village explodes with people. Vendors, food, jewellry, home made everything. Its awesome!
So in honour of Canada Day, I made some delicious Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting. They were delicious… that is it. :)
I was asked to make some cupcakes for a fundraiser in the village where my parents live. I was nervous at first, but that passed quickly into Pants-crapping terror, especially when I was still awake at 4am the night before building them…
All that night I was cursing the whole thing and telling myself how lame they were and how lame I was for doing it. I finally finished and packed them all up to take to my Mom and Dad’s.
They survived the trip relatively unscathed, a few pieces fell off but easily repairable. Everyone said they looked great, but then I realized… I needed something to dispay them with! PANIC RETURNS! MORE POOP IN THE PANTS!
Fortunately, my parents and a great family friend helped me get things moving along and by the time they were ready, I was really impressed with myself!
Without further ado, here is the golf course! Devil’s Food Cake with Vanilla Frosting!
And the Flowers! GREAT colour :)
They ended up selling for 80 bucks!!! HUZZAH! Bit of an ego boost hehehe.
I hope you like them! I sure did!
OH and then my mom made delicious breakfast Sunday morning. Eggs, peameal bacon and cheese on rye, white and multigrain bread. Mmmmmm…
MultiMatt
I’m a mama’s boy.
I know it.
She knows it.
Everyone knows it. And I own it… So suck it if you don’t like it.
My moms is the bomb, or A bomb according to her. She is one of the nicest people you will ever meet in your life, just ask anyone who knows her. Literally, anyone. We laugh like maniacs and I tease her incessantly, some people think too much. Its all out of love.
Therefore, for Mother’s Day, I wanted to make her something special. So I threw together some Pink Champagne Cupcakes. And punch me in the face and call me George if they weren’t delicious! Pleasant surprise.
I took the Blueberrys & Cream recipe from the Martha Stewart Cupcakes book and replaced the liquid ingredient with some “Pink” champagne.
Oh and some pink colouring naturally. I baked them up and they were nice and moist, but not TOO moist so that they crumbled apart.
Then I frosted them, and made little frosting bubbles on top. Now, I apologize for the picture quality, I didn’t have my camera with me so I used my iPhone… Kinda sucked, but you get the idea.
She loved them. So did the neighbours. I just love making this stuff and I am so glad that I could do something special for my mom.
Love ya Mom!
OH and I also made some Chocolate Sandwich Cookies for my Dad. He wanted something delicious for a treat, and who am I to say no to my parents! I should really learn to do that… ;)
Next time, I must remember my camera…
MultiMatt
Do you have old friends? I don’t mean friends that are seniors, dropping their teeth and hating the cold. I mean friends from your childhood that, no matter how long its been, you can pick up like you never missed a beat? I have to say I am so fortunate to have a good group of those friends. We have been through so much together, and I wouldn’t give that bond up for the world…
Ok now that I have been a sappy suck-puss, onto the FOOD STUFF!
So I had two of the aforementioned friends over for brunch today. We had planned to meet at my place for 10:30 am and I had such plans!
The original menu:
-Homemade Waffles
-Sausages & Bacon
-Eggs
-Freshly baked homemade bread
-Fruit
Up until the day before brunch that I changed it to:
-French Toast (Using homemade bread)
-Sausages
-Fruit
-Home-Fried Potatoes
Up until the night before, when I ended up going grocery shopping at 11:00 pm, it was:
-Mushroom and Bacon Quiche with homemade pastry
-Fresh Baked Bread
-Fruit
-Home-Fried Potatoes
I really need to get a handle on my decision making skills…
So anyway, when I finally began making brunch at 8:00 am this morning, the meal changed YET AGAIN. Decision making! BRUTAL!
So I made my pastry and stuck with the Mushroom and Bacon quiche, using both White mushrooms and Shitake mushrooms…
Are we noticing something missing?
Look again…
No? I guess it could be hard to see but since I was the Last Minute Scramble Master this morning, I forgot to add the CHEESE! DUR! So I shredded some with a few near misses of my fingertips, and tossed it on top. It covered my pretty design which pissed me off a bit but totally my own fault so…
Throughout the prep of the quiche I also made the potatoes. They are rather boring so no pics till the end. Just some garlic, olive oil, potatoes and pepper. Tasty though! Simple is gooood. Oh what the hell, here’s a picture…
You must also now be thinking OHHHH where is that DELICIOUS fresh baked bread!? I want it! Give me those empty carbs!
Boy, did I have the best intentions to make that bread. Alas, I am über-lame and didn’t plan it out well enough, so there was no time. Croissants it is! Still flippin’ delicious, so bite me.
All is all, everything turned out tasty and that is really what its all about. Good food with the best of friends. We laughed and joked. Talked seriously and ridiculously. We sipped memosas. There was even some talk of dinosaurs. I’m telling you, these people and I know pretty much all there is to know about each other…
So here is Brunch!
UH OH! I just noticed the knife blades are facing out! Miss Manners is gonna come open a gourmet can of whoop ass on me. Alas…
Oh the fruit! Where is that fruit! Well I changed my mind on that too. All this savory, I wanted something sweet to cap it off.
I bought these awesome mini casserole dishes at Home Sense a while back and finally got the chance to use them. MINI APPLE CRISPS!
YUM!
I love my friends. Almost as much as I love brunch.
Next time, blades in, I swear.
MultiMatt
I made the trip to my parents house this past long weekend to celebrate a triumvirate of events. They all required delicious food, so that was just a bonus.
Saturday was the actual day of my Dad’s birthday, which he graciously allowed my niece’s party to take the lime light. HE got a DELICIOUS cake my aunt made for him, but I didn’t get any pictures of it… Dang it.
Katey is cute as hell…
for Katey’s birthday, my sister decided to make it an Easter theme. I mean, why fight the season? So, in my brotherly/uncley duty, I whipped up some cupcakes for my niece’s party, Easter themed and all. Have a look see!
A bunny bum… hehehe
They were quite tasty! I replaced the milk in the recipe with cream soda and they turned out quite tasty. The kids were adorable and quite willing to be photographed! I’d show you but I’m not certain all the parents would be ok with pictures of their children up in here…
Anyway! Sunday was Easter dinner. My family loves the food, let me tell you. Therefore every family dinner, hell EVERY dinner, we have is amazing. This year was spiral ham, a chicken casserole, beans, carrotts, and my aunt’s scalloped potatoes which have been featured in a previous blog! Drool worthy, I assure you.
I had been reading a magazine that had a delicious looking coconut cake on the cover. SOLD! So I busted out that recipe and made one for dessert. It was epic… not only in taste, but size! Three layers!!
I love cooking… OH and I start my baking course at George Brown College on April 22nd! THEN I will be a force to be reckoned with!
MultiMatt
A friend of mine and I were talking about our excitement for the upcoming season premiere of The United States of Tara. Its an AMAZING show from Showtime that depicts a woman with multiple personalities, and her complex, yet loving, family.
We then decided that we should have a little get together! So, since cupcakes seem to be in the forefront of my life lately, it seemed only logical for me to bring some of those.
But what kind?? You must be wondering! I KNOW you are!
I decided that, since the theme is multiple personalities, the cupcakes should have them too!
Using these great new things I found at HomeSense called “Cupcake Pens”, I placed two separate batters into one paper and baked them up.
One set was Blueberry/Maple and the other was Chocolate/Cinnamon. Interesting mixtures, and DAMN they were good… Extremely moist too.
Next, I made up a batch of frosting and divided it into four bowls. I made one maple, one cinnamon, one just yellow and one stayed plain white.
Using my new piping bags, I decorated them split done the middle, one side neat and tidy, the other a mess of swirls. It was fun to do and made for a great looking cupcake.
And they tasted great too!
Here they are! I hope you like them!
MultiMatt
I spent the last weekend in the lovely village of Bath. It sprawls along the shore of Lake Ontario about fifteen minutes west of Kingston. My parents have lived there for the past eight or so years, the last few of which they have spent in a big, old house they are renovating into a bed and breakfast.
I love visiting there, its so relaxing. Not to mention my mom and I get to cookin’! This weekend the highlight was Sunday morning brunch. I whipped up a batch of Cinnamon Sugar waffles. Waffles may easily be my most favourite breakfast food. Their tender center with a crispy outer shell… Pause for drool…
Back to my waffles. They were moist, sweet and delicious. Now, they aren’t from scratch per se; I used Bisquick. That stuff makes damn good waffles!!
I followed the recipe on the box for the waffles, only I used two eggs (that was by mistake but it worked!) and substituted unsweetened apple sauce for the oil. Oh and of course I threw in some cinnamon too…
Check it out!
MultiMatt
Tonight I made white bread from scratch for the first time. I don’t know why but the idea of making bread was COMPLETELY intimidating! Turns out, it was quite simple. Oh and the smell alone is enough to make me want to have one in the oven baking AT ALL TIMES! It came out slightly more dense than I expected, but it tastes perfect! I am really getting the hang of this baking thing! Next up, WHOLE WHEAT BREAD!
My apartment is positively emanating with the smell of hot, fresh out of the oven, bread. Oh and yes I have already eaten some.
Toasted.
With butter.
Happy.
Today was the day! I had been thinking and preparing for the Iron Cupcake for weeks, and now its over. Just like Christmas or a birthday, it’s one of those things that takes forever to arrive, and then in an instant, its done.
First off, let me say that it was a great time overall. Though, if you had seen me earlier in the morning, you wouldn’t have ever believed the day would have me smiling.
From the beginning!
For days leading up to the competition, I made many a batch of testers. The people at work are sick to death of eating this stuff…
I had been up till 2:30 am the night before and so when my phone rang at 7:55 am, I snapped into consciousness and grunted into the phone to my mom. She asked how I was and I replied in muffled and slurred, yet articulate words that I was sleeping. She then reminded me that the clocks had moved forward. I knew that. Scratch that. I had KNOWN that, but it had escaped me at the time of sleep. So it was actually 9 am and I was already an hour behind the schedule I had set out.
After quick thanks to my mom, I hung up and began the Sleepy-Legged Shuffle around my apartment, gathering up the stuff I needed. About halfway through that task, I realized I was in dire need of some cleansing. NO ONE would want to talk to me in the state I was in. After a wake-up shower and getting myself all ready, I realized I was about an arm short of being able to carry everything down to my Jeep. A quick text to my friend and he was upstairs in a flash to help me get everything down.
I was nice and early as I had to still go and pick up the items I needed for my display. So with everything loaded in the car, big cupcakes in the back seat and a tray of minis on the passenger seat, I was off.
Now, I’m going to pause here for a moment and add some pictures. These are the large cupcakes and minis that I made.
Rest in peace mini cupcakes… Allow me to explain.
I spent HOURS frosting these little guys. I made coconut frosting and put a layer of white and then covered it in a layer of brown coloured frosting so that it would be like a real coconut. I then used a fork to spike up the frosting to look like coconut hair. I was pretty happy with them!
So I was packed up and driving out of the parking garage when the devil driving a blue VW bug came tearing through the parking garage and around a corner and nearly head on into my Jeep. I slammed on my brakes and my tray of mini cupcakes went ass over tea kettle and landed, tops down, on the muddy carpet of the front seat floor. I almost threw up all over the windshield. I pulled over and ran around to the other side of the Jeep, threw open the door and sighed. It would have been really sad to see a grown man, sitting on the dingy parking garage floor sobbing like a baby and eating mini cupcakes off the dirty floor of a Jeep. That was almost me.
About five or six were still good so I kept them to the side and gathered up the fallen soldiers. I drove over to the “For The Love Of Cake” Bakery and went in, basically looking like I had just been punched in the stomach, face, and crotch all at the same time. Then, true to form, Genevieve and her partner were incredibly nice. They made it clear that I wasn’t COMPLETELY out of the game. As it turns out, I was only out of the People’s Choice category since I didn’t have enough for people to taste! So it was back on! Back on and I didn’t have anything for my display! CRAP!
I hauled ass to Walmart, snapped up a Ken and Barbie (beach themed of course) and a bag of graham crumbs. Then I had to wait half an hour for the Dollarama to open, where I then purchased mini drink umbrellas, straws and Play Dough. I zoomed back to the event space and began my setup. Its wicked lame, but fun. I was having fun and that was really all that mattered to me.
Here are some pics!
Its supposed to be two people drinking HUGE drinks from coconuts… yeah… HAHAHA! FUN! I liked it and people like Barbie so that was a plus!
Oh and also, about five minutes after I arrived, another contestant arrived. With Corona and Lime cupcakes. Not even kidding. After a brief interlude where I fantasized about jamming the mini umbrellas into my eyes, I just laughed and continued to sculpt my Play Dough into a inflatable mattress…
As the contestants continued to arrive, myself and a couple of others marveled at just how different everyone were. It was fantastic. Here are some of the entries…
(the next one is the Corona and Lime one. Much classier than Barbies. But as much fun? I think not.)
(the following one got my vote for both creativity and taste.)
(My new friend and gluten-free cupcake wizard Sarah-Lyn made the following setup. I tried one of her apple cupcakes. It was UNREAL. So delicious. Check her out at www.ibakecupcakes.com.)
(And this was the winner. Personally, I didn’t think it was the best tasting or the most creative setup, but it had what the judges wanted! So congrats!!)
I had a great time and met lots of really nice people. Not to mention I learned a TON. Which was really the point. I will certainly be making my Corona and Lime cupcakes with Coconut Frosting again. They are moist and tasty. Nice.
Genevieve also said that the Iron Cupcake is going to be a monthly event. I had so much fun but I am also glad that participants can’t enter two in a row. I need a break. I think its time to start some bread making…
Mmmm bread…..
Oh and thanks to Ken and Barbie for hanging out, even though they apparently broke up. What troopers…
MultiMatt
