De Baking Psychopath

One lonely package of cream cheese in the fridge. We all know what that means: breakfast buns from the Buttercup Bake Shop Cookbook! Why, of course. These were previously featured on this blog , and also the blog of a dear friend . The recipe can be found here . Today's flavors are nutella and black raspberry preserves. Six of each. Last time I spooned the batter into 18 normal muffin cups, but this time I squished everything into 12. Also I layered the preserves/Nutella in the center of the batter and swirled with a wooden skewer. Twenty minutes at 350 degrees later, here are the results: beautiful, tall crowns, and importantly, no jammy overflow! Café DeBakingPsycho is open for business!

I am FINALLY back after a full month of traveling all over the world for both professional and personal reasons. Not that I will be home the entire summer--there are three weekend trips I already know I am making--but at least life will return back to its normal routines again. The last trip I made was to meet up with my good college friends in NY, where one of them is stationed as she finishes her PhD. We had a fun weekend filled with good food, running, poop jokes, lots and lots of cupcakes, a trip to the Tulip Festival for some pretty flowers and awesome BBQ sandwiches, and a trip up to Saratoga Springs for pastries and used book store shopping! Here are some highlights in photos: Gorgeous loaves from Mrs. London's in Saratoga BBQ sandwiches! Gigantic tub of strawberry lemonade Lavash at a Turkish restaurant Various appetizers at the Turkish restaurant, including one unfortunately named "cemen" My kofta dinner. Delicious. ...

...allow me to introduce: chocolate square cupcakes! For whatever reason, this year I've been doing a lot of birthday related activities for myself. I don't know if it's because my mother's been reminding me for months that my birthday is coming up, or if this is a special birthday to me because the age I am turning is my childhood favorite number...but from an objective standpoint, I'm not sure why I am anticipating my birthday more this year than in the last two years where I've had my zodiac year as well as significant-fraction-of-a-century birthdays. But in any case, I've already made birthday cupcakes for a joint birthday lunch at lab, almost two weeks before my actual birthday, and I'm making grandiose plans to make a fancy celebration cake from my recently-acquired copy of Baking: From my home to yours for my upcoming birthday party. For the birthday cupcakes, I called up my fancy-cake-making little sister and asked her what she'd recommen...

To celebrate my advisor's birthday, I brought birthday cupcakes in for lab meeting today. Since she is quite sensitive to refined sugar, I was excited to try out these "Splenda-iferous Cream-Filled Vanilla Cupcakes" from Buttercup Bakes at Home by Jennifer Appel, founder of Buttercup Bake Shop in Manhattan. With nonfat milk powder and buttermilk to keep things hydrated, these cupcakes were wonderfully tender and moist and light! The frosting was uber-creamy and completed the whole melt-in-your-mouth experience that these cupcakes provided. Totally did not miss the sugar here. Not low fat, mind you, but at least you save yourself that sugar high. Splenda-iferous Cream-Filled Vanilla Cupcakes (adapted from Buttercup Bakes At Home ) Ingredients: 2 & 1/4 cups cake flour 1/2 cup instant nonfat powdered milk 2 teaspoons baking powder 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 1/4 teaspoon salt 3/4 cup (1 & 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened 1/2 cup Splenda Sugar Blend for Baking...