procrastination and the power of the visual

It is amazing how productive I can be during finals. I mean, I am on a roll. In the past 48 hours alone, I have: mailed in my parking tickets, secured a part time job for the summer, written that last blog post, written this blog post, and made THESE:

Chocolate Mascarpone Brownies. I had half a tub of mascarpone leftover from my tart and I didn’t know what to do with it. So while I was procrastinating, I happened to see this which led me to this recipe. I just happened to have the exact amount of mascarpone, as well as a whole bag of Ghiradelli semi-sweet chocolate chips and Ghiradelli cocoa powder. “PERFECT!” I said to myself as I put aside my english paper again.

I would like to note that I adore my paper topic. However, I love it so much that I don’t want to ruin it by writing about it. Especially when writing about it involves 15 pages! I have never written something so long (maybe a lab report). Especially not about LITERATURE. I will pause right now to reccomend that anyone who hasn’t read Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God should go read it immediately. I am rarely effected by a novel. Especially not a book that one would read as “classic literature” <insert haughty accent>. However I was floored by this book. It is vivid and vibrant and so beautiful. Anyone out there who is as addicted to food blogs as much as I am is surely a visual person, and Hurston’s language is as visual as you can get. As I read more and more criticism, I continue to be more and more impressed. For anyone who cares (probably no one, but that’s ok), I am writing about Janie’s ability to visualize herself and her self empowerment, as relating to the power of the visual and the female body.

But back to procrastination…These brownies were superb. They hardly belong in the “brownie” category. More like “fudgy bite of heaven” category. And, you know what? They were not hard to make. This was my first experience with ganache. SO simple and SO delicious. I think next time I would like to use a darker chocolate.

Some more “visual power” for you:

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Strawberry Chocolate Cupcakes

Helloooo readers! This past weekend was Equestrian Team Movie Night. We watched Hidalgo. I hadn’t baked anything in a while because midterms are HORRIBLE terrible nasty evil creatures. Luckily I had this excuse to procrastinate. So I made these deliiiicous chocolate cupcakes and plopped strawberries on top of them.

Ever since I went home for spring break to sunny sunny florida I’ve been wanting to make something with strawberries. I also recently bought some muffin tins (mini and regular sized) that I need to get more use out of. Then I realized it’s not exactly strawberry season in Vermont. All the same I went to the grocery store and the strawberries were on sale so I grabbed a couple boxes. My original intent  was to make strawberry cupcakes, but then I realized I needed to puree my strawberries which was not going to happen here in my dorm kitchen. Then I decided that everyone loves chocolate and I had a bunch of it in my Bag of Baking Goodies so I should use it. And besides, strawberries and chocolate TOTALLY go together.

I went for simplicity because I did not have a lot of time on my hands. Of course I ended up with too much batter and loved the mini-muffin trays so much that I made..oh…4 or 5 trays of mini cupcakes. One at a time. While watching Millionaire Matchmaker on Bravo. Oops. I used the Hersheys cake recipe, which I saw on Lovin’ from the Oven, but I did not in fact use Hersheys chocolate because I think it has a very distinct taste that I don’t like that much. So I used ghiradelli cocoa instead. As for the frosting…well…I REALLY adore Duncan Hines Dark Chocolate frosting. I could eat a tub of that stuff without the cupcake, so why change a bad thing? Being resourceful, I spooned it into a ziplock bag and used it to pipe little swirlies onto my cupcakes.

As usual, the cupcakes were photographed on our grimy kitchen table using our collection of frisbees for dishware and the light of a kind of rainy day.

Chocolate Cupcakes

• 2 cups sugar
• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup ghiradelli cocoa
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup boiling water

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line muffin cups with bake cups.

2. Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on med speed for 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour batter onto prepared pans.

3. Bake 30-35 minutes if doing 9-inch round pans, 22-25 minutes for cupcakes until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans/cups to wire racks and cool completely.

Frosting: Duncan Hines Dark Chocolate frosting. Spread it on. Pipe it on. Skip the cupcake entirely and eat it with a spoon…

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