Wonder Woman Cupcakes: Frosting for the Cause

Way back in January, GeekMom posted about a site called Frosting for the Cause.  The idea behind Frosting for the Cause was that every day in 2011, bakers and bloggers would create a baked good and give a tutorial about making it to raise awareness for cancer research, especially for cancers specific to women. It’s not just about raising awareness either, it’s about giving both our time and treasure to help those with cancer. Each blogger not only provides an inspired recipe, but also donates their baked goods to those dealing with cancer and donates $25 to cancer research.

Cupcakes and community service? I simply had to get involved.

Baking Hack: Gluten-Free Caramelized Onion and Apple Muffins

Yeah, I had fun in the kitchen this weekend. I’ve actually been reading Cooking for Geeks and it is inspiring me to try new and interesting flavor combinations. Now, onions and apples are not a new combination, I eat that on a regular basis with an extra sharp cheddar on top. However, I have never seen the combination in a muffin. I was originally considering cupcakes with a fromage blanc or chevre frosting, but ended up not, though there is a note about that at the bottom. Anyway, they are delicious, and here is what I made:

Cooking Hacks: Gluten-Free Gingersnaps

According to twitter, there a number of people who would be interested in gluten-free baking recipes. Well, I’ve been glut
en-free for the last two years and I love to bake and I’m a scientist, so I’ve been playing with gluten-free baking for a while. Therefore, I figured when I do something great, I’ll go ahead and post it here for you!

So, I had dried sugar-coated ginger sitting around, and decided that I should make gingersnaps out of it. Now, I’m not only gluten-free, but I try to eat low-sugar due to a minor medical issues and a family history of diabetes, so I tend to make a lot of changes to what seems like a typical recipe.

Anyway, enjoy my cooking hacking!

I'm not a food photographer but I play one on this blog

Fandom Introduction: Food Hacking

I love to cook. You’ve probably already gotten that idea from some of the insane cooking that I’ve posted here. I learned how to cook in general as a kid, helping The Mothership in the kitchen with Thanksgiving dinner and other such things. However, at some point I moved byond my mother’s recipes into a realm that I would call food-hacking.

This was a curry related food hack. It was delicious!

Video Game Themed Dessert

As you probably know from our past ridiculous-ness, Rosalind and I like to cook. And sometimes, we don’t just make normal everyday things. (Bacon cupcakes anyone?) So when Rosalind and her husband Billy decided to throw a party (read: Rock Band, board games, and alcohol night) for some of their geeky friends (read: DnD group and science lab buddies) we knew we had to make a dessert worthy of the attendees. Thus was born: Mario Cheerio Treats, with scenes based on Super Mario Bros. 3:

This isn’t a recipe post, since we just used a basic Rice Krispie Treat recipe, with Cheerios and added some peanut butter M&Ms (the best M&Ms, but seriously that is a geek-out post for another time). To decorate we just used basic white and buttercream icing and fondant (store-bought and home-made). We did fine details by dipping a toothpick in food coloring and literally drawing on the fondant.

Here’s some more pictures of our creation!

Bacon Bakin’

If it was any indication from my cupcake fandom introduction post, I like to bake, and not just your average chocolate-and-yellow-cake-with-white-icing style bake. I can’t help but get creative with flavor combinations, textures, colors, and ingredient substitutions. I’m pretty sure baking puts me in geek-out mode more than anything else I do.

This weekend (we bake on Sundays, and bring the goodies into Rosalind’s lab on Mondays. Bet you wished you worked there right about now, huh?) we made two different baked goods involving the all-time favorite among geeks and non-geeks alike: bacon. While bacon is pretty much a standard favorite, we’ve noticed lately that a lot of geeks just love it. No one has offered a good explanation for the connection, but there is one for sure.

After much consideration and long hours slaving over a hot stove in the kitchen (not totally true, but these did take awhile start-to-finish), here’s what we came up with:

Orange and caramelized bacon muffins with a candied orange peel (Breakfast Muffins, left) and chocolate chip and bacon cupcakes with peanut butter mousse filling and frosting (Bacon Cakes, right)

Check out the recipes if you’re interested, and trust me when I say you should be!

More Video Game Themed Drinks

We really enjoyed our video game themed evening the other night, and decided that we should take just the best parts, that would be the alcoholic parts, and repeat the process with some different games. Mixing drinks is really quite fun. Drinking them is just as fun. My husband, Billy, is really the one who played these games the most and so the drinks were mainly designed by him and implemented by Dawn and myself, who are better at the logic of mixology. I am the microbiologist, you know, except when Dawn and Billy think they are the microbiologist. Then things can just get confusing. Now, without further rambling, here are our newest recipes for drinks inspired by Alan Wake, Mass Effect, and Fallout 3.

Mmmm, alcoholic haze …

Fandom Introduction: Cupcakes

Last night, Rosalind and I made the most delicious batch of gluten free cupcakes you could ever imagine. Gingerbread cake with caramalized-cinnamon filling and apple buttercream frosting. My mouth waters every time I type that out. But an obsession like this doesn’t begin with that crazy complex flavor combination described above. Cupcakes are a fandom like any other. And here I am to tell you why I’m a cupcake geek, and how it all began.

If you are a fellow fan of those miniature desserts of delectable deliciousness, creamy fillings, fluffy frostings, moist round cakes in pleated papers baked for 20 minutes at 350 degrees Farenheit … where was I going with this? Oh right, if you’re a fan read on. If you’re not, you might be by the end.

Video Game Themed Dinner and a Movie

Dawn is staying at my (Rosalind’s) place for the summer, and my husband, Billy, and I are using the opportunity to introduce her to a variety of movies and tv shows that she’s missed. One of these was The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, one of the greatest Geek documentaries about the rivalry of Steve Wiebe and Billy Mitchell’s attempts to get the high score in Donkey Kong.

As we planned the evening, Dawn and Billy were concocting this idea to make the fireballs from Donkey Kong as cookies. Well, then we decided that if we were going to have fireballs, there should be barrels. And what’s dessert without a few new cocktails? So Dawn decided to invent the Princess Peach and Billy, not to be outdone, started considering the drink Link’s Triforce. This continued on for a while.

Once the gluten-free flour dust had all settled, we had managed an entirely video game themed dinner, movie, dessert, and drinks based on some favorite classic Nintendo games. We thought you might want to see how this all turned out!

How To Have A Klingon Feast

Earlier this month, our friend Emily at SciFabulous challenged her readers to a Geeky Food Contest. The idea was to create a recipe for a food in your favorite creative franchise universe. Well, I am into a lot of franchises and universes, but at my core, I’m a die hard trekkie (with a minor crush on Wil Wheaton!). I’m also a bit of a cook in my spare time. Therefore, I present to you today, not 1, not 2, but 4 recipes in three courses of a Klingon Feast! Now I present you with the Soj (food) for your ‘uQ (dinner). tIv! (Enjoy!)