Math of fall recipes

Fall = pumpkins + sweet potatoes + apples + other carbs

Mini pumpkin pie croissants


5-minute coffee cake


Pumpkin crunch roll


Apple butter cupcake


Sweet potato cakelets


Peach & cinnamon breakfast rolls


Apple cobbler cookies


Sweet potato coconut quick bread


Sugar-free coconut granola

Cupcake Camp OC

I didn't participate in Cupcake Camp OC but should have. I was pretty disappointed by the size. I thought it would be MUCH bigger and it didn't even hold a candle to Cupcakes for Cures back in Asheville.

Nonetheless, I got some cupcakes. Only a few were really great.

Merlot wine cupcake with a chocolate base from Sweet Cakes by Andrea was GREAT!


Colorful ones


Trendy ones


Surf-inspired was my favorite.


It was 9/11 by the way.


The breakfast cereal one had a strawberry milk frosting and stale Captain Crunch on an overcooked vanilla-y cupcake. Ick. There's also the Merlot cupcake and a yam cupcake from Sakura's Gourmet Cakes & Catering that was quite tasty but looked very amateur.


The minis included a churro & pumpkin cupcake from desi[gn] cakes & cupcakes, which were both really good.


The other two, a Snickers & Jack Daniel's (so promising right?!) and French toast(?) bacon cupcake from Hollicakes were subpar. However, I enjoy her blog and this:

(image from Hollicakes Blog)

Eh, not great and rather expensive for the amount of cupcakes I got. $15 for 5 tickets! I wouldn't go to this one again. I'd rather spend a lot more on a better quality.

Semi-seasonal baking: cupcakes from a melon

Yesterday I bought a giant watermelon that I carried like a baby home. I don't really like watermelon, but my mom, aunt, and my roommate do. I like watermelon Sour Patch Kids though I abstain from candy.

That doesn't mean I can't make watermelon cupcakes and eat half of a big one right?

They were good. The inside was okay. I didn't have any food coloring and the spelt flour didn't take to the watermelon flavoring well. However, the frosting. Oh my goodness, the frosting was glorious and very watermelon-y. The frosting took the watermelon flavoring's pink color too.

I was also out of black ball decorations so I used some green jimmies instead. Still cute.

Next up, I have a strawberries.

Before I head out for my nap before Turbo Kick, what's your favorite kind of melon? Watermelon isn't mine. Nor is the flavor. I like honeydew most. :)

(image from me, here!)

Easy eating in the summertime.

Wake up. Eat Greek yogurt, apple sauce, and matcha. Ride upright bike for 30 minutes. Zumba. Stop by Bake It Pretty for green tilt-a-whirl liners. Get books from the library (Good Neighbor Cookbook and The Wonderful Future That Never Was). Eat leftover chicken kebob with veggies.

(image from Bake It Pretty)

Great book. Lots of good recipes. My favorites: cheddar-scallion cornbread, chipotle-pineapple guac, lime & chile crab dip, Earl Grey shortbread cookies, and chili-rubbed roast turkey bread and jalapeno cranberry sandwiches.

(image from The Good Neighbor Cookbook)

I'm excited about the shortbread cookies because I love sweets but also because I was talking to Ian of Sugarbomb Bakery about cookie cutters. I never get to use them because I don't like cookies that would need cookie cutters. I also don't like waiting to refrigerate cookie dough. He gave me a great tip for refrigerating cookie dough:

• Don't forget it's better to roll out the dough between two sheets of waxed paper before placing it in the fridge. Otherwise, it'll be too hard to roll afterwards and then it'll get too soft. Here's the video from Bake It Pretty:

One last thing, I'm making these. Today. After the realtor comes and does all her chatting. Ugh, the things we have to do.

(image from Bakingdom)

I have a spoon & a jar of peanut butter. It's that kind of night.

I love my roommate almost everyday except he's... like my father. More like my brother. When he gets upset at me, I get really frustrated.

I won't go into the details, but I was just being nice to others.

And no, I guess the night ended up being kind of bad.

After working hard on croissants for a couple of days now. I tried the Tartine recipe. Stupid me. I tossed it after trying to "laminate" the dough. Maybe one day, but I don't think French pastries will be my thing.


Secondly, I tried to make a batch of macarons. The recipe ended up too runny so I tossed those too.

Ugh. Also I didn't eat well today. I had two spelt bagels and a Shakeology for breakfast and dinner and forgot lunch altogether. This would've been fine, but I worked out and was irritated because I didn't eat and hadn't eaten too well. Sugar and carbs... no good.

I made bagels this morning. Yummy bagels and realized that the camera I took pictures with does not have a cord. So I took a picture of the only bagel left, the one I made my roommate: chicken and caramelized onions with goat cheese topping.


They were amazing. These are the first bagels I've ever made and I'm so proud of this success.

Other successes today:

Coconut & mango curd cupcakes which I'll take to the preschool tomorrow.



Chocolate dipped coconut macaroons


To save myself from the jar of peanut butter I'm diving into with a spoon, I'm going to bed and look at Pinterest and pin things. Good idea.

Plus, you know I did have some success. I just overdid it.

Tomorrow is a NO BAKE day. And a no sweets/no carb kind of day.

Only kind of rainy day I like

(image from Bake it in Cake)

Good ol' girl: hiking & baking

On Sunday, I went hiking with Robbie, Svitlana, and Kyle. The 45-minute hike was nice, I found a meditation rock, and then sat in a hammock for a couple of hours. The water was clear and we could see trout.


On our way back, we decided to use the lesser known path. We couldn't find it. Pretty much, I can sum it up by saying that I swung from trees like a monkey and traversed slippery rocks along a river. I didn't get scraped up too badly though, but I was ashamed to be worse than a 5 1/2 month pregnant woman on this trek. Okay, she grew up in a village along the Ural Mountains whereas I grew up in the 'burbs.

I can say that I have endurance. At the end, I was trucking along while everyone else needed a break.

Afterwards, I was so hungry after having only a Shakeology and an apple all day. I ate at the Earth Fare hot bar again because it was half off! I couldn't wait for us to get home and then grill so I took grilled chicken and tomatoes and cucumbers for lunch the next day.

I didn't work out yesterday, but I did today and baked some even though I didn't really want to. It just gave me something to do.

Yeah, I ate half of a slice of vegan blueberry-banana bread with cream cheese frosting (made with Tofutti).

I also made vegan vanilla bean cupcakes with a cookies and cream frosting. This is the only regular sized one. All others are minis.
Off to bed for my last full day of work! I'm going to miss my co-workers and maybe some of the children...

Find time for it all

I just ate a mini cupcake.


It was Joy the Baker's birthday cupcake recipe: chocolate, peanut butter cookie dough, toasted marshmallow cupcake. I made it while listening to her two pod casts, one of which I started while at the gym. It's more of a baking/home time type of pod cast though. I'll save the Jillian pod casts for the gym.

Anyhow, I failed at making the meringue. I admit it: I've never ever made meringue and even with my mixer, it would not become fluffy. Nevertheless, not bad. Not heaven in my mouth like I expected. Well, I didn't get to put peanut butter in the cookies and used Greek yogurt instead. Then I put real marshmallows on top, placed them in the oven, and voila.

Okay, it's going to be alright that I made and ate cupcakes. First off, they were super sweet and chocolatey so I'm done with 'em and will take them to work tomorrow.

Secondly, I ate pretty well today: very delicious purple rain for breakfast (with Tera's Whey cranberry goat protein though), turkey and egg white scramble at lunch, an orange for snack, Shakeology, and Greek yogurt with lavender after the gym.


*This one has matcha powder and a piece of chocolate from last night.

The gym was sucky. I did some warming up for 20 minutes then I tried to lift weights. It wasn't a good weight lifting day. I also had bad self-body images today. :( My Turbo instructor lifted my spirits though and I kicked butt (except my back hurt a little) in Turbo Kick.

My friend Kris, who I have known for 6 years, is coming over tonight. In an hour. It's his birthday on Monday and I stopped by the store for him so when he gets here, he'll see this surprise.


I also got home to open up my awesome gift to myself. I asked my roommate if he could bring them to me before I went to the gym today. That didn't work out, but I get to use them tomorrow! :) They're Nike Free XT QuickFit in mega blue and they were on sale!


It's hot and rainy, which I dislike. See, if it was cold and rainy, I would be all for the hot yoga classes tomorrow (7:30-8:30 hot flow yoga then hot power flow at Asheville Yoga Center from 6-7:30 after work at the Asheville Community Yoga Center).

I must head to bed soon, after I make lunch and read a little of my book. I'm totally failing at reading this book, Are You My Guru? All of this once I get up from this chair and stop fawning all over Pinterest! I just got it and am enamored.

I have a computer again!

I finally got my charger in the mail!

Okay, so I've been having to deal with the tag office all week. Tomorrow has to be my last trip to pay a fine and then I go to court for the same thing on Thursday. Oh well, it'll be a little vacation (or sick leave) time.

I hate that I can't remember where I left off. Actually, it was less than a week ago, but it seems like FOREVER.

Let's start with pictures of my small batch baking!

Bananadoodles: everyone loved these. They were chewy and delicious!


Honey & goat cheese filled fig muffins from Eating Well: Cool idea, but they're a little too dense for my taste.


Chocolate chip cookie dough balls from Oh She Glows: I still have these! Aren't they the cutest things ever and so delicious and easy!


Vegan lavender cupcakes w/ fluffy lemon buttercream: great consistency and made the house smell wonderful. These guys have the best frosting recipes ever; they always turn out just right.


Chocolate chip cookie dough cupcakes from Love & Olive Oil: wonderful, but the cookie baked a little and the frosting melted even after refrigeration


Somehow, I forgot to take pictures of the ginger miso peanut butter cookies. Not bad, but the miso was too overwhelming.

Movie or baking?

Baking win cause Yancey didn't bring home any good movies. :(


Oh, I forgot to revise this later... that utterly abusive child didn't come to school again, but I never get my hopes up. He may be there tomorrow. Actually, the novelty of his absence is starting to wear off and I'm just getting annoyed of everyone else.

In the AM, I did the "Burn It Up" portion of "Slim in 6" then I went to weights class after work and Turbo Kick of course. Our instructor is hurt, but we still jumped when she said jump.

I came home and made cookies because I had mentioned my craving for cookies. I wanted cookie dough to be honest, but this cookie dough kind of lacked flavor. The matcha green tea shortbread cookies, when baked, were fantastic.

The recipe didn't specify the amount of time, but I found 10 minutes at 350 instead of 325 was perfect.

I got to use my new cookie cutters: cactus, moon, and flower! I bought these over winter break.


I had to make cupcakes because I didn't have a chance to use these liners. Some of them turned out well like this one, but some of the layers in the paper got into the batter.

This is a vegan margarita cupcake. I wanted to make vegan strawberry margarita cupcakes after going to Cupcakes for Cures. It was one of my favorites! Sadly, I didn't have strawberries on hand, but I did have extract so I put some in the cake and frosting. Not as good, but not bad. I used coarse sea salt (pink Himalayan for the two minis I made my roommate and I) and then topped it with flakes of red.


Finally, I had Yancey buy me bananas yesterday and I had lots of coconut milk and coconut flakes left from a project. I looked for the perfect banana-coconut recipe and found Orangette's banana cake with coconut cream cheese frosting. It was perfect because I had half a block of cream cheese left from yesterday too!

I knew it would be good cause Orangette's banana bread is my favorite!


I have to sleep now. I haven't been good at getting my rest...

A day without abuse... so CUPCAKES!

I made a friend at the gym who asked me if I'd ever been to a weight lifting class. She saw a class at 6AM and wanted to go so I volunteered to wake up and go with her the next morning. I didn't get a lot of sleep, but I went anyways. And hell yeah, it woke me up! I even did a light 30 minutes of cardio (15 on the elliptical and 15 on the stationary bike) before I got some tea from Firestorm Cafe. I even ate part of a cantaloupe and mascarpone croissant pastry from Modesto Bakery. By part, I mean I ate the cantaloupe, cream, and parts of the pastry touching the cream. :)

We had a 30 minute work meeting that was kind of scary. Someone got fired for some incident... it was pretty surreal.

But most importantly...


Which is why I found it strange that the other assistant took the day off cause we've had such a good week. She must be really sick.

After kickboxing, I drove a friend home so didn't go to yoga. Instead, I came home early-ish and wanted to bake. I've been wanting to make jackfruit cupcakes forever and finally bought a can of jackfruit at Kim's grocery store. The cream cheese frosting had a very vanilla flavor.


Yancey brought me home some fat free cream cheese for the frosting.


I used red with blue polka dot liners for the big ones and orange plaid cupcake liners for the minis.

Then I thought to make something from Sugarbomb Bakery, plus I wanted to use the new liners I got from Bake It Pretty. Here are chai cupcakes with cinnamon buttercream. With the leftover batter, I made myself a mini. :)

I must not have sifted my frosting enough, but it looked fine till I piped it. Oh well.


Pink leopard liners!


I seriously need sleep. I'm going on an average of 6 hours of sleep per night and that's just not good enough.