Musical musings for October

Right now if someone was to ask me what my favourite kind of music is I think it would be obvious that my answer is country. I am not quite sure how it happened, but at some point it just became this way and I am pretty happy about that. It is almost to the point where the music I am listening to may not require musings and can exist just as a list. However, I don't wish to do that because I like to muse and suppose when the opportunity presents itself, especially as I feel I could be doing more of this very thing about lots of subjects at the moment. This month, my country music listening was inspired once more by the TV show Nashville, a country singer's wedding video, a familiar face and some new artists:

1. A Life That's Good (feat. Lennon & Maisy) - Nashville Cast
2. The Best Songs Come From Broken Hearts (feat. Connie Britton) - Nashville Cast
3. This Town (feat. Clare Bowen & Charles Esten) - Nashville Cast
4. Heavenly Day - Patty Griffin
5. Started With a Song - Brett Kissel
6. Play It Again - Luke Bryan
7. All Over the Road - Easton Corbin

For me, one of the things I appreciate about country is that it doesn't tend to be controversial. Plus it makes me happy listening to it, which I think is definitely what music should do for someone.

October's music can be found on these albums (images courtesy of iTunes)

Simply sweet cupcakes

I've baked many types of cupcakes in the past few years, but I love nothing more than whipping up a batch of vanilla cupcakes with a buttercream frosting. This past Monday I made a batch of them to acknowledge a co-worker and good friend's work anniversary. Prior to this baking session, earlier in the weekend, I paid a long overdue visit to Michaels to pick up some unnecessary supplies. I say unnecessary because I already had lots of sprinkles, frosting colours and cupcake cases. I definitely wanted new cupcake cases for this particular project, which I picked up during this visit. Anyway, for the cupcake I could have used a previous recipe, but I love the challenge of finding a new one and seeing if I can be successful with it. I used the vanilla cupcake recipe I found here, baking them for twenty-three minutes. I made the same buttercream frosting as I did earlier in the weekend minus the syrup, but with one extra teaspoon of vanilla essence and Wilton pink colouring to tint. The finishing touches were achieved with my Wilton 1M decorating tip and some colourful star sprinkles.

Thus, creating some simple cupcakes for the sweetest, most genuine person I have ever met in my life.

Thankful for cupcakes

This coming Monday is Canadian Thanksgiving, which is definitely one of my favourite holidays to celebrate here. I think the two things I like most about it are taking the time to stop and remind myself of what I am thankful for, but also the delicious turkey dinner that I usually get to indulge in. I don't like to show up empty handed when I am a guest for dinner and a dessert item is always a good choice. With this in mind, I wanted to whip up a batch of cupcakes. I used the chocolate cupcake recipe I found here, but chose to add the coffee to the boiling water. For some reason the mixture only made nine cupcakes, which may have meant I filled up the cases too high. I also baked them for twenty-three minutes. This meant I didn't have an even dozen of cupcakes so I needed to make another batch or something different. I decided to look for another cupcake recipe and thought I had found the one here minus the chocolate chips. However, it wasn't until I was mixing the ingredients that I realised it wasn't going to make enough so I made two batches for a total of five cupcakes. This allowed me to have a sample one of each, which I always appreciate when I am baking something new that others will be eating. For the frosting, the key ingredient was quite random in the form of Smucker's Sundae Syrup, which also ended up being the finishing touch. The other frosting ingredients were:

• 500g icing sugar
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 1 tsp meringue powder
• milk, to create the desired consistency

As usual, I beat the butter by itself first in my KitchenAid stand mixer then added the remaining ingredients one at a time until the desired consistency was achieved. I used my trusty Wilton 1M decorating tip for the polished finish.

Not to make light of things to be thankful for, but I really am thankful for cupcakes. I am thankful for them because they allow me to be creative and make me feel quietly talented. Plus, they are pretty delicious!