Baking Fix

I've been restricting my diet lately, in an attempt to improve my health. This includes cutting back on processed sugar and flour, which means I've essentially had to stop baking altogether. But I learned very quickly that it's not necessarily about eating desserts - I really enjoy baking as a way to unwind... I just can't have it in the house afterward, for fear that I'll gobble it all up. Luckily, I've got lots of hungry friends who are MORE than willing to help me with that little conundrum!

This week I made chocolate-chocolate cupcakes. After a quick google search I found a great recipe that was right about my level in terms of difficulty. The cupcakes are plain chocolate. The icing is chocolate ganache, whipped up for frosting, with some optional liquor. I used amaretto.

I wanted to try and pipe the icing, but it was too thick, and it was getting late at night, so I opted to just frost the cupcakes normally, rather than wait for the icing to chill, then whip it up again. But in the end everything turned out pretty and delicious.

Butter/sugar/eggs.

Silly faces.

Dry ingredients.

Creamy and delish.

Made a few regular-sized ones...

And a few minis!

Baker's chocolate for the ganache.

Yummmmm.

They came out PERFECT.

The big ones overflowed slightly... 

I opted to decorate with miniature chocolate chips. 

I took the minis to lab for my labmates.

Brandon requested a special one just for him.

And the rest were for us to keep. 

I'm gonna try to find a nice balance where I can bake once in a while, in small batches, without totally destroying my diet. It's tough, I've got such a sweet tooth...

Kitten Photos

We've been eating out a lot lately, due mostly to being too exhausted to cook. As such, we have very few food photos. But we do take an awful lot of pictures of this tiny adorable cat!

Qorra is extremely playful and inquisitive, so she demands our attention pretty much all the time when we're home. One of the biggest problems so far has been keeping her busy at night while we're asleep. I decided to start giving her little "puzzles" to solve while we're sleeping, and so far its been working out well. Here are a few such puzzles and some of her more hilarious solutions that we found waiting for us in the morning.

Food in an old kleenex box. Hm, how do I get to it?

The solution apparently involved putting this toy inside the box, for unclear reasons.

Food under a bucket. In the morning, the bucket was still upright and all the food was gone. We think she pawed it out through the handles.

This is Qorra's food ball. We use this instead of a bowl, so she eats more slowly. We had to tape up a few of the holes because she was getting too good at it. 

When I put food under a little white crate, she used a similar pawing solution as the bucket, rather than toppling it over. 

Mommy, you made the hole smaller!

Why would you do that?

I guess I'll just get frustrated and throw it in the corner by the TV instead of solving it.

One night I wrapped her food up in a bandana. I don't know why I was surprised to wake up and find it full of holes.

We also rotate her toys so they are always new and different. I discovered recently that she goes absolutely INSANE for this one dangly toy that has feathers on it. I just had to share.

Also, Brandon has this hilarious fixation with training her to jump up on the backs of the furniture. So much so, that when he catches her doing it, he rewards her. But I just HAD to get a video of the ear-to-ear grin he gets when he does it. So here it is.

Hopefully we'll get back to cooking this week, but no promises. ^_^