Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes with Pumpkin Cream Cheese Icing

I love pumpkin spice time of year. It fills me with joy to know that at some point in the fall I will purchase a pumpkin spice latte and/or a pumpkin spice baked good. John and I got to thinking the other night: 'what would it take to make these at home?' A quick Google search brought me to countless pumpkin spice baking recipes, coffee/latte recipes, and even recipes to make pumpkin spice itself. We went to Bulk Barn and bought a bag of pumpkin spice and I've had loads of fun adding it to everything over the past few days. So these pumpkin spice cupcakes had to happen.

I like easy when it comes to baking, and these cupcakes were just that. The following recipe was adapted from here.

Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes

Ingredients:
Cake mix (white, vanilla, yellow, spice...whatever you have on hand)
1 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 cup water
3 eggs
1/2 cup applesauce
1.5 tsp pumpkin pie spice

Beat all ingredients in bowl for 30 sec until blended. Beat on high for two minutes. That is it.

Bake for 20 minutes at 350°F. Note that your house will smell amazing when they come out of the oven.

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Icing
(the following recipe was adapted from recipes found here and here).

Ingredients: 
250g (8 oz) cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup pumpkin puree (I might suggest using only 1/4 cup)
1.5 tsp pumpkin pie spice, or to taste
4 cups icing sugar

Beat cream cheese and butter together until fluffy.

Mix in pumpkin puree. The icing ended up being thinner than I've made in the past, so I would only add 1/4 cup pumpkin puree next time.

 

Beat in pumpkin pie spice followed by icing sugar, adding it 1 cup at a time until smooth.

I piped the icing onto the cupcakes, and even though it was thin, it stayed where it was supposed to be.

 

These cupcakes have all been shared and eaten, but I can't wait to make them again. They were easy and delicious!

Everything is a Photo Opportunity #16

This is my nephew Earl's farm. When he reviewed this photo he told me this was the best one I took, and I agree. It definitely has a lot of action, with many farm vehicles being put to work. He also let me know that the silo in the background was full, so he had to get a second one (a coffee can).

Remembering to Rest

I'm over two weeks into my 28 day reboot and feeling like I'm making good progress.

My first week I walked 37,321 steps.

My second week I walked 55,839 steps (averaging about 8000 steps per day - woot!).

I'm training my body to walk daily, but I'm also listening to it when it needs a break. And this weekend, I needed a rest.

At the tail end of my 55,000+ steps Saturday night, I had a relaxing bath to calm my muscles and was just completely exhausted when I got out. I knew there would be no walking on Sunday for me. And it turned out, no Monday walking either. Taking it easy was the only thing on the schedule and that was fine by me. 

I had a wonderful time on my rest days. Sunday we went to an end of summer BBQ with friends, where we sampled 3 out of 4 of the Lays 'Do Us a Flavour' contest chips. The flavours in Canada are: Grilled Cheese and Ketchup (pretty good), Maple Moose (tasted like a combo of sweet and burnt - we threw them out), Creamy Garlic Caesar (they tasted great; they were pretty much just sour cream and onion, with maybe a hint of crouton), and Perogy Platter (we didn't try these, but they sound delicious). Fun times.

Monday I rested by playing Torchlight. All day. I'm always amazed at my capacity to game, but when I like something, I tend to like it a lot. It was super fun and I'm level 67 now or something ridiculous.

I'm feeling well rested and happy to get back moving today. It has been raining on and off, but hopefully I'll find a chunk of time where I don't get too wet.

Happy September friends!

MC Sushi Silver Bento Box #FoodPicFriday

Our local sushi restaurant is MC Sushi. It's been around for two years now, which makes me really happy because you never know what will make it in Midland, ON. (Before my time there was a Pizza Hut in town that closed. Pizza Hut. How did Pizza Hut not make it?)

After the Tall Ships last weekend, Betony and I picked up some super-deal Bento Boxes and got ourselves a whole lotta food. The Silver Bento Box was only $9.50, plus there is a 10% discount if you pick it up yourself. Super deal and super filling.

Silver Bento Box includes: vegetable tempura, deep fried tofu, chicken teriyaki, 6 pieces California roll, steamed rice, and miso soup.

The Thin Red Icing

I sometimes suffer from recipe perfectionism: the desire for the recipe to turn out perfectly the first time, regardless of my familiarity with it. We all want our cakes, cupcakes, fudge, and other treats to taste great, and if you're blogging about it, or taking them to a dinner party, there is an added pressure for them to look great too. I'm starting to re-frame how I see my baking, so instead of seeing a recipe as the 'perfect' finished product, I'm trying to appreciate that most times baking is an experiment, and sometimes shit doesn't work out. I know part of my perfectionism is that I spent money on ingredients and I don't want to waste them, but I'm trying to see that money as an investment in bettering my baking skills. Plus even when baking goes horribly wrong, it still tends to taste pretty good. Someone in this house will eat it!

Earlier this summer I made some Canada Day cupcakes. They tasted great and actually looked pretty great in photos (I took this one when they were cold; they looked so much better cold), but the red icing was a pain to make and work with.

I had never made a dark icing before, and my Google searching led me to believe it was going to be hard. Knowing it would be hard helped me be less disappointed when I ran into trouble. My previous experience working with gel colours had all been easy, simply adding a tiny amount usually did the trick. Red was a whole other thing.

In my red icing research, I came across two tips that were really helpful. First, I bought no taste Red, as many baking forums suggested I would use a lot of the gel colour (possibly the whole jar) and using regular red would make the icing taste gross. The other tip I followed was to leave the icing overnight in the fridge so the red colour could darken.

While making the icing, things started to go awry, and I realized there were some tips I missed. The red colour separated while I was mixing it, giving it a white speckled look. I later learned that dark colours have a tendency to do that, and can be avoided by keeping your icing thick. Not only was my icing thin and separating, but it was also soft (it looked like it wouldn't ice properly), and I learned that on particularly humid days (which it was) adding shortening instead of butter helps to avoid this. You also don't want to beat it too much (I definitely beat it too much!). But now I know for next time.

It didn't photograph clearly, but there are lines of white separating from red

It looked better after darkening in the fridge

I also learned about baking photography and how room temperture icing doesn't look as good as refrigerated icing. I did a whole photo shoot with room temp, and then did it all over again because it just looked so much better cold.

Do you ever expect yourself to do things perfectly the first time? How does it work out? I'm trying to remember to focus on the journey and not worry so much about the outcome.