Workday five sweet treats: "Red" Velvet Cupcakes

As you all know by now, I typically embark on some sort of baking adventure for BK's team during the first of the month. Workday four is their busiest day of the month- it lasted until 4am for BK this month, which was at least better than January when he didn't get come home between the two work days.

So for February I decided to make Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Icing in honor of Valentine's Day. Even though Valentine's Day is not until next week, I thought I would recognize the holiday through baking this month. BK and I will be traveling next week, so I figured, why not?

The only problem I ran into? Apparently the red food coloring we have here is not quite a potent as the stuff in the US. BK phrased it well, noting that instead of red velvet, we had brown velvet cupcakes. Didn't exactly work out the way I thought. Here's how it went...

Mix the wet ingredients together and the dry ingredients together

I couldn't really tell what color the cupcakes were going to turn out. The batter did seem a little bit reddish, but I couldn't be sure about how red it would be. Maybe the cocoa powder is darker here too?

Everything mixed together

Cupcakes ready to be put into the oven

Cooling cupcakes

The cupcake taste and texture were great! Really tasty and the cupcakes were springy and crumbly on the inside- I was really happy with how they turned out…outside of the color and all.

Brown velvet cupcakes

The best part (of course) was the cream cheese icing! The recipe calls for a ton of powdered sugar. I didn't use quite as much as it called for and just judged the icing based on taste and texture. The icing also worked better after I chilled it in the fridge- I did it overnight, but I'm sure a couple of hours would work as well. They tasted as good as they look!

The finished product

The cupcakes turned out fairly large as well, which is a little different from what I normally take to BK's team. They went over really well with everyone and were all gone shortly into the afternoon.

BK's team was pretty funny when I delivered the cupcakes that afternoon. I always get lots of questions about how I'm feeling and comments about how much I've grown over the past month. The other thing I found quite amusing (and flattering) was that they told me I could have one month off when Baby K comes- April- then they wanted me back in May.

Just briefly, the other baking I did this week was a loaf of Sweet Cinnamon Bread. I have been on a kick of making cinnamon toast for breakfast lately and thought I might make it a little easier on myself in the morning and just make a loaf of cinnamon bread.

Sweet Cinnamon Bread

It turned out well, but was a little more done on the sides and bottom of the loaf than I would have preferred. I did have one small success though- for the first time ever my bread didn't fall in the middle. Typically when I bake something like this, for some reason the middle of the loaf falls and the bread ends up in the shape of a brick. It's always tasted good, just hasn't been the perfect shape. I have no clue what I did differently, but it's been a nice addition to breakfast this week.

Yum!

Happy Birthday to Tobs!

Yes, today I'm going to be that person who blogs about the fact that it's her dog's birthday. From what I hear this type of thing will come to an end after Baby K arrives, so I figured, why not?

Today Toby turns six years old. He is the calm one of the two, with the exception of when he thinks another person or dog is out to get his people or Tanner. He is not a fan of children right now, but he is extremely loyal, so I have no doubt that he will warm up to Baby K and watch out for her with the utmost diligence.

To celebrate his birthday, here are a few pics that I thought showed his personality.

Right after he arrived

Enjoying some snow in Texas

Loves the water

Snuggle buddies

Waiting to pick BK up from work

All Toby wants in life is to be with his people. He doesn't care where we're going or what we're doing, as long as he gets to come with BK and I, he's good. Here's to many more years with our fluffy dog :)

A weekend full of fun!

This has been the first weekend that I've had BK home with me since the beginning of the month. It was a good one- did some entertaining, some relaxing, saw a show, enjoyed a couple new restaurants and are going to attempt to watch the Super Bowl.

We started the weekend off by hosting a Mexican fiesta for ten at our house. It wasn't actually so much of a fiesta, but more of a dinner party for BK's team. We all (spouses included) went out for dinner back in November and had a lot of fun. BK decided that instead of going out again, where it can be rather crowded and really loud, he wanted to have everyone over to our apartment for dinner after they made it through year-end in January.

It turned into a "fiesta" of sorts when I decided that I should try my hand at Tex-Mex cooking here in Switzerland. Don't get me wrong, as a Texan, I have cooked Tex-Mex many times before. The big questions here were: could I find the ingredients that I needed and would it taste the same? Since we have no grill, fajitas were out of the question, so I went with a salad with avocado and mango, chicken and spinach enchiladas, crunchy beef tacos and refried beans. We also did homemade salsa and BK made guacamole.

The hardest thing about the whole night was getting all of the ingredients, which required me to go to approximately four different stores. The problem was that each store carries something different, so for example, Globus had taco shells, cheddar cheese and refried beans, but no rotisserie chicken and limited veggies, Migros had the chicken and veggies, but doesn't sell alcohol, so it was off to Coop for that. Such is life here. Not to mention that I also had to bring it all home, which was actually done over two days of shopping. Here's what the tiny kitchen looked like after all that shopping:

Everything turned out great and we all had a really good time. Somehow I managed to get everything cooked and time it so that it was all ready around the same time. Our entry/living/dining area is great for entertaining. We were also really excited to be able to use our entire dining room table, pulling the leaves out to seat 10 comfortably. Unfortunately we forgot to take a picture!

In Switzerland it is customary to bring your hosts a small gift when you come to their home. Here's what everyone brought us:

Of course, our four-legged family members were not invited to the party (much to the disappointment of BK's team). So Saturday morning we slept late, BK got a much-needed haircut and tried a new place for lunch. Later we went and picked up the boys and just enjoyed a relaxing night at home.

The boys must have played hard with their dog friends, because they let us sleep in again this morning. I made homemade oatmeal (as in, not instant) for the first time ever. As a kid, I ate the non-instant stuff, but I haven't' ever made it for myself. It was good, especially when I added in brown sugar, cinnamon and half an apple. Yum!

The other thing we did today was go see the play/musical Shadowland. I'll just say upfront it was just a little too artsy for my taste. There was no dialogue and most of the show is the actors making shadows with their bodies. I think if you're not going to have any dialogue in a show, than at least have a storyline that's easy to follow. Not so much on this one. At some point the main actress turns into herself, but with a dog head. What? Yeah, I didn't get it either. The end was the most exciting part when they thanked Basel with some upbeat music and cool shadows. Not to mention that they bowed approximately 17 times, which I didn't understand either.

Anyway, after that BK and I tried another new restaurant then headed home to hang out for a bit before now attempting to stay awake until the Super Bowl comes on. We'll see how this goes…BK's already dosing off on the other side of the couch.