Thoughts of a sick woman

Today I called out sick. I'm pretty certain I have a very mild form of the stomache flu. I almost didn't call out sick, but then I thought "Hmm, what if I up-chucked on one of my clients? Not a good idea Marsha." So I stayed home and felt sickly all day. And what did I decide to do? Watch Food Network. This makes total sense right? Feel so sick that nothing sounds appetizing, so let's watch tv that focuses on lots of food that I can't eat. But that's how much I love food. Food Network, Top Chef, Jacque Torres, Emeril, etc. is what comforts me. Even when it sounds awful I want to watch and be immersed. Guess crackers and water will have to suffice...

Falling behind for Fall

AKA: Experiment Failed.

I know that I've fallen behind in my blogging. I've had plenty of ideas, and topics, but not inspired to write for some reason. Which led me to push through and post a blog for fall and re-commit myself to one blog a month. 

Experiment:

Witty pun and successful recipe. 

I wanted to make a Fall inspired recipe and use a fun pun of "falling behind for fall" whilst creating a successful recipe.  

Results:

Witty pun? Eh, failed or success dunno. 

Delicious successful baking recipe? Definitely failed. Of course as always I tasted my failed experiment, not once, but twice. 

 What did I decide to experiment with? Trader Joe's Pumpkin Butter and boxed cupcakes. I really wanted to make a cupcake filled with pumpkin butter and topped with pumpkin spice icing. Where did the experiment fail? Where I initially thought it would. But went ahead anyways.

I tend to do this in life. Despite my better judgement, I will sometimes act on impulse. My better judgement was that the pumpkin butter would be too heavy and sink through the cupcake, or mess up the batter and not allow it to rise. The batter rose, but the filling fell through. In hindsight, I shoulda carved out the center of the cupcake post-baking then added the filling. But that ran into the problem of icing. Icing would not have looked good with a gaping hole in the cupcake stuffed with filling.

 Hmm, dilemma dilemma. 

Maybe I should just stick to tried and true recipes?

If you want to fail like me, or attempt to improve upon it, here ya go:

• Heat oven as directed by cupcake mix, I set mine for 325 F because I use dark muffin tins
• 1 box of yellow cupcake mix
• 1 1/4 cup water
• 1/3 cup oil
• 3 eggs
• 1 jar of pumpkin butter
• Greek yogurt or cream cheese to mix with pumpkin butter
• 1/2 cup sifted powdered sugar
• 1 tbsp milk
• pumpkin spice to taste

Top View: See all the pumpkin spice goodness?

So close....

Mix cupcake batter as directed, put in muffin cups. 

Mix 1 part pumpkin butter with 1 part greek yogurt. I didn't have any plain cream cheese, so I used greek yogurt which I find to be a good substitute when cooking. 

Add dollop of pumpkin butter mix to cupcake batter.

Bake as directed

While baking make icing. Mix sifted powdered sugar with 1 tbsp milk and pumpkin spice to taste.

Let cupcakes cool, then drizzle with icing. 

Argh, pumpkin filling at bottom :(