Salty sweet

It's been a wild week in the Cupcake household. We prepped for the "storm of the century" by:

• buying 4 gallons of water
• taking down the porch swing
• baking two loaves of the best bread ever
• doing laundry at 8 am today, in case the power went out
  

God help me if I'm ever in a real emergency. Perhaps I can barter some bread for a chainsaw and some Spaghetti-o's.

In addition to stocking our survival kit, we also decided to buy a house. And sell ours, duh.


We currently live in a beautiful bungalow. I love this house. Really. Like, crying actual tears when I picture moving day kind o' love. This house is the first place I'd lived in longer than a year since I was 13. This house is more than just a few walls- we've grown up here.

The husband has poured countless hours, blood, sweat, swear words, and gallons of paint into this house. We went bought it , it was sea foam green- he spent the entire summer perched on a ladder, listening to the Red Sox, painting it a much more palatable shade of blue. He took a sad, rental kitchen and turned it into a gourmet's paradise.

Plus, I'm a house person. I get crazy attached to living spaces. The day I found out my childhood home was bulldozed to make room for a McMansion, I sobbed hysterically. I was gonna buy that house (in 20 years)!

The new house is great and will be ours as soon, hopefully. It's small, too, but on a huge piece of property with a deck, dog run, basketball court (say what?!), and hot tub. We'll make lots of great memories in that house and maybe even a baby or two.


So, it's only fitting, that after a weekend of rain and wind and cleaning and packing and dusting and sorting (OMG we have a lot of crap), that I have a taste of something salty sweet on Sunday night. Something that packages my emotions so neatly into a 1 inch square of chocolate.


Salazon Chocolate Co. Organic Dark Chocolate with Natural Sea Salt and Newman's Own Organics Mocha Milk Chocolate.

Probably going to need to stock up on a few more bars- there's a whole lot of crying and country music headed my way over the next few months.

I'm such a sap.

A chocolate tour of Ireland

They say it's important for you to eat a country's food in order to get a sense of their culture and history. I take this kind of deep exploration seriously. Very seriously.

While Cadbury is technically a British company, they make a lot of chocolate in Ireland. And that's where we ate it. A whole lot of it. I would say we average a candy bar or two a day- split between us.


The Moro has a biscuit covered in chocolate covered in caramel. Definitely top 3.

The Toffee Crisp was all right. Not a lot of toffee flavor but it had some rice krispy-like action.


Galaxy chocolate ROCKS. Apparently it's Dove in a new outfit. YUM.


The Double Decker was sticky, messy goodness. I found bit of Double Decker on my purse, my pants, even my passport. No joke! We ate this nougat-y gem while waiting for our plane at the Connemara airport.


At a fancy farmer's market we picked up this local goody. It tasted like buttah.

These were not Eclairs. Not even a little. They sit on a throne of lies! But they were kind of tasty. Like soft Werther's with chocolate in the middle.

Ugh. This was not good. Apparently Turkish Delight is made with rosewater. Didn't taste like any roses I'd ever smelled. More like funky gym socks.




We set aside the candy bars just for one quick minute in Kilkenny- for 50p we got a day old chocolate cake filled with raspberry frosting. Yum!



Cute little cafe in Dublin where we had the best hot chocolate ever. Weird that it's hot chocolate weather in Dublin right now. Woo summer!

Nick's fave was the Twirl- a chocolate covered flake. An intense chocolate experience, indeed.

And...just to prove we didn't just eat chocolate, check this out. I rounded out my diet with some amazing salt and vinegar Tayto's. Gotta have that salt to go with the sweet!


Here's my one true love- the Crunchie. Honeycomb covered chocolate...delicious.

So what did I learn through my culinary adventure through Ireland?

Chocolate is good, no matter where you are on the globe.

A birthday cake

Yellow cake with chocolate frosting. A classic. Kind of like me, but sweeter.

Today is my birthday. Another fun fact about today? It's the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. More time to celebrate my birth, you lucky ducks! Another fun fact? It's also Prince William's birthday. Unfortunately we have not yet been able to exchange presents just yet, but soon. Very soon.

Birthdays are kind of weird. You didn't really do anything to earn and frankly, your parents should be commended for bringing you into the world and letting you stick around. But really, birthdays should be celebrated for one reason and one reason alone.

Cake.

Now, I'm not one to wait around all year for a delicious slice of sugary goodness. That's a regular occurrence in the Cupcake household. But birthdays deserve something a little extra special, dontcha think?

I got this recipe here, but I'm fairly certain it was stolen from Cook's Illustrated. What up, Chris Kimball? Dude knows his food.


Start by oiling and flouring some 9 inch pans. Really get in there with the oil. One of my cakes may have broken and may have been smushed back together. I can neither confirm nor deny these allegations.



Mix your dry ingredients in a medium bowl and whisk them up. Combine the wet ingredients and whisk them, too.


Then you should whip up some eggwhites. Set them aside.


Dump your flour and leavening into the empty bowl. Don't wash it out first. That's a waste of time.

Slowly mix your wet ingredients into your dry.


Then gently- I said gently!- fold in those egg whites. The whipped eggwhite is a delicate thing and needs some TLC.


Measure out your batter evenly into your prepared pans. Bake until done. Cool beside an open window if you're like me and don't have air conditioning. Or cable. Or 200 amp electrical service. I'm practically Amish!

While your cakes are cooling, you can wash dishes and clean up the flour bomb you made in your kitchen. Then, you ought to get your frosting on.


I'd never chocolate buttercream frosting before today. It was pretty darn simple. Get some cocoa.

Melt some butter.


Put the cocoa in your KitchenAid and aid the melted butter.

Mix it up.


Add approximately one ton of powdered sugar and drip of milk.

And beat the everloving fudge out of it.


Now comes the fun part. Dig out your cake stand. Mine lives in the basement on a shelf underneath the giant fake spider we use on Halloween. What? You don't keep yours next to arachnids?? Weird.

Put one layer of cake, maybe the "broken" one on the cake stand and slather on some frosting. Really give it a good coating.


Add the 2nd layer and admire.

Pour out the rest of the frosting on top. Wonder quietly to yourself if there is such a thing as too much frosting. Quickly dismiss the ridiculous notion and spread all over with an offset spatula.


I decorated mine with some swirlies and gold sprinkles in honor of the Bruins- go, go Black and Gold!

Then you can take your cake on a field trip. Oh the places this cake has been!

The great state of Texas (or just my Texas flag picnic table).



It lounged in the sun on the adirondack chair.


It even visited Kevin the garden gnome. Check out that kale! Kevin's been whispering sweet nothings to my veggies this year and they are growing like gangbusters!

Once the tour de garden is over, take the cake to your inlaws. Carefully balance it on the front seat of your SMART car, hold with one hand, drive with the other, and try to convince your 90 pound labradoodle not to knock it over as he's wedged in the trunk.


Conduct the ritual singing of "Happy Birthday".




Make a wish.



Eat a large slice and share a few others! 27 is going to be a good year.