Today, guest baker Krissy makes strawberry cupcakes. We met Krissy in our childbirth class before our daughter Meta, and Krissy’s and her husband’s daughter Julie, were born. I’m not much of a baker, so Krissy walks us through her outstanding strawberry cupcake recipe! — Peter

I remember the first time I saw a red velvet cake a few years back on an episode of Sara’s Secrets on Food Network. I figured since we lived in Florida now (from Pittsburgh, PA), I should learn how to make a proper Southern Red Velvet Cake. The recipe featured Cake Man Raven’s recipe, and it is one I see time and time again in searching for the perfect Red Velvet recipe. I have used the recipe several times over, but was a bit put off by the amount of oil and its residual effects let alone how much cocoa powder really should be in the recipe.

After some research, I found I could make a few substitutions that hopefully would result in a healthier tasting treat. I substituted unsweetened applesauce for half the oil in the recipe, and yogurt for buttermilk. I rarely have buttermilk on hand, but always have yogurt since it is one of my daughter’s favorite foods to eat.

The first time I tried all the substitutions I was surprised that they actually turned out okay, but I could not believe how great they tasted! It was definitely the ‘Wow!‘ factor I was looking for when my husband and I tasted them. I was really excited that after some failed baking experiments one actually turned out. By using the strawberry yogurt we get a wonderful tasting strawberry cupcake – or a muffin if you leave the icing off!

Let’s get baking!

My son, Andy, turns 12 today. On Friday the 13th, which I think is cool. My mother, however, was so upset the day I had him because I had him Thursday, February 13th. “He’s going to have his first birthday on a Friday the 13th!”. I really liked that idea, but I have always liked 13. So there ya go

Over the New Year’s I recorded on the DVR a ton of Twilight Zones from the 60’s. Andy was curious about the series because we got in a long discussion about the series back in October when we ran the Disney Tower of Terror 13K (The Tower of Terror ride at Hollywood Studios is themed around the TV series ‘The Twilight Zone’). So for the past few weeks he has been watching a few episodes here and there and declared that he wanted a Twilight Zone themed birthday party. This made me very happy, as I love the show, but really wasn’t sure how I was going to do a cake with that theme. I knew that it must have an airplane with a monster on it though because his most favorite episode (and the one that scares him the most, but he still watches it over and over and over again) is ‘Nightmare at 20000 Feet’, the one with William Shatner in his screen debut, imagining that there is a monster on the wing of the plane destroying it.

Well, this is what I ended up with, and he loved it completely, which of course make me a very happy mommy (I would like to add, I am not a cake decorator in the least, and don’t really know the secrets, so please forgive the obvious mess-ups)

For the past, oh, 6 months this word has been the one word that has been most prevalent in my head; “CAKE!!!”

I have been on a Just-Had-2-Kids-in-2-Years-and-Want-My-Body-Back Diet, for the past 6 months (lost 26 lbs, have 9 more to go ). Because of this, my head yells ‘CAKE!!!’ at me way too often.
Seriously, you have no idea.

So far I have been able to silent this, but today I started looking at that chocolate chip muffin recipe I took off a blog (I really wish I knew whose), printed out and stuck on the refrigerator to make for the kids (yeah, the kids. The same kids that made me fat). I then started to hit the pantry and hidden places for ingredients for, first the muffins, but then I found the white cake mix box (!!!!), but no frosting.

However, I married into, not only a cooking family, but a baking family as well.
JACKPOT!
Peter’s grandmother has made everyone’s wedding cakes from scratch for years, she even made ours.
The frosting is to DIE for. Seriously. I never knew that frosting was so simple, or consisted of so. much. fat.

So I pulled out the family cookbook and looked up her frosting recipe and then asked Peter to make it for me if I make the cake (cause it is really easy, but I do not have patience to read the whole damn recipe, so I glanced it over and begged Peter, I’m like that.)

This is what I ended up with:

Sweet sweet heaven, I tell ya.
The cake, even though white and I was really looking forward to chocolate, but I am not that close with the pantry gods, so this is all they provided me (and I am very grateful, i promise), was soo good and fluffy. The frosting was SUPER fluffy and mocha chocolately (we followed the chocolate frosting part).

I am now very very stuffed and I think I have had my cake fix for the next two years. Except there is an entire cake still sitting here to eat. So I guess I have to finish it up for dinner and breakfast and lunch tomorrow. There is no reason for that kind of waste.

cakey goodness recipe