Crumbs Surprise

Happy Friday! My job does this fantastic thing every month; it buys cupcakes and we celebrate the birthdays of the month. it's a really sweet gesture, and brings everyone together for about 12 minutes and we all enjoy a nice break from spreadsheets and grumpy people on the phone and all that an office brings.
besides answering phones all day, one of my responsibilities is to purchase the cupcakes each month. (well, i pick them up, the Platinum AmEX i use is not mine.....)
in an office filled with health conscious people who go to the gym on their lunch breaks, it's hard to fund something that please everyone. and i rarely do, but i still love my monthly duty of walking to Crumbs bakery and picking 24 cupcakes from the colorful displays.
So, I normally go for the Red Velvet cupcakes, and since that seems to be a popular treat, i get more of those than any other. today, i instinctively grabbed the red velvet cupake, but then decided to (gasp!) try something new. so i took half a red velvet and half cookie dough. A Hybrid! that looked like this :

The cookie dough: Aside from the cookie placed conveniently on the top of the cupcake, it did not resemble cookie dough in the slightest. It had a surprise fudge center (!), but tasted like your everyday super sweet unnecessarily swollen cupcake.
Red Velvet: I quickly remembered why this is the one i go fro every time. The cake itself had a hint of cocoa, and the frosting was cream-cheesy and done right. I often find that although bakeries get the red cake and white frosting down, the recipe itself is forgone for something more basic. Vanilla cupcake with red food coloring and some generic sugar icing, for example. it is supposed to be a cocoa flavored cake with cream cheese filling people! sheesh! Long rant short, Crumbs does it right.

and it sure as hell beats the 100 calorie Hostess snack pack i brought.


xo-TSR

flickr

hey! like what you see? ha! well, i just started a flickr account. i take a lotttt, of pictures and facebook albums are kinda creeping me out.....so go here!

xo-TSR

cupcake hiatus

i know.
after that whole long love note to all my faithful readers, i go missing for a whole month! well my camera broke, and i was internet shy, and honestly, i was not doing any baking. so...exactly one month from my last post, i have planned something big. i cracked open my Hello Cupcake! book, a gift from the dear Alex Fraley. i have not made anything out of this cookbook yet, because it is quite daunting. but i was ready for a challenge. So in honor of my new fish (!) and to make a dramatic comeback, i made Fishbowl Cupcakes. come with me as i show you the journey and the final product!
The cupcakes themselves were basic chocolate cupcakes. However, a noticeable difference was that instead of sloppily scooping the batter into the muffin tins, it recommended piping the batter into the tins. Needing practice on my piping skills anyway, I complied.

they looked nice going in, but the finished product wasn't worth the mess it made going in!

and, as i am tragically messy, i did it the old fashioned way from there on in....
I made these the night before, and they saved perfectly. now! the fun part...
the recipe calls for frosting (can frosting?! the horror!but hey, i make buttercream all day at school, i don't think one short cut is going to ruin me....right?) some food coloring,assorted sprinkles, fruit roll-ups, goldfish crackers....and that's it! (well, the cupcakes, obvi)Now, follow closely. Dip the (must be very cooled) cupcakes into the warmed up, dyed blue frosting. roll the very bottom of the now wet cupcake in the assorted sprinkles. let dry. then melt some more frosting, (just white this time), and spread on the tops of the cupcake. add goldfish cracker, and "seaweed" (fruit roll-up) and consume! got it? no? of course not, that sounds ridiculous, so here are some pictures to help:

my counter turned art studio.

it will all make sense in the end....

see? told you, you would get it.

Dr. Manhattan and Fishbowl Cupcakes.

Phew! so that's that! the cupcake itself was very moist and a good strong cupcake consistency; the frosting was from a can, so it was excessively sugary and blissful. the goldfish were a strange salty contrast, and the fruit roll-up kinda melted....it takes nice pictures, but might not bring in the dough. (pun!heh)
So please welcomes Dr. Manhattan into the Sunny Robot's little home, and I am off to eat a fishbowl! (or 7)
xo-
TSR

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday Sunny Robot!!
(thank you, thank you)
one year ago today I was at Intralogic Solutions, thinking to myself.....'Man daytime television is awful'. I was also thinking, 'what's this blog nonsense everyone keeps blogging about?'. So i started an account and copied a gloomy story i had written a few days prior. It began as a silly way to keep me occupied and in all honesty, I like hitting the "publish" button on the bottom of the screen after i had written something. it was small, but i like that word and what it means. As someone who throws out or rips up journals after they were finished (although had been staunchly advised against such practices) it was a liberating feeling having written something, whether it be lists or rants or recipes, and throwing it out to the public. Although this public consists of my family and a handful of friends, it is certainly a step for me to share whatever writing or thoughts i have with whoever will read them. And i am a bit proud.
So as it began, changes seem to happen quickly, and looking back on the year it all seems pretty dark. I was quite stuck. I had nothing to write about but what i was feeling and what was going on in my life, neither of which were things that were generally inspiring or pleasant to read. I knew i didn't want to treat this blog as a journal. but i didn't know what else to write about. there are countless pages in my notebooks that are scribbled and scratched with the phrase "there is nothing to say". and that gets real frustrating and real boring very quickly.
Fortunately, it was while working at Spiegel Brands as a receptionist that i realized not only where i could potentially take my blog, but where I wanted to go with my life wholly. this was the process :
+Calorieking.com checking calories.
+searching recipes for healthy meals.
+realizing, maybe i was obsessed with how much i consume because.....I AM OBSESSED WITH FOOD.
+hearing my family's advice to do what you love, echoing through my ears.
=i love food. that's what i'll "do".
you see where this is all heading right? well it seems obvious but it was revelatory and very exciting for me.
and so, the sunny robot went through some recipes, applied to culinary school, and tried to write something worth reading. I am still not there, but it is good for me to have a direction and something to discipline me. I try to do AT LEAST 4 posts a month. so, if i haven't done anything by week 3, 3 posts in a day will happen, and has happened.
ok, so well, this is boring, and a long winded way of saying
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
Thank you for reading and encouraging me to keep writing.
there is much to come in the next few weeks.....I promise.

xo-The Sunny Robot

not just planes

bahhh.
i've been told to write in the morning when i first wake up. but days when i am not off to work or school, i am generally nursing a hangover, ordering Chinese food and watching re-runs of the office all day. so, this morning I awoke, made a pot of coffee and sat at the dining room table in my home upstate. i am here to sleep, mostly, and to spend some time with molly. we both woke up around 11:45, and we talked about how she likes living here alone in the country, and about how i like living alone in the city. it was a nice gradual wake-up, one i know my body was meant for, as opposed to the bells that echo in my cold apartment, too early everytime.
I've been having bad dreams, planes crashing, girls ducking from unidentified ojects, and unspeakable things i hope i can forget. Perhaps it's all the sugar. anyways!
now i look out the window to a perfectly clear world. a blanket (more like 12 blankets)of snow keeps the earth cold. winter always turns things around. the cat lazily jumps from one couch to the other, thinking the next will be better, and then realizing it's all the same, and it's all ok.
the shower is running, and the heat is softly blowing. the sun shines in and the coffee is strong. always a mini-vacation up here; away from billows of soot and people who talk to noone but themselves. my cell phone rings and i turn to get it. I stop myself...(keep writing, you never do, the day just started everything is new)...and then i start biting my stumpy fingers wondering who has called.
So Sue Me! I picked it up. a friend texts me "Bobby Flay is in the building! Repeat, Bobby Flay is in the building!" (she works at Chelsea Market)
I am glad i picked it up. how quickly i forget the snow, the lazy cat, the soft sounds,the country. Now I am thinking of fast kitchens, school specifically. it's hot and there is a smudge of flour on my cheek. I think of getting back in the kitchen, working fast, listening hard and being brilliant. (the latter the goal of course)
I look back to what I wrote a few moments ago and say "what a change of personality! I muust be crazy!" and then i reassure myself....damn this is strong coffee...the proof is in the deteriorating handwriting)
even the cat has woken up, the little one grabbed at my pen as i was writing furiously.
And once i wake up I start worrying. worrying about my family, my work, my friends, anonymous planes in the sky.
and then i realize why writing first ting in the morning is recommended. by the time your eyes have blinked off the sleep, that first cup of coffee has been gulped down, and the first contact with the outside world is established, your mind is elsewhere. The focus is obscured, and your pen doesn't know what to write about anymore......you can't.....
oh look, something shiny!!

how to make Molly smile

as i sit in my chilly apartment, munching on chocolate thin crisps and sipping a diet coke, I am reminded of a time when i made Molly dog biscuits. it was last saturday. ah yes, i remember it well. It was chilly then too, and I had just come home from school. Molly had gifted me with cookie cutters in the shapes of things dogs like; dog houses, fire hydrants, bones, little bones, paws....and i had yet to thank her for the thoughtful gift. so i set out to begin my adventure.....
here is a very basic recipe for dog biscuits that will guarantee a puppy smile and a friend for life. or at least until someone gives her a hotdog, and then you have some stiff competition. anyway!
I gathered my ingredients, which included : Cornmeal, oil, whole wheat flour, and broth (or water. but it's a scientific fact that dogs love chicken broth.)

First, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Mix all the ingredients in a bowl, roll it out and cut away! (seriously, it's this easy!)
As many of you know, I have recently moved, and I left my rolling pin in my old apartment! but, you can't keep a good dog down(bow wow wow wow), and I found a convenient and effective replacement.

using the cookie cutter i made about 50 biscuits. I burned about 18 of them. I am still getting used to my new oven. boo me.

so then i packed them into a tin, and made my way upstate to the snowy mountains of Michellebletown. Molly liked them, quite alot. And I like Molly quite alot, so it was a win win situation.

Molly waiting not so patiently.


Molly in a house!

saying goodbye to pie.

you will be missed Miss Kristen. Safe travels, and the best of luck and love and all that crap.
SEE YOU IN A YEAR!!

i lovvve you.

xox-Beamy