The story begins... with German Chocolate Cupcakes

Well, here it is! The beginning chronicle of my life in the Valley. Well, the two tastiest parts, anyway: baking and building. I might cook a little, too, but no promises.  My history with food is long and complex, well-varied, and severely stifled by 4 years of dorm mush. I'm trying my darndest to recreate and support the wonderful foodie heritage I grew up with. Goodbye eggos, hello Tastywheat pancakes! Out with the mushy sub, in with the smoked fish salad. Mmmm.... Oh, right, and I'm going to school for architecture. 4 years of a studio art degree, and I managed to find a pretty good way to meld both sides of my brain and my degree in a sustainably-focused Master's of Architecture program. Yay! Starts in a month, and I just moved into a new apartment (!!) with a kitchen (!!!!!!!) and a stove (!!!!!!!!!!!) !!!! Ergo, baking precedes building, both to be blogged about by (b)me, (b)here.

So, long story short (too late): I have my own kitchen for the first time in my adult life, and am trying to bake as much as humanly (and budgetly) possible before school starts and my time at the oven is replaced by time at the drafting table. Hopefully my foray into baking will continue well into the school year and beyond, but just in case it doesn't, I'll blog about the intricacies of graduate school life as well as food (I know; after cakes and cookies, real life seems so blasé). Stay tuned!

Recipe 1: German Chocolate Cupcakes 

(from a box, on a budget, but still pretty, if I do say so myself)

The story: Desperate to bake and low on funds, I caved and bought boxed mix and frosting. Eager to give it a twist (and distinctly not fond of frosting-between-teeth), I made them macaron-style.





Ingredients:

[Makes about 24 cupcakes]

1 box Betty Crocker chocolate cake mix

Vegetable oil (I used peanut oil, borrowed from a neighbor, in a pinch)

Eggs

... [I'll check the box and update ingredients list later]

1 can Duncan Hines coconut-pecan frosting

Directions:
Note: I made the whole box of batter, but only ended up baking half of it so far (no space to store the finished cupcakes!); they were a hit at work!
1. Mix batter according to instructions on box.
2. Lightly grease/butter cupcake tins, and fill about 3/4 full with batter (will create more macaron-like tube cupcakes; to create a muffin top, fill tins completely).
3. Bake cupcakes according to the instructions on the box (25-35 minutes at 350). I checked them at 5 and 10 minutes before the max bake time, inserting a knife to check for clean draw.
4. Remove cupcakes from oven, let cool slightly. Pop them out of the tins and let cool on a wire rack or countertop.
5. Once cooled, slice in half, spread a liberal amount of frosting in the middle, and reassemble. Yum! Bite-sized German Chocolate Layer Cake in a fraction of the time. Plus, frosting the middle and not the top makes for easy-peasy storage (no goopy cupcake bottoms!). Enjoy!