Chocolate Whiskey Cupcakes with Buttercream Frosting

My holiday post is a little belated... but I hope everyone had a happy St. Patrick's Day! I meant to post this on Saturday, but my weekend got insanely busy with rehearsals and work.

I'm only partially Irish, so St. Patrick's Day has never been a huge deal for my family. I'll wear green to show some pride, but that's about it. This year, however, I decided to get a little crazier and flaunt my Irish heritage with some good old fashioned Irish whiskey- baked in a cake, that is ;)

Chocolate Whiskey Cupcakes with Buttercream Frosting

makes about 10 cupcakes

Cake (adapted from this recipe)

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup warm water
1/2 cup Jameson Irish Whiskey
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp white distilled vinegar

Frosting:

1/3 cup vegan butter (I used earth balance)
2 cups powdered sugar
3 tbsp soy milk (or 1 tbsp soy milk and 2 tbsp whiskey, if you want to make it extra boozey!)
1 tsp vanilla

1. Preheat your oven to 350º and grease or line a cupcake tin.
2. Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, cocoa and salt in a large bowl. Stir in the remaining ingredients and mix until just combined. Pour batter into the cupcake tin and bake for about 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
3. While your cupcakes bake, prepare the frosting by creaming together the earth balance, soy milk (or whiskey), vanilla and one cup of sugar. Once it is creamy, whisk in the remaining powdered sugar. Either refrigerate for about an hour, or serve drippy and room-temperature, like I did :)

Thanks to everyone for the wonderful traveling suggestions! I'm still in the process of plotting out my route, so I'm open to any further recommendations and advice. I love hearing about other peoples travel stories- it makes me so excited to have my own adventures!

Wanderlust & Brownies

Remember how I said I had really exciting news? Well it’s finally official:

I am taking a leave of absence from school to travel around Europe all by myself for a whole year.

I am actually bursting with excitement. It’s hard to focus on anything else except planning and fantasizing!

So far, I have an internship in London this summer working for a small theater company doing arts administration-type stuff. From there, I will travel to Paris in mid-September where I’m hoping to find some kind of au pair position, then on to Spain, Italy and Greece. I’ll be getting a student Eurail pass, so who knows where else I could end up on the way to these main destinations!

I’m still deep in the process of organizing all of this and getting tickets and such, but it’s coming along really well! I’ve been considering the possibility of taking a year to travel for a while and next year just felt like the right time. I’m one of those people who gets antsy when I stay in one place doing the same thing for too long. I need a big change in my life, so I am taking a leap of faith and pushing myself out of my comfort zone. I’m terrified, obviously, but also ecstatic.

Making plans and doing research has been so much fun, but also so time consuming. However, I am a firm believer that no matter how crazy things get, you should always leave a chunk of time in your schedule for chocolate. In this case, chocolate, cinnamon and pear brownies. Trust me, these are 100% worth the procrastination.

Pear Cinnamon Brownies 

makes about 9 brownies

1 cup sugar

3/4 cup applesauce

2 tbsp water

2 tbsp canola oil

2 tsp vanilla

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/3 cup whole wheat flour

2/3 cup cocoa powder

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp cinnamon
optional: 1 cup chocolate chips

1 pear, cored and sliced vertically

1. Preheat your oven to 350º and grease an 8x8 inch pan.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar, applesauce, water, oil and vanilla. Stir in the flours, cocoa powder, baking powder, cinnamon and chocolate chips (if you're using them. Unfortunately I couldn't due to the fact that my friends ate my whole bag during a study session the other night. Thanks, guys). 
3. Pour the batter into your prepared pan and smooth the top with a spatula. Place the pear slices on top in a pleasing arrangement and bake for about 45 minutes-1 hour or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before serving. Unless, like me, you enjoy eating them hot, gooey and messy :)

I brought these as a treat for the performers in the dance I'm choreographing- the pan was clean within minutes :)

I'll keep you updated on the progress of my travel plans! Let me know if any of you experienced travelers have any handy tips, tricks or resources I should know about!

Sniffles and Spaghetti

It's that time of year again... the time when every single person on my college campus collectively gets sick. We call it the plague. I thought I had successfully avoided it, but the endless amounts of Vitamin C and tea can only fight it off for so long.

Instead of wallowing in sniffles and coughs, I'm trying to look on the bright side of being sick, for once. Now, I can catch up on some much-needed sleep, watch movies that I've had saved up in my Netflix forever, and finally finish that great book I started reading! Yay!

...But let's be real. Being sick actually mostly sucks.

I was going to make myself a big pot of soup today, but I realized I'm all out of vegetable broth. Instead, I might make another batch of this cajun white bean spaghetti that I had about a week ago for dinner. 
I got the delicious recipe here, from Noelle at the Peaceful Plate, except I made some minor changes. I used spinach instead of kale and had to mix up my own cajun seasoning using equal parts oregano, paprika, cayenne pepper, black pepper and salt. 

All in all, it tasted super yummy and made great leftovers for a couple days! This will definitely be a weeknight staple around here. Maybe the spice will help to clear up the stuffiness in my head a little bit, too.

More yummy dessert recipes to come when I'm better! For now, time to doze off watching reruns of Mad Men.

Chocolate-Striped Banana Bread

Lately, a little stack of bananas has been accumulating in the corner of my room and was starting to turn very brown. I think besides just doing what bananas do, they were also trying to tell me that I need to get back on top of blogging and go make some banana bread!

Of course I have all the usual excuses for why I haven't been cooking or baking as often.. but on top of dance show auditions, midterms around the corner and work four days a week, I also have some very exciting news. You'll have to wait a little bit to hear what it is exactly (I want to have it more set in stone first!), but just know that it's kept me incredibly busy. I know I know, I'm being a tease. 

In the meantime, I highly suggest you take a break from your own busy schedule and make this banana bread. There are so many banana bread recipes out there in the world, but this one is so delicious. It's sweet, moist, super banana-y, and really fun to make with the stripes! Plus, as I have preached many times, chocolate makes everything better. 

Chocolate-Striped Banana Bread (adapted from this recipe at Babble's Family Kitchen)

makes one loaf

1/4 cup canola oil
3/4 cup sugar
3 ripe bananas
1/2 cup applesauce
1/3 cup soy milk
1 1/2 tsp white vinegar
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp cocoa powder

1. Preheat your oven to 350º and lightly oil a loaf pan.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together the canola oil and sugar. In a measuring cup, combine the soy milk and vinegar and let it curdle for a few minutes. 
3. Mash the bananas into the sugar mixture, then stir in the applesauce, soy milk and vanilla. Sift in the flours, baking powder and salt. Stir with a spatula until just combined.
4. Pour half of the batter into a separate bowl and mix in the cocoa powder. Spread a layer of plain batter into your pan, topped with a layer of chocolate batter, then repeat until all of the batter is used up (I ended up with 4 stripes total). Bake for about an hour or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Success! Yummy, crumbly and beautiful stripes of chocolate and banana.

Here is a fun song to get you through the week :)