“It is the duty of every citizen according to his
best capacities to give validity to his
convictions in political affairs.”

- Albert Einstein

Hey, what up, peeps?

I have been doing a lot of baking, even though I haven't done a lot of posting. Sorry! I'll give you the rundown (and no, Jifufu, not the version with The Rock).

Let's see, 2 weeks ago, I made these totally awesome cookies that were posted by a fellow baking blogger. Thanks, Gino!

Along with that, I made Mint Chocolate Chip cupcakes from How to Eat a Cupcake. I had made these two recipes because we were having a barbeque with a bunch of friends. The cupcakes were pretty good, but the kids at our house informed me incessantly that the frosting tasted like toothpaste. I kind of agreed with them, even though I used less peppermint extract than the recipe called for. Maybe next time I'll use even less; or none at all, and just have chocolate buttercream. Mmmmmmm...

Then this past week was poppyseed week! Orange Poppyseed cookies came first. They were completely awesome!! They are the perfect summer cookie.

The second recipe of last week presented itself to me via fanmail. (That's right, I get fanmail*.) It came from the July issue of Family Circle, and was, in fact, on the cover- Giant Lemon Poppyseed cupcakes!
I love pretty much anything lemon poppyseed, and so away I went. I did not make giant cupcakes, because I'm too cheap to order the giant cupcake pan from the magazine, but they were absolutely delicious normally sized. While I was frosting the cuppycakes, Benny was taking pictures, and kind of irking me at the same time. I chased him with my frosting knife. I would post the pics, but I don't know where the little USB thingy is, and I'm too busylazy to find out.





*Thanks, Grandma!

... AND LET IT BE FURTHER RESOLVED that all fathers who blog within the MOB will have their children type a blog message on Sunday, June 15 titled "Why We Love the MOB and its Great Mayor" (with spellchecking turned OFF);

This is the Mall Diva and Tiger Lilly.

We love the MOB!! Seriously, it rocks.

We love our Mayor!! Long live King Banaian and his decrees (scroll down the first link above).

We love our daddy!!! He's the best daddy ever and the super-coolest blogger ever.

We also did our duty by grilling and eating a member of that sly and evil species: the ninja cow. Mmm-mmmmm!

So it was written, so it was done. Selah.

...And not just my own. I like them because I can make cupcakes with impunity.

Now, I love to make cupcakes and try out new and different things, but the problem with making them (almost) weekly, is having a whole batch of them in my house. They stare at me, calling out my name and reminding me that if I don't do my part to get them eaten within a couple of days, they'll go bad, and that's a shameful waste! So I'll eat one every day, and maybe that's okay for one week, but after a few weeks I start looking a little too good in my fat jeans.

This week was my little cousin Weston's 17th birthday, and today is Princess Flickerfeather's 19th birthday. Yay! Happy birthday!! So I made a batch of lemon curd filled vanilla cupcakes with cream cheese frosting to send to our youth group on Wednesday night, because I knew they would be celebrating. Unfortunately, I couldn't go. I think they were well received; the birthday boy said "they were way good". Yay, me!!!

This recipe was my best effort yet! The cupcakes did what they were supposed to, and were aesthetically pleasing.

To fill these cupcakes, I cut a cone out of their center after they were cool, filled them, cut the top off the little cone, and put the top back on the cupcake.





I didn't actually have one of these cupcakes. Instead I ate cupcake guts drizzled with lemon curd and topped with frosting. Mmmmmm!!!!!

I'm sorry I missed last week. There were too many other things going on, and cupcakes were not high on the list of priorities.

The Queen joined me again this week for the baking of cupcakes, and there was a certain recipe I wanted to try. This one, in fact, so I went to the store for my ingredients. I found out a couple things: #1- You shouldn't go to the store to buy pears the same day you need to use them, if ripe-ness is important to you; and #2- One vanilla bean costs $10. Yep. "So did you buy it", you might ask?

Heck no! I'm no snob, I'll even substitute imitation vanilla! And as for the pear, I bought a can of sliced pears in syrup, then drained the syrup and followed the recipe the same way. I know, I'm a genius!



Do you see how cute the frosting on that cupcake is? That's because my own dear mother bought me an icing piper! It is so awesome! Using it makes me feel like a real cake decorator!!!

They were pretty yummy, but super crumbly. That just means I get to practice more! But the problem with practicing more is that I end up with a bunch of cupcakes that I really shouldn't be eating. The way I solved that problem this week was by bringing a bunch to work with me. The ladies there mostly know about my new hobby, and for the most part are willing to support me by eating the results.



And now I'm sad to say that Chockylit, founder of the Cupcake Bakeshop is closing up shop. I'll be waiting for your next site, and thanks for the recipes!