Lemon Cupcakes and a 60th Wedding Anniversary

60 years is 21,900 days, which is 525,600 hours, which is 31,536,000 minutes, which is 1,892,160,000 seconds. Roughly. And that is how many seconds my grandparents have been married. They have been in love for even longer than that.

On August 15th, 1953, two people committed their lives to one another, and now, 60 years, 6 children, 29 grandchildren, and 1 great-grandchild later, they are still madly in love, and a great inspiration to us all.

A small portion of this family (the ones that could get time off work and who don't live scattered across the planet) gathered a couple weeks ago to surprise my wonderful grandparents in a celebration of their love. Their children took them to dinner, and while they were there, a small group of my cousins and I set out desserts and a couple decorations for when they returned. It was the last in a string of surprises that week, including spontaneous visitors and world travelers. Good times were had by all.

Enjoying cake at their wedding...

...and cupcakes at their 60th.

I made these lemon cupcakes as a sweet summer treat, in a cheerful, festive hue, bedecked with (all together with me now) cream cheese frosting. And plus, have you seen these Paper Eskimo cups yet? Holy cuteness! Like 12 on a scale of 1-10, if cupcake papers had a cuteness scale.

See? Holy moly.

These lemon cupcakes are easy to make, delicious and tangy and moist, and can be made as a cake if you don't want to do the cupcake thing.

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Lemon Cupcakes
From Martha Stewart
Makes about a dozen normal cupcakes, or an 8 inch layer cake

Ingredients

2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon lemon zest
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 large eggs and 3 large egg yolks
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 cup buttermilk

For the frosting:

1 lb cream cheese, at room temperature
2 sticks (1 cup) butter, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4-6 cups sifted confectioner's sugar

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350ºF.
Line baking tins with cupcake papers (or butter and flour two 8" pans).
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and lemon zest. This smells absolutely heavenly. I believe lemon zest is made primarily of angel wings. Or fairy dust. Zesting lemons will make the whole kitchen smell absolutely fantastic.
In the bowl of your mixer fitted with a paddle attachment (or in a regular bowl, if you feel like kicking it old school), beat butter and sugar until light, fluffy, and gorgeous.
Turn the mixer on low and then add eggs and egg yolks one at a time.
Beat in the lemon juice.
Alternately add the flour mixture and buttermilk in batches, starting and ending with the flour. Don't overmix here, just combine until the flour is incorporated.
Portion the batter into baking cups (about 2/3 full)

and bake 20 minutes (or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out mostly clean.
Let cool 10 minutes in pan, then remove and let cool completely on a rack before frosting.
You will notice that these stand on their own and don't need a muffin tin. Awesome.

**Note: In Martha's original recipe, she made a lemon simple syrup; while the cakes were still warm, she pokes holes in the cake and brushes on the syrup. I omit this step for cupcakes, and they turn out wonderfully moist and scrumptious. I have made this in cake form (for this adorable puppy cake), and I did the syrup. It turned out great. Your call.

Frosting:

Beat cream cheese, butter, and vanilla until smooth and creamy.
Add sugar in 1/2 cup to 1 cup increments, beating well in between additions. After the last addition, beat 3-5 minutes until smooth, light, and fluffy.
Pipe or smooth onto cupcakes (I used a 1M tip).

Lemon curl garnish
These cupcakes are so lovely garnished with a simple lemon peel twist.
These are super simple to make. All you need is a zesting tool. I use this one. Any zesting tool with a channel knife (the part in the middle, not the little holes at the top) will do the trick.
Make sure the fruit is clean, since you will be putting the garnish directly on top of the frosting. You can totally eat these too, although they are too bitter for some people (this also depends on how much pith (the white part under the skin) comes off with the peel).
Hold the fruit firmly, and, applying even pressure with the channel knife, peel the top layer of skin in a spiral around the fruit. Try to get mostly the yellow part and not the pith.

Like so.

Take the length of peel that you cut and twist it around something round (I used a wooden spoon handle). The tightness of your curl will depend on the size of the round thing. For tight spirals, use a skewer. For larger spirals, you could even use your finger.

Let it sit for a couple minutes to hold the shape, then gently slide the curl off the spoon.

Cut into little twists, and bedeck each cupcake with the sunny yellow goodness.

Enjoy lemon cupcakes, and enjoy love.

Congratulations to my amazing grandparents!

Here's to many more years of joy-filled memories!

...

Oh, and a few plastic party cups and a car seat were all that was needed to transport some of the leftovers safely to my cousins who couldn't make it.

Happy Thanksgiving! Maple Pecan Cinnamon Rolls (and an Ode to Thanksgiving Dinner)

Oh, Thanksgiving. How I love thee. Let me count the ways. Your juicy turkey goodness, your mouth-watering stuffing deliciousness, your sweet, buttery crescent rolls, your multiple kinds of potatoes and gravy. And pie. Oh goodness, the pie.
Seriously though, Thanksgiving is one of my favorite days. This is the first year that we have ever done Thanksgiving without extended family or friends, with only the immediate family. And not even the whole immediate family at that. It doesn't lessen my thankfulness for each and every one of the wonderful people in my life though. Above all things, I am grateful for those I love and who love me, and make my life better every day.
Thank you.

This year, despite the much smaller crowd (only my parents, my sister, and me), we did the whole feast. Couldn't bear the thought of eliminating something. Probably could have made a little less of a couple things though. I'm going to be eating sweet potatoes for weeks (not a complaint, in case you were wondering). We had our celebration a day early, as my sister took a shift at her hospital on Thanksgiving day. The ER doesn't close for Thanksgiving, y'all. Here we are about to eat that glorious meal to celebrate all we are thankful for...

And pie. 

And more pie.

I didn't even get a picture of the turkey. But I can say that it was delicious, and that is what matters.

Today I got up and made cinnamon rolls. Because we needed something else to eat. Ha.
I recently stumbled across these Maple Pecan Cinnamon Rolls on Pinterest. Darla from Bakingdom (a goddess to whom I bow) posted them on her blog last year. As soon as I was done drooling over them, I bookmarked them for Thanksgiving morning. Actual Thanksgiving, as it turns out, because yesterday I was busy rubbing butter all over a turkey in the morning.
Turns out they really were super easy, and I totally could have made them on actual Thanksgiving morning.

They turned out amazing, and one consumer (my mother, who has been known to say nice things about me, and who might be a little biased) said "These might be one of the best things I have ever eaten. Like, ever. In my life." She likes cinnamon rolls. She is a bit of a dessert pastry connoisseur, actually. So that's awesome.

Anyhow, make 'em. you won't regret it. No-one will. They don't take long, and you might not eat anything else ever again. Until you make a leftover turkey sandwich. With gravy.

Enjoy, and Happy Thanksgiving!!

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Maple Pecan Cinnamon Rolls

by Darla from Bakingdom

Ingredients

Filling

3/4 cup brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup chopped pecans
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted

Dough

3 cups all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons sugar (I used about 2 1/2, but 3 would be fine)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1/3 cup maple syrup

Icing

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1 cup confectioner's sugar
3 tablespoons maple syrup
1 to 2 teaspoons milk

Directions

First, make the filling. Mix the sugars, pecans, cinnamon, and salt together in a small bowl. Add the melted butter and stir together with a fork (or your fingers, if that's how you roll) until the mixture is combined. Set this aside.

Preheat the oven to 425°F. Brush a 9-inch cake pan with 1 tablespoon of the melted butter.

For the dough, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. You could use your mixer, but it's just as easy to use a good old fashioned wooden spoon here. Add the buttermilk, maple syrup, and 2 tablespoons of the melted butter and stir until combined. When it starts to come together, turn it out onto a floured surface and knead until it is smooth. It might remain kinda sticky, but that's OK.
Chill the dough in a covered, lightly floured bowl for 20 minutes.

After chilling, roll the dough onto a floured surface, making a roughly 8x12 inch rectangle (this isn't geometry class it doesn't have to be perfect). Pour 2 tablespoons of the melted butter onto the dough and spread it across the surface with your fingers (you could use a brush, but who doesn't love to smoosh melted butter around with your fingers?). Pour the filling onto the dough and spread it out, leaving about 1/2 inch space around the edges. Press the filling into the surface of the dough. Try not to lick your fingers every 12 seconds.

Roll the dough (from the long side) into a tight log, and pinch the seam closed (leave the seam facing down to cut...). Cut gently into 8 pieces and lay each piece in the cake pan. Brush the rolls with the last 2 tablespoons of melted butter and bake in the 425° oven for 20-25 minutes. The tops should be golden brown. If the tops start to get too dark, you can use a foil tent for the last few minutes.

For the icing, cream the butter in a small bowl. Add the sugar and mix until they start to combine. Add the syrup and mix until smooth. If it is too thick, add the milk little by little until you reach the desired consistency. It should be pourable, but not thin and watery.

Allow the rolls to cool for about 5 minutes before icing. You can leave the rolls in the pan, or move them to a plate to ice. Totally up to you.
Pour the icing over the warm rolls and serve immediately (that sounded urgent, but I guarantee you won't need me to tell you. Really though, eat them warm, it's the best way).

Enjoy! Be Thankful!

Happiness Lives High on a Mountain

Telluride, Colorado. Perfection in the form of a small town. Seriously, y'all, I'm this close to putting a down payment one of the cutest darn houses you have ever seen, because I am that ready to live there. I know I exaggerate, but no jokes here. Well, yeah, there will most likely be jokes, but that wasn't one.

They say that the name Telluride comes from an old expression "To hell you ride," with reference to the forbidding terrain surrounding this breathtaking mountain oasis (in the days before Jeep Cherokee Limiteds with automatic transmission and heated seats). I don't know who "they" are, but I really hope that's true. And they have magnets that say that for sale in the pharmacy across the street from our hotel. If a magnet says it, it must be true. Oh, and I just checked Wikipedia, and it makes reference to the same legend. The Wiki-gods have spoken. And we all know that you can't put anything on the internet that isn't true. So there you have it. To Hell U Ride...Telluride. And hell could not be farther from the truth. Telluride is officially my happy place. Or one of my happy places, since I can't seem to decide. Close call between this and Kiama, really. But I digress.

This trip was planned by my sister. She was working media ops for the USA Pro Challenge this summer, and Stage 1 wound through the Rockies from Durango to Telluride. As she tells it, she stepped into town, picked her jaw up off the ground, shook her head in disbelief that she had lived in Colorado for more than a decade and never been there, and then promptly began planning our return. The day after the Pro Challenge finished (and she recovered from a killer after party), she sat down and booked us three nights at The New Sheridan on Main Street.

The last week of September was chosen for its merits in the fall foliage department, and it could not have been more perfect. We woke up the first morning to this.

Swells the heart and brings tears to your eyes, doesn't it?

We spent the weekend sleeping in, eating delicious food, shopping, eating delicious food, hiking, eating in adorable restaurants, and staring all around us in disbelief that this exists on earth and is not overrun by people constantly. Oh, and riding the gondola. And eating.

The gondola is a really awesome form of free public transportation that takes you over Coonskin Ridge between Telluride and Mountain Village. The view is breathtaking on both sides of the mountain. Also, if you get to Allred's (the restaurant at Station St. Sophia at the summit) right at 5:00 for happy hour, you can snag the table in the corner and get a view like this to enjoy your drinks. And burgers. And truffle fries. Drool.

Dinner with a view.

...if you can tear your eyes away from the truffle fries...

Riding the gondola for the 8000th time.

On the gondola riding back from Mountain Village.

We had breakfast at The Floradora Saloon on Saturday morning...and enjoyed it so much that we returned the next morning and all ordered the same thing. Go there asap and get "The Trucker." Perfect biscuits, topped with crispy bacon, topped with two eggs over easy, topped with the best sausage gravy I have ever tasted. With a side of potatoes that are not even possible to describe with words. Why didn't I take a picture of it, you ask? Well, partly because I plain old didn't think of it in my rapture of breakfast deliciousness, and partly because the plate barely touched the table before all three of us were shoveling it into our mouths like some kind of crazed starving...something. Something that's starving. Words fail me. It was a gravybath. For those of you unfamiliar with that term (which is everyone, because it's made up), that's like a bloodbath, but with creamy, peppery sausage gravy instead. In case you didn't get it.

If you're there on the right weekends, you can catch the cutest little farmer's market you've ever seen.

We spent a morning there buying too much jewelry, and eating curried pumpkin pasties, spicy beef burritos, fresh kettle corn, apple tarts I would swim through shark-infested waters for, and this Colorado-made cider. A great way to spend a fall morning.

We hiked twice that weekend, once up to Bridal Veil falls in the box canyon, and once on Bear Creek Trail to another waterfall (not sure what that one was called...).

Back towards town from the box canyon on the way to Bridal Veil Falls.

About halfway up the Bear Creek Trail, you will find a clearing in which people have been constructing cairns. Like, for years. There are hundreds. It's a spiritual feeling to stand there, with that view, and see these little pieces of people who have stood there before you. It sounds cheesy, but when you see it, you'll know. We each built our own  before continuing on up the mountain.

The shopping there is great. It is the epitome of a small town, with only a couple blocks of shopping, but you'd be surprised. Every store was a gem. I spent way too much money.

The only thing that was less than perfect about the weekend was the fact that I did not realize until about 2 hours into the 6 hour drive that I had left my camera (my precious...my precious...(who read that in a Gollum voice? Be honest...)) sitting on the foot of my bed, all packed up in its best traveling outfit and ready to have a weekend in Telluride. I would say I was devastated, but I guess there are worse things. Are there worse things? Luckily, Telluride, being a ridiculously charming truly small town, pulled through, and more than one person offered the use of their own personal DSLRs. The concierge at the hotel and the guy that owned the computer store across the street (both of whom I had met within mere seconds of the offer) said I could have their Canons for the weekend. I do wish I had my own sweet Nikon, but that's the way the cookie crumbles, and thankfully I had the willpower to not let it spoil the weekend. And I got some OK shots out of the deal. The shots in this post are either from that camera or my iPhone.

Oh, fun fact. Did you know that Butch Cassidy's first bank robbery was in Telluride? Huh. I didn't. Anyway, excuse the strange lighting in this picture, but there you have it. The plaque says "Mahr Building - 1892 - Site of the San Miguel Valley Bank - Butch Cassidy's first bank robbery - June 24, 1889"
Cool.

Thank you to my beautiful sister for planning this trip. It was a wonderful girls' weekend.

One last look on our way back to reality.

Go there. You'll thank me when you do. Happiness really does live high on a mountain.