Lemon Cream Cheese Cupcakes

Let me start this post by stating, unequivocally, that I HATE CAKE MIXES. It truly saddens me that for many Americans (sorry... Canadians too... sometimes I forget I live in Canada!), cake mix cakes are the only form of homemade cake they will experience. This is a tragedy. Once you try a real, made-from-scratch cake (or better yet make one yourself!) you will immediately see the difference. Compared to a homemade cake, cake mixes taste insubstantial and artificial.

This recipe uses a cake mix as a base. I wasn't sure I wanted to include it in this blog, but I started thinking about the direction I wanted the blog to go, and I think it will fit in. I want the recipes I share with you to be two things: uncomplicated and amazing. These lemon cream cheese cupcakes are certainly both-- cake mix and all :)

So, on that note, here we go.



First, gather your ingredients. You will need:

1 box white cake mix
1 99g box of lemon Jello pudding mix
1 cup water
4 egg whites
2 tbsp vegetable oil

And for the frosting:

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 block of cream cheese
4 cups powdered sugar
2 tsp vanilla

As with any cupcake recipe, the first things you do are preheat the oven (350 degrees) and prep a cupcake pan with liners. I, personally, adore mini cupcakes. I have three sizes of cupcake pans (mini, regular, and "Texas size" as the store amusingly labeled it), but I make the minis as often as I can get away with. So, here I will be using the mini cupcake pans.



Besides... aren't these liners adorable? They go perfectly with my lime-green decorated kitchen.

Once you're all prepped, pour the cake mix and jello pudding mix into a large mixing bowl.



Add the water, vegetable oil and egg whites. For the record, if you're nervous about separating egg whites and yolks, don't be. There's a simple way. Break your eggshell in half, hold it over the bowl and sloooooowly pour the solid yolk from one half of the eggshell into the other. The white will slide away and down into your bowl, leaving the yolk in the shell.



Et voila!

Beat with electric beaters until the batter is creamy. It smells AMAZING, and looks beautiful.



I'm going to interrupt here to say something... one of the big perks about not being pregnant anymore is that I can eat cake batter again without running the risk of exposing my baby to salmonella. I'M still exposed to it, but frankly, for batter this good, I'm willing to take the risk.

Anyway!

The easiest way to get the batter from the bowl into the adorable liners is by using a small cookie scoop, like this one:



Makes your job a hundred times easier.



This batter will easily make 24 regular-size cupcakes, or 48 minis.



Oops... unless you're like me, and get a little carried away with "snacking" on the batter. Ahem. Let's just move on, shall we?

Bake for about 20 minutes. While they're baking, prepare your frosting. Combine the butter and cream cheese in a large mixing bowl...



Beat with an electric mixer until fluffy. I know, you're thinking "how can butter and cream cheese get FLUFFY?" But trust me, it does. You'll know.

When it is, add the powdered sugar one cup at a time, and beat in.



When it's all beaten in, add the vanilla. Once everything's combined, taste test. Frosting (as with most cooking) isn't an exact science, so yours may do better with a little more or a little less powdered sugar. You want a frosting that's stiff and holds a shape easily, but isn't too sweet.

By now your cupcakes should be done. Take them out and do the toothpick test-- insert a toothpick into the middle of one of the cupcakes. If it comes out clean, they're done.



They smell even better once they're baked.

Now for the fun stuff... the frosting. I admit, I am a totally obsessive-compulsive about frosting my cupcakes. You don't have to be that way. You are perfectly welcome to smear frosting on with a knife or spatula-- they will still taste just as good. But in case you want to see what I do:





A little warning... you will attract other members of the household.



But who can blame them? Look at how gorgeous these things are.





So... the only thing left, is to enjoy!



And trust me, you will. These are so good that I often eat the cupcakes plain, without frosting, like muffins. They aren't super sweet but have lots of flavour. And, as you can see, they are super easy to make. So know you understand why I was willing to put up with the cake mix to get such a lovely result. But I promise you now... my next post will be a great introduction to made-from-scratch cupcakes. They can also be super easy, and fantastic.

Just one last thing... if anyone feels inspired enough to attempt any of my recipes, send me a picture of the result and I'll post it on the blog :)

Happy eating!

The Supermodel and Conditioned Response Training

This is Gia.



Gia is one of the most gorgeous horses I've ever known. She was named after Gia Carangi who is said to have been the very first supermodel. If she were a person, Mike Posner's song "Cooler Than Me" could have been written about her-- she definitely thinks she's cooler than everyone. If she were human she'd wear Prada sunglasses and stiletto heels.



Unfortunately, Gia is a bit of a spaz. You can't really blame her, she spent the last several years hanging out in a big field bossing around her buddies, and now she's been dragged to an unfamiliar place and is being asked to WORK. Horror!

One of her biggest issues is standing still. She HATES to stand still, she gets very anxious, particularly when she's tied in the barn. She will dance around, bash her body into the walls, paw the floor, and occasionally pull back on the rope until her halter breaks or slips off, then take off for the hills. It's quite frustrating.

I was grooming her today, and as usual she was having kittens over being tied. But today I had a plan-- I was going to try clicker training.

Clicker training, or conditioned response training, is often used with animals-- horses, dogs, even to teach bunnies to show jump. I'm sure you've heard of Pavlov's dog-- that was the beginning of conditioned response training. It's very simple and quite effective. The best explanation I've seen is from About.com:

The conditioned response is the learned response to the previously neutral stimulus. For example, let's suppose that the smell of food is an unconditioned stimulus, a feeling of hunger in response the the smell is a unconditioned response, and a the sound of a whistle is the conditioned stimulus. The conditioned response would be feeling hungry when you heard the sound of the whistle.

Clicker training basically involves teaching an animal that the sound of a clicker means they have done something right, and will be rewarded. Animals pick up on this very quickly, especially if treats are involved!

I didn't use a clicker but I did use treats. When Gia was fussy and dancing around, I ignored it and continued with my grooming. When she stopped and all four feet were on the floor, even for a moment, I gave her a treat. And, as I expected, she figured out this game pretty darn quickly. Before long, she was quiet and focused on me rather than hollering for her buddies and having a temper tantrum. She wasn't perfect by any means, but the improvement was huge. Plus she relaxed dramatically-- something she has a really hard time doing.

I have not used clicker training much in my horsey career but have seen it accomplish many things-- from teaching a horse to come when called, to one remarkable mare I knew who would shake her hoof and even SMILE (show her teeth) on command. All in all it is a very interesting training tool. It is 100% reward based which works well for some horses. Generally when we train horses we use a pressure and release system-- put pressure on the horse when they are misbehaving, and take that pressure away when they do what we ask. "Pressure" can be many things-- actual physical pressure like tightening the reins, or mental pressure like making the horse work harder when they misbehave.

Pressure and release has worked well with Gia, she has advanced by leaps and bounds but has still had trouble relaxing, so perhaps I will pursue the conditioned response training and see how far it will take us in getting her to focus. Really, it's a system that can have many applications... like your friends and family, for example. Try giving them candy (or cupcakes, in my case!) when they behave yourself, and see how far you get. You never know what you might accomplish! :)

Homemade Marshmallows

My very favourite candy store in the whole world is an amazing little tiny place called Sweet Art, in downtown Bellingham, the town I grew up in. My favourite thing in their shop is the Carmellow-- homemade marshmallow and homemade caramel dipped in chocolate. Oh my goodness, I'm starting to drool just thinking about it... excuse me for a moment while I find a kleenex...

Anyway, ever since hearing the chef at Sweet Art talk about making homemade marshmallows, I've wanted to try it. But it always sounded so complicated-- egg whites whipped into a meringue, "blooming" gelatin, so much work!

Then I came across a recipe for "jellied" marshmallows in a wonderful book I picked up. I eyeballed it for a while, checking out the recipe, admiring the photo of perfect puffy marshmallows. It called to me... all I needed was an excuse!

(I should explain by saying that a common side-effect of pregnancy for me is the insane desire to BAKE BAKE BAKE... and the utter inability to eat what I create. For some reason, I lose my sweet tooth completely when I'm pregnant, and it takes me a few months after childbirth to regain it.)

So, when my (soon-to-be) mother-in-law invited us to a family gathering, I decided it was a good excuse to give the marshmallows a try :) And I'm telling you... I don't think there is a more rewarding recipe out there. It's super simple, uses very few ingredients, and the results are very impressive. Plus, the whole process is just completely gorgeous. You'll see!

Jellied marshmallows need only five ingredients:

1 3-oz (85 ml) package Jello, any flavour
2/3 cup water
1 cup granulated sugar
3 tablespoons light corn syrup
Powdered sugar

First... in a small saucepan, bring the water to a rolling boil.



Add the Jello powder (for this batch, I chose blue flavour!), stir like crazy until it's dissolved. Then add the sugar, stir some more until THAT's dissolved, and add the corn syrup.



Once it's all completely dissolved, pour into a LARGE bowl (that's important!) and put in the fridge to chill.



Chill for an hour, taking it out every 15 minutes to stir and scrape down the sides. It will be almost, but not quite, set.



Then comes the best part! Beat the heck out of the mixture for TEN MINUTES. Don't skimp out. You will want to stop at five or six minutes-- DON'T. You will feel like you have lost control and the mixture is going to take over. That's normal :D Entertain yourself by making different shapes with the beaters. Or just by watching how beautiful this mixture becomes, through all the changes. It starts out like this:







... and starts to turn into this gorgeous, glassy-smooth stuff. It's like magic, I swear.







Isn't it beautiful? It was such a surprise to me how this turned out.



After a full ten minutes of beating, pour into a foil-lined, greased 8x8 or 9x9 square pan.





Chill in the fridge for at least 3 hours.



Sift powdered sugar onto a large piece of wax paper, and then invert the pan onto the powdered sugar and remove the foil from the marshmallow. Rub powdered sugar into the now-exposed bottom of the marshmallow, then cut it into 1" squares and coat the cut edges in the powdered sugar.







It works best if you kind of dip the edges in the sugar and then rub it in with your finger, dusting off the excess. The result is a silky finish on the fluffy marshmallow! :)

I enjoyed this process so much I made two batches-- one blue and one pink (strawberry). They turned out so beautifully, I want to make a whole rainbow of marshmallows!





Keep refrigerated until served. The surface of the marshmallows will begin to crystallize, don't worry, that's normal. They have a wonderful texture but I'll warn you-- they are deathly sweet :) Just don't blame ME if you go into sugar shock!

One last tip... IMMEDIATELY soak any utensils or dishes in HOT HOT water, or you will be stuck scrubbing off a sticky mess. But if you put the pot, spatula, beaters, etc. in super hot water as soon as you're done with them, the sticky stuff just dissolves and cleanup is a snap.



So this was my very first foray into food blogging and food photography. It's not easy! From pretending to be left-handed so I can take pictures with my right hand, to the work involved in choosing, editing and uploading photos... it's a long process. But for homemade marshmallows... it's definitely worth it!

The Horses, Part 1: Sam

I don't have a horse of my own at the moment. (This is rare, believe me!) The horses are a huge-- HUGE-- part of my life, so they will obviously be a pretty big part of this blog :) I have been forced to take time off from the horses because of pregnancy and childbirth, but I will eventually get back into riding so will have lots of news and excitement. Until then, I've decided to introduce you to some of the special horses in my past. This will be fun for me... a lot of horses have come through my life, and they each have a unique story.

It only makes sense to start with the equine love of my life... what riders call a "heart horse". I owned Sam for eight years. We were unstoppable-- we won EVERYTHING.

He was an ENORMOUS, jet-black ex-racehorse. He was 17 hands tall... for the non-horsey out there, that means he measured 5'8" at the base of his neck. He was definitely attention-getting!



I bought him as a bit of an afterthought. I was looking for a nice, quiet riding horse for my ex-boyfriend to take out on the trails. The ex-boyfriend, predictably, lost interest fairly quickly, and Sam became my competition horse. We started out showing hunters, but Sam quickly made it clear to me that dressage was his passion. I had never had ANY interest in dressage in the past, but took a couple of lessons from a small-time local dressage trainer, and it quickly became obvious that Sam knew a lot more about it than I did.



So, dressage it was. I studied books, articles, watched movies to learn as much about dressage as I could. But my best resource was Sam. When I asked properly, he rewarded me, and I got totally hooked on dressage-- a discipline I had formerly thought of as "stuffy" and boring. We began to show, and even after the small-time trainer moved away, we won. We moved up the levels from walk-trot through Training, and then ventured into First.

In 2006 I set my sights on our state dressage championships, held in October. In order to qualify I needed to get four scores over 70%. I did-- easily. Sam and I racked up numerous wins and high score awards, and made our plans to drive to Yakima for the championship show in October. And, very unusually, my parents planned to drive out and watch-- and even my grandmother made the trip from Canada to see us.

The way the show worked, you had to compete on Saturday and score above 70% in order to compete in the finals on Sunday. My family was coming on Sunday, so I was really nervous that I wouldn't qualify and they'd have nothing to watch!



I shouldn't have worried. Sam and I won our class Saturday with a qualifying score. And then, Sunday...



We won our state championships. It was a wonderful, wonderful moment for me, especially with my family there.

A big-name trainer saw me at that championship show and approached me about riding with her. I moved Sam to her facility and made the move up to Second level... before getting pregnant with my son. I sold all my other horses and moved Sam back home, and then had to leave him behind when I moved to Canada. He stayed with my ex-boyfriend for a year or so (after all-- Sam WAS supposed to be "his" horse, lol) and then he was semi-retired to a life as a teenage girl's trail horse. It wasn't a decision I was happy with-- I had really hoped to figure out a way to get him here-- but it wasn't fair for my ex to have to continue to care for him, and the home is a good one, so I grudgingly agreed. I miss him.

The winning was great, but that isn't even what I miss. Sam had more personality than any horse I've ever known (and like I mentioned before, I've known many, so that's saying something!) I always felt that he was far more wise than I am. Some days I'd walk into the pasture to catch him and lead him up to the barn, and I'd feel a little silly, like HE was the one who should be the boss.

I've also never connected with a horse as strongly as I did with him. I remember one story... we were standing in my driveway while Sam was getting his hooves trimmed. It was a super hot day and the flies were ridiculous. Sam had just come home from being leased for a few months, and I was wondering to myself if I should find someone else to lease him, or keep him at home. My farrier and I were discussing it, and then at one point I decided to run to the barn and get some fly spray. When I came back, my farrier told me that as soon as I walked away, Sam stared after me and started to shake, and just stood there shaking until he saw me again. I guess he made my decision for me-- he didn't want to go anywhere again. So he didn't.

Late in our relationship I found out that Sam had had a pretty troubled youth... he was so big and so pretty that he got pushed too hard as a young one and his brain got pretty fried. I always knew that I couldn't put too much pressure on him or he'd get claustrophobic (emotionally, that is) and freak out. But my style of riding seemed to suit him... one of the best compliments I ever got came from a woman who'd known him when he was younger... she watched us in a lesson one day and then said to me "he really likes the way you ride him".

Someday I hope to have another horse I connect with so strongly. He leaves some big shoes to fill, but once you've had that connection, you always want to keep looking for it again. That probably sounds pretty cheesy if you aren't into horses... but if you're a rider, and you've had your "heart horse", you know exactly what I'm talking about.

Lunch Break Adventure!

During the summers, my job is super slow. So slow that I often take 2 hour lunches. The town I work in is famous for its' parks, so I sometimes take advantage of my time by checking them out.

Elgin Heritage Park was one of the first I visited, and was so cool I had to go back, and bring my camera. It was one of the things that led to the idea for this blog.

I stumbled across the park by accident-- I drove past the parking lot a few times, and one day decided it looked like as good a place as any to eat my peanut butter sandwich :) After lunch, I decided to take a bit of a walk... I was about eight months pregnant at the time and took any opportunity for exercise, to help minimize the incredibly frustrating swelling of my ankles I experienced. I found a trail...



wandered around a corner, admiring this neat little marsh...



and came across this view:



Gorgeous! An adorable, tiny marina on the river.



But it didn't end there... the park follows the river for a little ways...





And then splits off. One way continues along the river, the other way...



WOW.



A whole field of cattails... beautiful.



After passing across the bridge through the cattails, the trail turns another corner, and this is what you see:



What the heck is THAT you ask??



It's an owl house :) Apparently, barn owls are big in the area, but places for them to roost are growing thin. So the parks build these owl houses to give them homes. Really neat.

The trail winds back around on itself, and ends at the parking lot again-- the perfect walk for 8 months pregnant :D

I loved it, I've gone back several times, and I hope to go back later in the year-- it'll be interesting to watch how the changing of the seasons affects the trees and the river. Hopefully you enjoyed it too-- and I hope to share more of my lunch break adventures in the future!