Rainbow Cupcakes

I was inspired by Erica's version of Rainbow Cupcakes over at Sweets and Hearts and on Friday night did some for myself. They turned out so cute and REALLY delicious. I didn't really use a recipe, just a box of Pillsbury Funfetti® Cake mix. It was the only white cake mix in the house, I didn't want to make something from scratch and I thought little blobs of color in rainbow cupcakes would be fun. I mixed the cake mix pretty much like normal; the only difference was that I undermixed it a little bit in the mixer because I would be stirring it more to add the coloring. After that I just divided the cake mix more or less evenly among more or less equally sized bowls and added in the food coloring. I think I'm also going to make the batter a little thinner next time so the layers spread out more evenly.

Red through Purple

The purple didn't turn out great and I think next time I'll just omitt it.

You can see the Funfetti® speckles really well in this picture

Stripey!

Blurry, but a good look at the colors

I frosted them with canned vanilla frosting and added some Rainbow sprinkles on top.

I don't know why but these tasted AMAZING! Maybe it was because I hadn't had white cake in so long.

It's officially declared to be the time of the year for pumpkin pie, so once there's room in the refridgerator, that's what I'll be baking up next; I already found a recipe I like in Better Homes and Gardens' New Cookbook. I also found a recipe for apple dumplings so that's next after pie and after I figure out a way to core apples with out an apple corer. If you've never had an apple dumpling I highly recommend them. I had some at Folk Life and they were amazing! Big apple wrapped up in pastry baked with sugar and served with ice cream? YUM!

IT'S FINISHED (Sort of)

The studio is finally finished enough that I can really get to work. There's still no plumbing and the bathroom isn't really anywhere near finished, but I've moved in a bunch of my stuff and got started on portfolio things.

We started the whole project at the beginning of the summer, but had to stop construction for a couple of family vacations (and dog emergencies). Here are some highlights from construction.

Future bathroom

That one wall for the bathroom was the only wall that we constructed the traditional way. Everything else was toenailed in.

I look like a serial murderer hiding bodies in the insulation.

Desk/watercolor area

Making changes to old painting

The solitary chair will soon be replaced by a futon

Seriously, bathroom, soon

The irony is that with all this finished, I've been working on a drawing in our house in the family room for the past few days.

I also I love my cute little dogs!

The Beatles Rock Band

So I've been playing The Beatles Rock Band with my little brother all day and I have to say it's pretty awesome. There's not nearly as many songs as other Rock Bands or Guitar Heroes and you can actually "finish" the game in a few hours. And by finish, I mean play through all of the songs and get at least three stars. After that, though, there are still other goals to attain, such as getting 5 stars on all the songs, unlocking videos and photos and playing through each location's song as a continuous set. I also loved that "Star Power" is called "Beatles Mania". There's actually a setting too where you can set the audience to sound freaked out and scream realistically. The band members even "age" as you progress through the albums. Playing through the game to the end made me sad though, because the end of the game means they broke up.

The cut scenes from the game are my favorite aspect of the game. When you finish all the songs from one level and ascend to the next, there's a fun music video-type cut scene featuring a song from the next level. The intro and the outro movies are probably the two best (and longest).

Here's the link to the Intro at YouTube

I played the drums most of the day and got in touch with "my inner Ringo". At one point when my mom asked us to sign off to help paint the deck and I called back "You're breaking up the band, Yoko!"

Lava Cakes

I made chocolate lava cakes tonight for dinner/dessert, using this recipe. It looked pretty easy and straightforward and I liked that it used semi-sweet chocolate chips (which we still have an abundance of from the days of cookies-from-scratch). The only dry ingredients includes lots a sugar, some flour and a pinch of salt. It took about 30-40 minutes for prep and cooking time. If I knew the recipe better, it probably would have taken less time. I also realized in the process of cooking the cakes that my death-by-fat food of choice would have to be butter rolled in chocolate chips...

Yum!

Unfortunately, I cooked them a little too long (14 minutes total, as opposed to the recommended 10-11) in my paranoid-ness. They had doughy not gooey centers, but still tasted delicious and still looked good. I ate two and beached myself on the couch to watch TV afterward.













The Studio space above the garage is finally in a mostly finished state, so I can get to work! Tomorrow is my day to really get started. I was thinking about making chocolate cupcakes from scratch, but it'll depend on how much I get done in the day. I'll post pictures of the space once I get the new futon in there.