Yesterday's Distracted Wanderings

I hopped in the car and took a drive over to the Town of Windham yesterday - home of four giant frogs that sit on spools ...

... and stood at the spot where I climbed on a bus to head off to Basic Training at Lackland Air Force Base almost 36 years ago ...

... which is on Main Street in Willimantic and just down the road from this very
colorful clock ... 

... which is across the street from this awesome new cupcakery where I wandered in to meet the owners and bring home some cupcakey goodness.
You can read all about the sweet new business at Wandering Over to Windham In Search of "A Cupcake For Later" on Main Street. 
Good thing they weren't there back in 1976, I might have been late getting on that bus! 

Last Wednesday I Was in Boston, This Wednesday I'm Just Reminiscening!

Wow, time flies when you're working triple doubles! Hard to believe that it's already been a week since Jamie and I went up to spend the night in Boston and took a very chilly walk around Boston Common and the Boston Public Gardens where I took the picture above of the footbridge over the lagoon.  That scene looks a lot different in the spring/summer when the lagoon becomes the site of Boston's famed Swan Boats that paddle back and forth on the lagoon's water as depicted in the painting below that hangs in Parker's Restaurant at the Omni Parker House where Jamie and I spent one very nice evening last Wednesday.

Now that I'm done with work for the week I can work on my post for The Distracted Wanderer about the Parker House which is America's oldest continuously operating hotel and truly just as wonderful as I always thought it would be chock full of history and beauty and maybe even a ghost or two! Some of that history includes future President John Fitzgerald Kennedy proposing to Jacqueline Lee Bouvier right there in Parker's Restaurant at table #40 near the Press Room where friends threw his bachelor party and where he made his first speech when just six years old at a party for his grandfather, former Boston Mayor John "Henry Fitz" Fitzgerald.

To think, I got to dine in the same place as a former President and his wife .. or at least Fiancée! Ah well, no such high-brow antics tonight as I'll be dining here at home but at least it won't be in front of the dispatch console where dinner has been served for the past three nights so I'll take it! And even though there's no Boston Cream Pie either there's still this ...

A 14K Carrot Cake Cupcake from Sugar's Bakery & Sweet Shop in East Haven, Connecticut which one of my co-workers brought back for me yesterday.  Who needs pie when you can eat cake?!? 

We Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Vacation Posts for ... CUPCAKES!

I don't know why but I've been on a cupcake-making kick lately and not just regular size cupcakes but the jumbo ones - sometimes with filling to boot!  I even bought a king-size cupcake pan the other day when I saw it at A.C. Moore because it turns out ginormous cupcakes and I just couldn't resist.  I am so, so, so weak sometimes!

The other day I was perusing some recipes on-line and came across one for Chocolate Guinness Cupcakes with Bailey Irish Cream frosting and promptly decided that I just had to try it.  Not that I'm a major beer fan or anything but the recipe just sounded really good and I figured that if tomato soup cake doesn't taste anything like tomato soup then chances are good that Guinness cupcakes wouldn't really taste all that much like Guinness - though the touch of Bailey's in the frosting is most definitely right up my alley!

I asked my boss if he could spare some Guinness (he is a major beer fan and I knew he'd have a bottle or two around) so he brought me in two the other day and then I went to the store and got the rest of the ingredients I was going to need to make the house smell really, really good while these cupcakes are baking!

Cupcake Ingredients:

• 1 cup Guinness
• 1 stick + 1 tbsp butter
• 2 cups brown sugar
• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup sour cream
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 2-1/2 teaspoons baking soda

To make the cupcakes:

• Combine the Guinness and the butter, chopped into 1-inch chunks, in a large sauce pan and heat to melt the butter.
• Remove from heat and whisk in the cocoa and sugar.
• In a bowl, whisk the sour cream with the eggs and vanilla then add to the beer mixture.
• Sift together the flour and baking soda and fold into the batter.
• Pour into cupcake tins and bake for 25 minutes at 350 degrees or until inserted cake tester comes out clean.
• Let stand 10 minutes, remove from tins, and cool completely on a rack.

Frosting ingredients:

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, room temperature
• 2 tablespoons Bailey's Irish Cream
• 2 cups confectioners' sugar

To make the frosting:

• Beat the butter in the bowl of an electric mixer until creamy and smooth.
• Add the Bailey's and half of the confectioner's sugar and beat until smooth.
• Add the second half of the sugar and beat until smooth.

I used my jumbo cupcake pans and ended up baking the cupcakes for 30-35 minutes roughly thereabouts - or whenever it was that the toothpick came out clean; because I doubled the recipe, in addition the dozen jumbo cupcakes I had enough batter to make six of the king-size cupcakes, too.  Those cooked a little bit longer but I can't really give you an accurate time as I basically just kept on eye on them and took them out of the oven after they passed the clean toothpick test.

I had Jamie hold one of each size so that you could see the difference and as you can see, that cupcake there on the left is most definitely man-size!  Just think how big it would be if I were to have filled it with even more batter  - cupcake heaven!!

As for the cupcakes themselves, they were absolutely yummy with a small taste of the Bailey's kicking in shortly after the first bite.  Jamie declared them to be delicious though I will give two words of warning:

1. Use caution should you decide to lick the beaters and the bowl! 
2. These are best eaten accompanied by a nice glass of cold milk! 

For my next cupcakes, I'm working on a zombiesque version that should be perfect for the Halloween season - muuaaahhaahhaahaa!

Ode to a Cupcake

In between shoveling the fluffy white stuff that has been falling outside all day, thinking (merely thinking) about getting the boxes out of the basement to put away the Christmas decorations, and drinking copious amounts of coffee while spending too much time fooling around on Facebook, I have been trying to get myself motivated enough to do a post about yesterday's trip to New York City.  I think I have the pictures edited but that's as far as I've gotten!

Not wanting to start the new year off by not posting the first rattle out of the box, I thought I should at least show you one of the things that I found in New York City yesterday that Jamie and I couldn't find anywhere when we were there last August ...

Yes, Virginia, there is a Crumbs bake shop across from Bryant Park!  It's a tiny little place nestled in next to a FedEx store but it's definitely there and it's definitely got some fabulously big cupcakes in spite of the shop's small size.

Amanda, Sami, and I were on our way back to Grand Central Terminal when we passed it and of course I had to stop, take some pictures, and buy a couple of cupcakes to bring home with me.  I bought an Oreo cupcake for Amanda and a coconut one for myself as I just love coconut and we had them with a nice cup of Earl Grey tea when we got home.  Yummy!  Of course, what I didn't tell Amanda is that was the last cupcake she's going to be getting for awhile as we're both going on a new eating regime very, very soon.  Ah well, if you're going to have a "last" something it's always wise to make it a good one and this was definitely good!

Darned good thing the closest Crumbs shop here in Connecticut is a long, long ways from here - it's always better to have temptation like this too far away to easily get to!  Perhaps next time we go to NYC it could be a treat as long as we're planning on walking it off again in the process!

Anyhow, I will do my best to get that other post up soon.  I just have to try to remember where I put that darned motivation I'm always misplacing!