And that is when Beth speaks to me. I don’t know her personally, but I follow her blog, Fake Plastic Fish. She has been attempting to live a plastic free life for several years—and she documents her journey on her blog. She does an amazing job of finding sources of plastic in her life, and working to eliminate them completely. Beth has become the little green angel on my shoulder, helping me make better (greener) consumer decisions. And I heard her, urging me to try making the cupcakes and cake without a mix.
I also hear my super resourceful Vermont brothers and sisters cheering me on. We’ve got lots of homesteaders here who can make most anything that can be found at grocery store.
They all said: No plastic bag inside. No box packaging. No added ingredients. Resourceful and green, healthier for everyone. It's easy!
Then I remember—I’m no baker. I worked all week, and didn’t really feel like cooking dinner, making cupcakes from scratch, managing the behaviors of a 2 and 4 (soon to be 5!) year old, while not feeling so well myself. Really, all I wanted was a soft, cushy chair, and a movie.
Not happening.
So I remembered the Katy Farber improvement plan and I tried to make them, from this recipe:
Ingredients
1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons butter, softened
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 eggs
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup milk
And this is what happened:
Pretty, right? After tasting it (and promptly spitting it out), I realized I must have messed up on an ingredient. Then it hit me. When it said only one and a half teaspoons of baking soda? Well, I put in one and a half cups. Brilliant.
After a few lovely zingers from my husband (Why didn’t you just get a box? You keep Marth Stewart in business.), I told the girls if first you don’t succeed, what do you do? Try again!
So, at nine, when the kitchen was quiet, I made beautiful cupcakes without a box. I them made icing out of cream cheese, maple syrup, butter and vanilla. No plastic containers, no artificial ingredients—but a lot of ruined cupcake batter in the compost. Oh well.
I forgot to take a picture of them. But they were tasty (and the preschoolers scarfed them down in no time flat). Now I have broken the seal—and I know I can do it next time (which was worth the time scraping the muffin tin for 20 minutes).
Do you have any stories of trying to bake, or make something from scratch that didn’t go so well? Let me hear them! It would be nice to know I am not alone with my ingredient dyslexia (which is pretty frequent, actually) .
7 comments:
The first time I made chocolate chip cookies I did the same thing! Good job sticking with it!
My favorite "make-from-scratch" cake recipe is the on off the Hershey cocoa powder container. So yummy!
Your recipe only said 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda and 2 teaspoons of baking powder, How did you come up with 1 and 1/2 cup? And those items usually come in small boxes, might be a clue about amounts. Okay enough teasing and kudos for starting over and not running to closest grocery for store bought cupcakes!
ha..ha..i laugh as i almost gave up on making bread last week. my mom owned a bakery & me, being her daughter shud b able 2 bake a loaf of organic whole wheat bread, right? not so much, i had been trying 6 months & finally last week I had success. it wasn't pretty but it did rise! making things from scratch on your own is so rewarding!
Well, I have been cooking from scratch for a while, but my ingredient disasters come from living in England now and trying to convert my recipes to metric or from metric back to the imperial system. I also have had bad luck finding great-sounding recipes online, starting to measure ingredients and mixing together to find out the blogger or author of said recipe left out a measurement altogether and I have to guess. Trial and error. Once you find a great recipe, you'll memorize it! For now, I still read the pancake recipe from the back of my son's Curious George Makes Pancakes book!
that's a great story! it's nice to hear when people "fail" at the DIY thing--it helps to know other moms aren't always perfect (on the first try, that is:)
another idea for icing is to use yogurt. i read once that you could make yogurt cheese by straining yogurt. i added some vanilla and some cinnamon and voila! healthy icing. you could also puree some fruit for flavor.
here's a pick. i was super proud too!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/haphealyeverafter/3515605872/in/set-72157617817288893/
OMG that is the funniest thing ever and totally reminds me of some of my own DIY disasters. Long ago I baked a cake and accidentally used Bisquick instead of flour. Even though it happened in the mid 90's, my friends will never let me live it down.
Glad you didn't give up!
I grew up on cake mixes from a box. Since I know that I'll eat those things if I have them around, I don't buy them. Easy weight control :) That is, until I got a serious cupcake craving. I invited guests over for lunch which was the perfect excuse to make cupcakes. I didn't have a box mix but I did have the raw ingredients and The Joy of Cooking. An hour or so later I had peanut butter cupcakes with mocha frosting - something you can't make with a box mix. Yum!
I like this method bette because I don't have to buy anything extra when the urge hits - I already have it if I make it from scratch. The downside? I might have to invest in some stretchy pants if I give in to cupcake cravings!
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