Strawberry Lime Cupcakes

I've been wanting to make something for dessert, and needing something to get me out of a bit of a funk I've been in---and cake seemed to be a solution to both things.  I had some limes left over from garlic-lime marinade so I did a search for lime cupcakes. I found a recipe for strawberry lime cupcakes, which sounded perfect because I had strawberries in the fridge too.  I never met a recipe I didn't fix.  So here is my version:

Lime Cupcakes with Strawberry-Lime Frosting

Cupcakes (makes 12)
4 Tbl. butter, room temperature (1/2 stick)
1/2c + 6 Tbl. sugar
grated zest of 2 limes
juice of 1 lime
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 c + 2 Tbl. all purpose flour
1/2 c cake flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 c sour cream
1/4 c milk
1 egg

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Line muffin tin with paper cups.
3. Beat butter and sugar together until fluffy.
4. Add lime zest, lime juice, and vanilla to butter and beat to blend.
5. Whisk dry ingredients together in a separate bowl.
6. In another small bowl whisk together sour cream, milk, and egg.
7. Alternately add dry ingredients and sour cream mixture to butter, beating in between additions.
8. Pour batter into paper cups in muffin tin, dividing over 12 cupcakes.
9. Bake for 17 minutes or until tester comes out dry.

Strawberry-Lime Frosting

1 c butter, room temperature (2 sticks)

2 c powdered sugar

1 tsp. vanilla extract

juice of 1 lime

5 Tbl. pureed strawberries (I think I used 5 large strawberries)

1. Beat butter until fluffy.
2. Add powdered sugar and beat until well blended and fluffy.
3. Beat in vanilla, lime and strawberries.
4. Frost cooled cupcakes.
5. Nom. Nom. Nom.

I really liked the texture of the cake and the frosting was yummy too. I will definitely make these again.

Rainy Sunday in Napa: Oxbow Public Market

It was rainy Sunday morning, so we spent some time indoors at the Oxbow Public Market.  I had sworn off these kind of places because they tend to be the same kind of stalls over and over again and I have trouble deciding what I want, but this was different.  Oxbow Market is small and each stall is different.

Tiffany and I bought specialty salts and spices at Whole Spice Company.

A very nice man at Tillerman Tea sold me 3 different kinds of Oolong.  He didn't look at me like I was nuts when I asked for Dong Ding Oolong--in fact he had many different choices.  Unfortunately they were out of green puerh tuo cha.  I would have bought one.  I could definitely work in a spice shop or a tea shop.

We had lunch from C Casa.  I had a taco with meat that tasted like tamale meat (beef of course) and Ross had a duck taco. I wasn't very hungry--still stuffed with lamb ragout and coffee cake.

Cupcakes at Kara's Cupcakes.  Ross and I split a passion fruit filled cupcake and Ross, Tiffany and I split a vanilla cupcake.  The vanilla frosting on the passion fruit cupcake was like buttah--no grainy sugar at all.  The vanilla cupcake had vanilla-bourbon frosting that was more like traditional butter cream and very flavorful.  I would have liked the buttah texture with the bourbon flavor.

I got a cappuccino from Ritual Coffee Roasters to go with the cupcakes.  Finally got that pretty coffee.  It was amazing to watch the guy pour these.  Ross's latte was pretty too.  I'm going to buy a different milk pitcher and practice making foam and pouring.  I want to be able to make a heart like this or a leaf one day.  Oh, and I had just bought some vanilla sugar at the spice place, so we used that in our coffees.

I Am Not a Factory

I used to say that all the time. Just because I make a quilt, or a cake, or a painting, don't expect me to make one for you. I am not a factory. Well, in the last 24 hours I've felt like a bit of a factory. Last night I made two batches of cupcakes (almost 4 dozen) for Ross's company picnic and I frosted them this morning. I made one batch of red velvet with butter roux frosting, and one batch of yellow cake with chocolate frosting. I didn't use my usual chocolate frosting recipe. I used a much simpler one, and it turned out all right. One of our errands last night was to get some piping bags and tips. The piping bags worked out well, and I ended up using a couple of tips that I already had. I am not a decorator at all, but now I can at least play and practice.