Cupcakes and Biscuits: A Carb Lover's Heaven :)

(This week's dish for "Traveling the World One Plate at A Time" is Italian. A friend let me use a recipe from her significant other's grandmother's collection, but I want to make sure it's ok to put the recipe on here first...so I probably won't be posting the dish until later this week :)

I kind of went crazy with baking this weekend...I think it's because I secretly wish I had 60 batches of cookies to bake, but now that I've jumped over that hurdle without skinning my knees too badly (there were a few accidents, but I survived them!), I have a greater desire to bake than I did before the cookie baking task was assigned to me. My husband is very happy with that, even if I do turn the kitchen into a floury disaster zone every now and then. Thankfully, I had success with Celine's (Have Cake, Will Travel) Lemon Rolls with Rosewater Filling recipe. Though I couldn't get ahold of any rosewater (I gave them a vanilla twist instead), they were still a delicious and comfort-foody dessert that hit the spot. I've never even thought of making anything other than cinnamon rolls, so it was refreshing coming across this lemony recipe. She also has a recipe for pumpkin rolls posted that I plan on making later this week, how delicious!

Saturday night, after watching the very cute movie, Ratatouille (it's such a sweet movie -- Remy reminded me so much of my witty guinea pig, Yoshi!) I decided to bake up a batch of strawberry cupcakes. Now, these are not your ordinary strawberry cupcakes, they're much more than that! With strawberry filling hidden in the center to surprise you after the first bite, and a moussy frosting that's light but fruity and flavorful, any cupcake fan will fall for these yummy and appropriately pink sweet treats. You'd never guess they were dairy and egg free -- these vegan cupcakes are close to perfect...but the frosting is kind of hard to work with, particularly if you don't have much experience working with vegan butter (aka margarine that's hydrogenated oil-free). I'm quite inexperienced! Now here's where I start making a mess of the kitchen and get frustrated as a result of my ignorance :). (Whenever I start feeling like I've made a major mistake in the kitchen, the thought of throwing my failed "creations" away really disturbs me. Yes, if it tastes horrible, I throw it out, but even that bothers me. I have this idea that food turns into money as soon as it hits the trash bag. I hate wasting!)

This is what I discovered after making a few mistakes:

1. I added way too much batter to the cake pans, and sadly, these little cupcakes sink in the middle when that happens. Next time, I'll follow the cupcake rule (usually I just make huge cupcakes that rise easily -- can't do that with these)!

2. It's best to refrigerate the frosting over night. Vegan butter melts very quickly at room temperature. Also, next time I'll refrigerate the cupcakes as soon as they're frosted!

3. These cupcakes darken quite a bit as they bake, so next time I'll be sure to check on them more ofen; they don't take 20 minutes like the instructions say (more like 15).

I decided to take a break from the cupcakes after I realized that I was getting more frosting on myself than on their sunken tops.

I opened my fridge this morning and, to my surprise, the frosting was the perfect texture! I took a bite of one of the poorly frosted cupcakes and they were delicious -- I even ate one (and a half) before breakfast :). Thanks to my husband who suggested that I let the frosting cool in the fridge over night, these cupcakes were saved :). Oooh, and as he was keeping me company in the kitchen (watching me turn into someone resembling the Pillsbury Doughboy's sister, because I was getting covered in the powdered sugar I was using to try to thicken the frosting) he surprised me with a gift :)! He ordered me a copy of Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World and My Sweet Vegan! I'm looking forward to baking some very tasty cupcakes with the help of these two fantastic books that my sweet husband ordered me.

So if you'd like to make a batch of these tasty cupcakes, you can click here for the recipe.

If this entry is entitled Carb Lover's Heaven, it should have at least 2 carby recipes, right? So here it is...

Well, I came across another recipe online this weekend that I didn't have much luck with... I've been trying to find a great biscuit recipe that isn't loaded with butter and shortening. I still haven't found one worth holding on to. Sadly, I had to throw away the biscuits from the about.com recipe I used (I could literally taste the baking powder, the after-taste was even worse). Thankfully, I had enough energy left over afterward to make another batch. This time, I was determined to create my own recipe. I remembered that a dumpling recipe I used in the past called for canola oil, so I thought I just might be able to use that very ingredient in the biscuit recipe I'd be putting together. It worked! I did use some butter, just enough to give the biscuits a buttery taste... here's the recipe for these low-in-saturated-fat biscuits :).

Lightly Buttered Buttermilk Biscuits

2 to 2 1/4 cups flour
1 ½ tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
2/3 cup buttermilk
3 to 3 1/2 TBSP melted butter
¼ cup canola oil
¼ tsp salt

1 TBSP butter, for brushing

Bake at 325 for 10 minutes. Remove biscuits from oven, use about 1 tbsp of butter to brush on all the biscuits. Bake for 5-7 more minutes at 350, until golden.

These taste great right out of the oven with a bit of honey or jam. Store them in a plastic container and they'll be ready for you to eat the next morning with breakfast. I bet homemade gravy would taste really good with these too!