Bad Weather Cupcakes

It’s a snow day. Every snow day my mother in law made a particular sugar laden cake. Why would a woman with 4 kids would want to hype up her children when they were trapped at home? Well, at least here, have devoured the cupcakes, danced a jig, and tore up the house, they settled into a nice nap. Maybe she was onto something.

Snow day Cupcakes
My mother in laws recipe with my changes in parentheses
1.5 cups bisquick (or 1.5 cups flour, 1 1/2tsp Baking Powder, 1/2tsp Salt)
2/3 cup milk (or eggnog)
½ cup sugar, feel free to be heavy handed
2 egg whites
2 T oil (plus 1 T more oil)
1 tsp vanilla

Topping
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 T chopped nuts (optional)
1 T butter
1 T milk

Beat all the cupcake ingredients at low for 30 seconds. Then beat at medium for 1 minute. Spoon into lined cupcake tins. Bake at 350 for 18-20 minutes.

Mix all the topping ingredients. Top the warm cupcakes. Broil for 2 minutes with the cake 3 inches from the coil.

Gluten Free Carrot Candied Orange Madeleines

Someone once told me, “You know, writing is like riding a horse.” They stopped there. Now, I am starting to wonder. Was it because if you rode once you can ride again and similarly if you strung together sentences before you will again? Or was it because riding a horse, and writing similarly, takes practice but the practice is well worth it? Or was it because riding a horse, and writing as well, can be a terrible pain in the behind?

I would like to believe the answer to all three of those questions is yes. I am starting to believe most things take practice and are often a pain, though once learned are so familiar they can never be forgotten.

After a frustrating week when the skies have chosen to offer inclemency of some kind, I find myself itching to have a quiet minute in the kitchen. I don’t mean event-cooking or dinner making. I mean quiet mixing chopping joy; the kind of cooking where you don’t need to look up the recipe or pull out a scale. You just drop that measuring cup into the flour, feel the smoothness of the ingredient, and then satisfied sweep the knife over the cup. Chopping, whisking, moving. Then you bite into your creation and remember, hey, I can cook. Maybe cooking is like writing—oh, I mean like riding a horse.



Recipe:
Gluten Free Carrot Candied Orange Madeleines
Based on a recipe by Seattle Local Food
Melt ½ a stick of butter. Let brown. Strain and cool.

In a large bowl, beat together:
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla

Add:
¼ cup grated carrots
2 T candied orange peels, chopped
1 T candied ginger, chopped (optional)

In a separate bowl, mix together:
½ cup GF mix
½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp xantham gum
1 tsp ginger powder
½ tsp Chinese 5 spice
½ tsp cinnamon
2 T brown sugar

Mix dry into wet. Add butter.

Let sit for 5 minutes. And then pour batter (it is wet) into greased Madeleine pans. Bake 8 minutes at 350. This makes about 60 mini-madeleines.