The 13 Days of Pumpkin: In Which I Discover My Piping Skills are Terrible

Hello again!  Tonight we continue on the birthday theme from Friday, celebrating with pumpkin cupcakes!  And this recipe comes with a bonus recipe for applesauce, which is a delicious and easy and seasonally appropriate thing to make this time of year (and let's be honest, a nice break from pumpkins at this point).

This picture is getting quite the workout.

Let's start with the applesauce.  I prefer making applesauce with McIntosh apples, but there weren't any last time I went to Trader Joe's (apparently the weird weather this spring was rough on this year's apple crops; they're already predicting higher prices for apples, so I suppose it follows that there may be a shortage of certain varieties--though I certainly hope I won't be entirely without my Mackies!) so I had to settle for honeycrisps, which have a bit of tartness like a McIntosh but are much tinier.  If you've got tiny apples, use about 8 of them; about 6 if you've got bigger ones.  You can peel your apples at the start or, if you're feeling particularly adventuresome, you can fish them out after the sauce is done.  Slice and core your apples and toss them in a large pot.  Throw in about 3/4 cup of water, 1/4 cup brown sugar and a pinch or two of ground cinnamon.  Set it on the stove over medium heat to simmer 15-20 minutes, then mash the apples and voila!  Throw the sauce in a mason jar while it's still warm and store in the fridge.

A recipe for delicious!

Hokay.  So.  CUPCAKES.  Start by throwing 24 paper liners into your cupcake tins.  Toss half a Golden Oreo (the creamed side) into each liner.  In a large bowl, combine 1/2 cup oil, 1/2 cup applesauce, 3 eggs and 1 teaspoon vanilla with a whisk.  Add 1 1/2 cups white sugar and 1 cup brown sugar and stir a few minutes till well blended.  Then add 1 can pumpkin.  In a separate bowl, stir together 2 3/4 cups flour, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice, 2 teaspoons cinnamon, 1 teaspoon nutmeg and 1/2 teaspoon salt.  Add your dry ingredients to your wet and stir till just blended.  Fill your cupcake liners about 3/4 of the way full (I found the 1/2 cup measuring cup worked nicely for this) and bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.  Allow the cupcakes to cool completely, then you can frost them. 

To make the frosting, whip 1 pint heavy whipping cream till stiff peaks form (if you're doing this by hand, I recommend doing this in halvsies, or you'll likely end up with carpal tunnel).  Then blend in 2 teaspoons vanilla extract and 1 cup confectioner's sugar.  If you don't have the swanky proper icing bag and fancy pants tips, just spoon the frosting into a gallon Ziploc bag and give a corner a snip and it does the job just fine.  Dress up your tastycakes with a little sprinkling of pumpkin pie spice or ground cinnamon.  Aren't they pretty!  (They are, trust me.  I sent a picture to my parents today, they'll corroborate.  And once I fix the scanner, you'll see too!)

The icing is white in real life.  White crayon sadly doesn't show up real well on white paper.

My Adventures in Carrot Caking, or, Mr Wiggles Gives It Two Paws Up

Recently I decided to clean out the fridge and freezer.  This decision was mostly motivated by the need to stow four loaves of zucchini bread, but also because both my original roommates moved out and I thought it might be nice for new roommate to have some room for her groceries (I'm generous like that).  After tossing a styrofoam tray of burger patties from last year's Labour Day soiree, several bags of Frankenproduce, and much moldy god-only-knows-what in Tupperware and scrubbing mysterious sticky substances from shelves and drawers, things were looking much better.  And I realised that boy roommate had left behind four bags of baby carrots.  Four.  Bags.  Of baby carrots.  Granted, two of the bags were only about half full, but still.  Four bags of baby carrots.

See?  Four bags of baby carrots.


The funniest thing is that I don't ever remember this kid eating a single carrot in the 13 months that he lived in my house.  And yet there were four bags of them in my fridge.  Oh, and if you're wondering about the dark, skunky looking things in the bag on the bottom left, those aren't some swanky special heirloom coloured carrots (carrots do in fact come in purple, yellow and white, but because someone decided carrots looked better in orange, selective breeding makes those pretty rare).

Those would be the fully rotten carrots that made most of the bag slimy and gross.  So not only were there four bags of baby carrots in my fridge, one of them was disgusting and ROTTEN.

So what does one do when left with four bags of baby carrots, one of which contains gross rotten carrots?  Well, first, one disposes of the bag with the offending veg.  Then one makes carrot cake, following these simple instructions:

1. Let 4 eggs sit at room temperature for 30 minutes, then beat them.
2. Grease two 9" round cake pans, line the bottoms with wax paper, then grease the wax paper.  Unless you are like me and do not own round cake pans.  Or wax paper.  In which case, just Pam the hell out of square cake pans and have a spatula handy.
3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
4. Mix together 2 cups flour, 2 cups sugar, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon baking soda.
5. In a separate bowl, mix your room temperature beaten eggs, 3 cups finely shredded carrots and 3/4 cup canola oil.  Side note: I highly recommend using big carrots, because shredding three cups worth of baby carrots sucks.  Just ask my fingernails.  You know who appreciated me using baby carrots?  My pets.  The dog got to chase down carrots that jumped out of my hands as they bounced around the kitchen floor and the rabbit got all the nubs.  I'm glad my grated thumbnails were worth their snacky happiness.
6. Add egg mixture to the flour mixture and combine well.  Pour into pans.
7. Bake 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.  Cool ten minutes in pans, then remove from pans and allow to cool completely before icing.  This is supposed to be done on wire racks.  Again, something I'm missing.  This is where the toaster oven rack and a stove burner came in handy.

Now the icing.  Here's my secret to making this icing, and a number of other things when the directions say to use an electric mixer: I DON'T!  Mwuahahaha TAKE THAT BETTY CROCKER!  I do everything by hand because I care and it tastes better with love.  Mostly it's because I don't own a mixer, nor do I want to spend the money on one (and no, Mother, this is not a hint to get me one for Christmas.  I'm legitimately happy to do it all by hand.  And check out these guns I get from stirring the bejesus out of icing!  LOOK AT THEM!).  But also because I'm secretly an 18th century housewife and they didn't have electric mixers back then.  So there.

1. Let an 8 ounce package of cream cheese and 1/2 cup (one stick) butter soften.  Throw these in a bowl with 2 teaspoons vanilla and mix until smooth and creamy.
2. Add 5 1/2-6 cups powdered sugar a little at a time, mixing well until the icing reaches spreadable consistency.  Make sure to use it at room temperature, because then it's easy enough to spread with a butter knife.  Which you have to do when you don't have an icing spatula.  Let's just say that without an icing spatula and with square cakes, icing is a creative adventure.

When icing a carrot cake, you need to include walnuts.  I like to do a thin layer of icing on the bottom cake, throw in a few handfuls of coarsely chopped walnuts, then ice the bottom of the top cake and sandwich it together.  Then ice the whole outside and top with more chopped nuts.  Et voila!  It may not look delicious but it tastes DAMN good.

Oh, also, I'm just gonna go ahead and close this post by telling y'all that I have made my own powdered sugar.  I'm that much of a badass.  Now I'm gonna go shopping for all the things I don't have in my kitchen--except an electric mixer.