Kira Disapproves

A while ago, I tried making bread for about the fourth or fifth time. Every other time it had gone pretty well, and I had this new flour that Cyd suggested from the Dekalb Farmer’s Market with extra gluten. What Cyd neglected to tell me (not that I would EVER blame anyone else for my mistakes or anything) was that this particular flour rises much faster than the regular stuff. So I let it rise the usual four hours and it got huge a scary looking. Harold wouldn’t even go in the kitchen after he saw it. Nikki laughed at me.

Well, I decided to try to bake it anyways, and when I went to check on it about fifteen minutes in, this is what I found:

It had grown so large, it actually got stuck in the oven. If you look closely, you can see that the shelves above and below are actually bending with the weight of the ridiculous bread.

At the time, I was kind of discoragued because it was the end of the semester and I just wanted some fresh bread. But now I’m totally over it and I didn’t feel like I could move on without sharing this picture.

So, I’ll let you know how it goes the next time. Which probably won’t be until I have my new kitchen. With my new, tough oven that will be hard to bend (I hope!)

This will be my last post of the day, and a quick one. I’m trying to post more, because final paper writing time is EXACTLY the time to start posting more. I will also be posting about one of my final projects, the Peter Pan Project, for those who are already involved.

These are cookies my Mom used to make with me for Easter. She made them with adorable licorice whip handles, but I was too lazy for that. I did make my own icing…

Step One: Bake circles of Pillsbury sugar cookie dough pressed in to a mini muffin pan. They’ll come out something like this…

Step Two: Fill the “baskets” with icing Easter grass using a pastry bag with a star tip.

Step Three: Press Cadbury Robin’s Eggs in to the icing. If you want, you can also add the licorice handles at this point by anchoring them in the frosting. I did not, so at Sunday dinner everyone thought they were bird nests until I informed them of my concept.

I had a bit of what I’m going to call an out of body experience tonight. I was driving over to the Clarimont Campus to go to the gym, and it was only as I pulled in to the parking garage that I really realized that I had lost the fight I had been having with myself about how I didn’t want to go to the gym, maybe I didn’t need to go to the gym, after all I danced for about 30 pretty energetic seconds on monday, and my feet hurt . . . *poof* GYM.

Writing is often like that, too.

Anyways, there is a reason it’s a good thing I ended up at the gym. Last saturday, I gave a paper in my philosophy class (a seminar on William James), and it was about James and Fechner. Fechner was a psychologist, as was James, so I feel all warm and fuzzy about him, and I opened the paper by saying that I have always associated Fechner with cupcakes. Because a lot of psychologists consider Fechner to be the founder of the modern discipline, and he pinpoints his epiphany to a specific day (October 22nd, 1850 to be exact.) Voila! Psychology birthday! (There are an awful lot of onomatopeia type magic words in this post, I realize.)

I’ve been doing a lot of food and kid-themed school projects lately.

Nikki is becoming concerned that I am regressing.

Eden says, “When are you not regressing?”

[At this point my computer froze because Wordpress is apparently having issues including links in blog posts. You have thus been saved about three paragraphs of witty cupcake repartee and I now commence with the cupcake pictures with little comment. Lucky you.]

Cookie Dough Cupcakes by The Cake Mix Doctor

(http://www.cakemixdoctor.com/recipes/what_kind/cupcakes/cookie_dough_cupcakes_as_seen.php)

Here is the bright yellow batter. That I did not spill…

Here they are ready to go in the oven…

Here they are just out of the oven. Some of them collapsed and had to be doctored with chocolate icing…

Here’s the gooey cookie dough center…

And the final product!!

They were such a hit that I made a double batch for Lizzy’s birthday party. It turned out they were fairly unnecessary because Lizzy, awesomest party hoster ever, had candy or derbs (I don’t feel like looking up how to spell that word corrrectly. You of course know what I mean.)

Lizzy was surprised there was cookie dough in the cupcakes!

No one in this picture is named Sarah.

Everyone loves cupcakes.

Look at JP smirking behind his drink.

He’s not immune.

He would later enjoy a cupcake.

Elizabeth is rarely this cheerful.

For those of you who are particularly stalker-y (or just interested), Pam has blog enteries about my Portland visit here and here and here AND here. Click the third “here” if you just want to jump right to the shower picture…

For the bulk of this blog, bear with me. This is my first time trying to incorporate Flickr pictures without them being all tiny and weird…

So, Aimi and I made these awesome Champagne-Pear cupcakes today.  We used Bosch pears (I think.Whatever ones have the kind of brown skin.) I didn’t think to take pics of the batter-making process. Baby steps. But here they are pre-frosting:

Here, with frosting:

Here again:

They were AWESOME. There is still some champagne left, and I think I may have to buy more butter and sugar (because these used almost all I had) and make them over again tomorrow for Sunday dinner, but with strawberries.

We’ll see. I have yet to do homework this weekend, or to finish my writing goals.

*Thanks to Pam for the photo tutorial!! (There, I linked to you FIVE times in this blog to thank you.)

Bored at Work,
originally uploaded by Schlüsselbein2007.

I am trying not to watch TV right now. I’ve just gotten insanely addicted to crap like HGTV and TLC and I need a break. I was hoping once I adjusted I would be writing and reading more. The problem is, writing and reading are great, but not relaxing. I need some mindless stuff to do.

Baking sometimes helps, but if you get too mindless while baking things go badly.

Taking Lila to the dog park is a nice distraction…for about ten minutes.

Any ideas out there?

(Of course this will not be a problem come Tuesday when I’m on Spring Break with Pam and An!!)

(The picture was the best “bored” illustration on Flickr under a CC license. I may try this. So there’s one activity!)