Recipes

How to Pipe Icing Roses

As you may know, I love to make cupcakes. I have my trusty vegan cupcake cookbook, which honestly contains the tastiest recipes I’ve encountered. They are so good, and I’ve never come across someone who wasn’t flabbergasted to hear that they were vegan. You would never know it by eating them! They are delicious, moist, and the book is full of flavour combos that I love.

Prior to this year, my cupcakes were topped with a big smudge of icing, and maybe sprinkled with some pretty sprinkles if they were lucky. I didn’t have a piping bag, and I definitely didn’t know how to use one. But then, for some reason, I caught the “domestic goddess bug” (I blame this blog) and promptly stumbled on to the idea of piping bags, pretty piles of icing and food colouring. I’m still getting the hang of it.

One method that always left me in awe was icing roses. Golly gee, let me tell you – pictures of that technique blew me away. It looked like the most complicated thing on the planet, but boy were they pretty. Then I learned something amazing! The whole process hinged on just one jumbo icing tip!! Aha! Suddenly the complications seemed to fall away, and icing roses were in my grasp.

Little did I know how difficult it would be to find a Wilton 1M tip with which to pipe. Granted, I could have bought it online, but I decided to check every cooking shop in the surrounding area first. Finally I located one at the local Bulk Barn when I was home for the holidays. (Montreal doesn’t have Bulk Barns, and it pains me greatly.) That night, I whipped up a batch of plain vanilla cupcakes and buttercream icing, and my Mom and I learned how to pipe icing roses like pros!

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Black & White Marble Cupcakes

Did I stress bake again? This is getting out of hand. Let’s pretend it’s NOT stress baking. Instead, this is celebration baking. 

What am I celebrating today?

  • Today, November 30th, is the day I finish my first novel! 1320 words to go!
  • After today, I will have only 17 days until I get to go home for the holidays!
  • Tomorrow is December 1st, the start of the most wonderful month of the year!
  • The pain in my teeth has finally started to subside, and the antibiotics will start kicking in soon – yay!
  • I’m nearly done the paper that has been causing me grief for a while
  • I’ve got all sorts of exciting ideas for hand-made Christmas gifts planned!
What are you celebrating today?
Yesterday, on a brief hiatus from the editing/re-writing of that darned paper, I took a moment to indulge my Top Chef: Just Desserts side (a show that I discovered a few days ago, to great delight!!). This is also little bit of a tribute to my experience at NaNoWriMo. The black-and-white swirls and stripes is in honour of The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, because I found out this month that she wrote it during NaNoWriMo a few years ago! That inspiring tidbit has been getting me through my month. I was so impressed that such a wonderful novel could come out of that speed-writing experience.

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Toasted Marshmallow Milkshakes

Guys, I’m okay! I got my wisdom teeth out yesterday, but thanks to the miracle of modern medicine, I don’t remember a thing. And, according to my boyfriend, I can still crack a joke or two while high as a kite. Nice to know.

I’m in a fair amount of pain, but it’s not intolerable, and I’ve been able to keep food down today. Yippee! And no bruising or much swelling yet. It must be genetic – my little sister had almost no side effects after she got hers removed either.

The night before my surgery, I was all stressed and annoyed about life, trying to motivate myself to get through some readings and essay outlines. And the best way I could think of was to make these gorgeous toasted marshmallow milkshakes, as seen on Cupcakes and Cashmere, Joy the Baker, and Gourmet.com. While I was at the store, I picked up vanilla ice cream and jumbo jet-puffed marshmallows, and after I finished my work for the day I made myself a little treat. It’s super easy, you can do it too!

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Butter Tart Squares

Stress baking.

A term that unfortunately I am all too familiar with.

For some bizarre reason, whenever I feel:

a) Out of it; b) Stressed; c) Like there aren’t enough hours in the day; d) All of the above

I get an urge to escape those awful feelings and bake something, preferably something that doesn’t take up too much time, is delicious, and can be shared with friends should I ever have enough time for a social life. It’s a fairly counter-intuitive process, since baking something usually takes up time and energy, but it happens anyway. Stress baking isn’t logical, y’all!

The past couple days, I’ve been really nervous for my midterm exam (tomorrow) in my Cognition class. There’s a ton of information to learn, including 11 extremely detailed coronal sections of the human brain, and yes, I am expected to learn every single structure. Is it bad to admit that I’ve only memorized 7 so far?

Plus I have NaNo, plus I have exercise class tonight, plus I’m not sure what I’m going to make for dinner. Probably perogies. I was also a bit peeved/irritable because I did a work-out video yesterday, hoping it would pump me with some endorphins and give me a little energy boost. NO SUCH LUCK. Instead I felt even more exhausted and irritable. Boo!

So this morning, when I woke up, I decided to make butter tart squares. That just sounds like all kinds of goodness, doesn’t it? They’re extremely easy, require very few ingredients, and are probably the most delicious thing you’ll eat all week. Let me show you how to make them.

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