Cuppycake retrospective.

The best things in life come in cups. Don’t you agree? Tea, boobs, and cupcakes come to mind, but surely you can think of many others.

So far, I have made a handful of the cupcakes from Isa Chandra Moskowitz’s Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. The cookies and cream variation of the chocolate cupcakes were eaten before documentation could occur, which gives you an idea of their radness. But this quartet of cupcakes is just as scrumptious.

Peanut Butter Cupcakes with Chocolate Buttercream

Hello, why didn’t someone think of peanut butter cupcakes earlier? Clearly, it takes a vegan’s unmatched culinary creativity to think up these cups of glory.

I made these for my friends for New Year’s Eve this year. I topped them with chocolate buttercream instead of ganache because I felt rather Martha Stuart that day, I suppose. I also sprinkled on some chopped peanuts and plopped a chocolate-covered peanut on top. And with that, this paragraph has reached its quota of the words “chocolate” and “peanut butter.”

Pineapple Right-Side-Up Cupcakes turned Piña Colada Cupcakes

When it comes down to it, there are really only two things I love in life: pineapple and coconut. I mean, really, let’s not complicate life. Getting caught in the rain is shitty. And I’m too tired to make love at midnight on the dunes at the cape. And hey, maybe I am into yoga! But piña coladas are forever.

These cupcakes are so moist because they have crushed pineapple in the batter. The topping is easy–you just glop on more crushed pineapple. But I, however, was inspired by the bottle of Malibu sitting on my countertop and decided to drink add a couple shots to the topping to make piña colada cupcakes. They were brilliant. I topped each one with a raspberry. Festive, no?

Lemon Macadamia Cupcakes with Lemon Buttercream

These cuppas are oh-so-classy. Lemon was simply destined for macadamia nuts just as Elizabeth Bennett was destined for Mr. Darcy. And just as Colin Firth is destined for me, though he doesn’t know it yet. But neither did the lemons.

I toasted the nuts beforehand to make them good and golden. They really are pretty, even without fancy piping. And the lemon buttercream is divine.

S’mores Cupcakes

These are the only s’mores I will ever need in life. The cake itself has graham cracker crumbs (genious!) and is so yummy. I’d like to make a whole sheet cake out of it someday.

I sprinkled graham cracker crumbs over the buttercream, and I used some leftover chocolate chips from some other recipe to make a small amount of ganache for some of the cupcakes. Next time I think I will use a big round frosting tip to make the frosting even puffier, like the ice cream cones at Dairy Queen.

Trivia time! Why do they call them “cupcakes”? The obvious response is, “Because they are baked in cup form, smart ass!” But some also speculate that the word “cup” refers to measurements–that a “cup cake” was something you made by using one cup of this, two cups of that, and so forth. “Cup cake” is a cousin of “pound cake” in this sense. But in my mind, this is a “cup cake,” not a “cupcake.” A “cupcake” is it’s own separate entity, whereas a “cup cake” is just a special kind of cake with a certain recipe. In my opinion. Just saying. I won’t slap you if you call a “cupcake” a “cup cake,” but I might twitch a little.

Scrambly tofu scramble and musings on turmeric.

This tofu scramble is doubly scrambly (say that out loud, please) because I made it in a hurry. It is really more of a veggie scramble with tofu than a tofu scramble with veggies because of all the vegetables–broccoli, onions, mushrooms, zucchini, yellow squash, and spinach. Well, mushrooms aren’t a vegetable, they are a fungus. But they might as well be an honorary vegetable because it’s lonely in the fungus food group. Heck, it’s not even a group, it’s just “fungus” in the singular. Poor shrooms.

Tofu scramble makes me nostalgic because it is one of the first recipes I made after going vegan. It is, I think, one of my favorite dishes to make. You can use any ingredients you have, you can use any spices you like, and you can make it for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. So much awesome in one little meal.

I used turmeric to make it yellow, which got me thinking about this enigma of a spice. Does anyone really like turmeric? Does anyone actually use it for its flavor and not to color foods radioactive yellow? Honestly, by itself it tastes like powdered sidewalk chalk that’s gone a bit stale, if such a thing were possible. But it does turn tofu into sunshine, and that’s what matters here.