A little on cupcakes and my rosewater fetish

I thought a little rambling would do very nicely to fill the time between now and the actual commencement of this 'project,' if we can call it that. So that's just what this is -- a little ramble. Sorry for the possible incoherence; it's late, I'm jet-lagged and in that annoying state of mind where I'm exhausted yet can't get to sleep. But anyways, here I go.

I happened to randomly discover one day, on the internet, this little place called The Love Bakery very close by to where I was living last year. I eventually ventured down there, and my everlasting loyalty and fidelity to this place was secured by a delicious rose cupcake. I've always loved rose as a flavour, and enjoy using it as a subtle flavour when baking or making deserts in general -- taste aside, it's got this wonderful cooling feel about it and the nostalgia it evokes (childhood summer holidays with my grandparents) is an added bonus.

So it was finding this place (which I go on about to my friends far too much) the discovery of this brilliant blog and getting my life back after having survived the exam period that led to me buying one of those muffin baking tray things, and the creation of Yoga-Cupcake Thursdays. That went on for three weeks until Yoga went on hiatus and work picked up again, but was good fun whilst it lasted. Definitely much more enjoyable than making normal cakes, and I'll be packing the tin when I move.

The first one I tried was #29, vanilla cupcakes with strawberry jam filling, with strawberry rose icing instead of the milk chocolate one. The sponge was fine, but only had the rather weak, dilute essence of rosewater as opposed to the slightly more concentrated syrup -- hence the former flavour coming through. Next to follow was #6. The actual banana cupcakes turned out sublime, but I ran out of icing sugar halfway through making the icing and took a little gamble as to whether I could get away with using normal granulated sugar instead to finish off instead of running down to the supermarket. If ever you nonexistent readers one day wonder whether you too can get away with that little cheat, don't do it. It tasted, well, okay, but it didn't thicken as it should have and looked a little like something you'd chuck up after a night out (somehow) -- so ended up having to bin it. Very much a rookie error there.

Finally, was #19, the blueberry muffins. Though I opted not to make icing, given that I was still traumatised from my previous attempt at making it. I'm dying to tackle his Lemon meringue ones at some point actually, they look stunning. And oh, I did eventually conquer my icing demons at a later date in case you were wondering.

Hello World

Given how I wasn't really planning on watching it at all (and I'd declined the possibility when it was available as an in flight movie two weeks earlier), it's surprising that it ended up inspiring me to the extent that it did when I ended up watching it. It just happened to be on the telly, and were it not focusing on the absolutely stunning Amy Adams when I flicked onto it then I'd have probably not watched it at all. But here I am. And oh, since I forgot to mention, the movie in question is Julie and Julia.

Yes, that's right. I imagine food blogs inspired by that movie are pretty ubiquitous these days so no brownie points for me in terms of, I don't know, creativity or whatever. But this is, in a nutshell, what's going on. In a few weeks, I'll be moving to Spain for 9 months, so what's left for me to do is the following:

1. Find a Traditional Spanish cookbook. I'd ask for suggestions but I can't imagine I actually have any readers at this point.
2. Cook my way through as much of it as I can during the year.

Given that I am a student, and I don't exactly want this thing to comprehensively take over my life, I'm not going to attempt something suicidal like 1+ recipes per day as in the movie, especially considering that as a student, I can't imagine I'll be able to afford to cook fancy meals every day (Side note: The 33p tin of Sainsbury's basics chopped tomatoes were an absolute lifesaver last year when my account was running dry at one point). Perhaps one three-course meal per week? I'll figure it out.