Not much going on here, other than hand quilting - I broke my last machine needle the other day in a fit of temper, and need to wait for the nice postman to bring me some more. This is what we call learning a lesson, I suppose!

But I’ve been wanting to link to a few recipes I’ve found online and tried over the past month or so. It’s tough to tell if a recipe without any reviews or anything will actually turn out, but I’ve had fabulous luck with some lately, so it seemed time to share the love.

I’m warning you, nothing here qualifies as health food, except for maybe the pudding cake made with whole wheat flour. But, obviously, I served it with ice cream, so, you know.

This lemon curd from the one, the only, the Martha has been consistently reliable after about three tries. I have to admit, one of the reasons I favor it is that it seems to yield a fair amount for the amount of ingredients that go into it. I don’t consider Martha to always be a paragon of thrift, but I can almost always make this with stuff I have on hand, which is rare for a fancy dessert recipe. And it tastes flippin’ great.

Pink of Perfection can boast pretty consistently great recipes, but this pudding cake is most certainly my favorite. Not too sweet, not at all difficult, and made with whole wheat flour, it can be made in a 9×9 and still stretch to feed about 10 people, if the aforementioned ice cream is available. I find a lot of “I’m glad I tried this” recipes online; this one belongs in the “I need to make this all the time” file.

A couple of years ago, I was sad because I didn’t know how to make a brisket. I was never able to find a recipe that didn’t require sever days of prep. So I was skeptical when I saw this on Mama Urchin’s blog - it just seemed to effortless! Which is was. And also delicious.

I usually stay far away from recipes that call for a can of cream of ________, but I will occasionally bend that rule when I am already making a bunch of stuff from scratch. My Superbowl Party was structured so that I had to prepare both lunch and dinner for quite a few people, so, enter creamed spinach. I was initially drawn to it by the description: “This spinach casserole is similar to one served at a Boston restaurant chain.” Which it does! But it has two other things going for it. One is that it is possible to dump every ingredient listed into a saucepan at 10 a.m., cover, and heat 9 hours later for dinner. The other is that it looks exactly like the processed algae they eat on Battlestar Galactica, so if you routinely eat dinner with a bunch of BSG fans (and why wouldn’t you?) you can serve them algae.

And, finally please don’t eat this, but do make it: laundry detergent a la Neesy. This was SO easy, and it works great. I’ve even been giving jars away as gifts. Which probably seems lame. Until they try it! It’s got a great smell, it’s eco-friendly, and won’t irritate any allergic types. But the best part is, nothing will ever make you feel more usefully domestic than making your own laundry detergent. Seriously.

I know this is a terrible picture, and not even a good subject for a blog post, but I feel better - physically lighter and just better - now that I’ve organized the cupboard that serves as my “pantry”:

The inaugural email sent to the The Vintage Housekeepers Circle today charged us with baking a Wednesday Cake, and though mine is not as frilly or fancy as the lovely Alison suggested, it’s going to be served underneath lemon curd.

Oh, lemon curd! Even the promise of you is happy-making.

I don’t know of a better lemon curd recipe than Martha’s. And I mean that quite literally - this is the only one I’ve tried, but I’m happy to concede I am a curd n00b. My cupcake book has a slightly different recipe, and with a passionfruit variation, which I would have tried had I been able to find passionfruit nectar. As it is, I have a lemon tree out front, so I’ll go with Martha’s instructions. They’re what I know, and the lemons are free.

I can’t remember the last time I’ve been so domestic in just a few short hours. I need to decide if I want to keep on housekeepin’ on, or do something entirely frivolous so I don’t burn out….

Yesterday I wanted to make a bunch of cupcakes for the movable feast I promised to take to TV night (LOST, Dexter, and Battlestar Galactica - thus the need for a good deal of fluffy pink icing).  Pink lemonade seemed like an ideal spring mood-lifter, but the recipes I found on Bakespace didn't work out quite the way they should have.

In fact, there was so much sturm and drang around the making of the treat you see above that I didn't even get to taste test the final product.  I simply iced, decorated - I chose Pez because it's small and pretty - and boxed.   It wasn't until someone asked "Did you decorate these with Pez because they taste like Pez?" that I realized how clever I'd been.

(And not even then, really, because my reply was, "No, why?  Do they taste like Pez?")

Oh, but to my Pez-loving delight, they did.  They do.  And they are really easy:

Pez Cupcakes

(adapted from recipes found on Bakespace) 

Cupcakes:
1 cup + 2 tablespoons cake flour 1/2 tsp baking powder 1/4 tsp baking soda
Pinch salt
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 egg whites
1/3 cup thawed frozen Lemonade Concentrate
1/4 cup milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. 

In a small bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

In an electric mixer, whisk together sugar, oil, egg whites and lemonade concentrate. Alternately add in flour mixture and buttermilk, making three additions of flour mixture and two of milk.

Scoop batter into prepared pan. Bake in preheated oven for 20-25 minutes or until tops of cupcakes spring back when lightly touched. Let cool in pan on rack for 10 minutes. Remove from pan and let cool completely on rack. Top cooled cupcakes with frosting and Pez. 

Makes about 7 cupcakes.  I tripled the recipe, would probably quadruple to make the pink Pez buttercream.

Pink Pez Buttercream

1 1-pound box icing sugar
1 stick butter, softened
1/4 c. frozen lemonade concentrate
4 drops red food coloring

Stir food coloring to lemonade.  I did not have a full 1/4 cup of lemonade, so I added some milk to total 1/4 c. liquid.

In an electric mixer, cream butter and sugar together.  Add liquid slowly.  Mix until uniformly pink.

I was so proud of myself over these, that today I treated myself to an Emperor Palpatine Pez dispenser, so he can hover over the cute cupcakes and say, "You want this.  Don't you?"