ninety degrees outside?!?!

...and it's November!!! I can't believe how warm it's been this month. I was so excited when, in October, somebody turned off the heat outside! Apparently, it was just a glitch.

But aside from that. Cupcakes.

We've been making all kinds of cupcakes! So fun.

Last time, I told you that we were making Blackberry cabernet cupcakes. We did. It was okay... I'm pretty sure the problem was some combination of not enough cocoa and the red wine... I'm pretty sure that the purpose of the cocoa in these cupcakes was to cover up the oxidation of the wine. I learned this when the wine was added to cupcake batter containing too little cocoa and it turned grey. It looked so much like clay that E and I talked about using it for facials... delicious, cupcakey facials...

But we didn't, we baked it and it was still grey. It was not appetizing looking, and it didn't taste like much. Oddly enough, a couple days later, they turned a nice chocolate brown... weird.

The color could be covered up by the frosting. We made a reduction of cabernet sauvignon with blackberries in it. Then we mixed it with butter and sugar to make a buttercream frosting. Even though the alcohol had been boiled away, the wine lent a tangy flavour to the frosting that was really unexpected and made the frosting pop! And the color.... it was a gorgeous magenta! But, alas, even awesome frosting can't save all cupcakes... I ended up baking another batch of cupcakes (this time a chocolate sour cream recipe) and brushed them with cabernet after they were baked-- liberally applied, of course!! Topped with the tangy, sweet, fruity, boozey frosting, deliciousness ensued.

...two months later...

Holy sabbatical Batman!

Okay, after an impromptu leave of absence which I spent enlightening young minds, I'm back. And I have a new goal. A close friend of mine (my husband's best friend's girlfriend) is obsessed with cupcakes. Not in a bad way, but she loves them. Passionately.

We began holding cupcake baking nights at my house as a kind of girls' night bonding time while the boys played an online game with each other-- this new game called Aion. As recovering WoW-heads, apparently, this new game is good-- which means E and I babysit each other. A lot.

So 2 weeks ago, we made an attempt at Guinness cupcakes with Bailey's frosting. (Sounds tasty,

right?)

I've made them before, (picture above)but the recipe was on my now-dead computer and I didn't have time to make it up again.

So, we used Martha Stewart's recipe from her Cupcake Book. The recipe is pretty much a spice cake with a guinness glaze (right). That is almost nothing like the cup

cakes I made back in

March. Those were chocolate Guinness cake with Bailey's buttercream frosting. Oh well, we made them

anyway. They were alright, but I was disappointed in the lack of chocolate.

So last week, we decided to stick with a booze trend and we made "Smudslide cupcakes" (The term "smudslide" came from a drink-a-day-athon in which a mixed drink was made for each day of the week-- for example, "Margarita Monday" Sunday was a really hard day of the week to assign, therefore, "Smudslide Sunday was born")

Our Smudslide cupcakes were delicious!! We decided that we are going to make a cookbook dedicated to cupcake versions of alcoholic drinks (and possibly with alcohol still in them...)

Our cupcakes had coffee, Bailey's and coffee liquor in them along with a LOT of dark chocolate. Once baked, they deflated like sad soufflés... This may have been due to the amount of time that the batter sat around while we made things that we hadn't anticipated. Like coffee. I had the GENIUS idea to make french press coffee so it would be strong and delicious and add LOTS of flavor to the batter. This, of course, meant boiling water and then steeping the coffee and THEN finally(!) adding it to the batter...

The silver lining to our concave cupcakes was that the indentation allowed more frosting to be added to each cupcake. Which, by the way, also had liquor in it. Our frosting was basically a buttercream base with melted dark chocolate, coffee liquor and Bailey's added in for deliciousness. They look fine, right?

Rich and decadent, I do not foresee an end to this escapade any time soon. Next on our list is Blackberry Cabernet cupcakes... stay tuned!

The Gossip Mill

I'm as likely to spread a juicy rumour as any other 20-something girl with a voice. But cheese-and-rice, does the gossip fly when Apple even hints at the idea of a new gadget or gizmo.

The specific electronic device of which I am speaking is the highly anticipated, exceedingly blogged-about Apple tablet. Most of it is speculation, of course, as Apple hasn't even shown prototypes at any of the electronics shows yet.

I've always been a PC girl. I grew up with the old-ass IBM desktops and got my first laptop (a Dell Inspiron) when I came to college. Windows is my comfort zone, although Microsoft hasn't always made it easy on me...

Then, in 2008, I lost my cell phone. At Six Flags. On X2. Totally worth it. My contract was almost up with Sprint and my husband and I were looking for new phones anyway. I wanted a Blackberry and he wanted a touch screen phone. I let him choose where he wanted to go since EVERYONE carries Blackberries.... we looked at all the provider stores in the mall, then just for fun, we went to the Apple Store to check out the iPhone. It won hands-down over all of the other choices. I even changed my Blackberry-loving mind and went over to the dark side.

I've never looked back. Apple made a stellar product that was exceptionally customizable. I could make my phone reflect me and work the way I wanted it to. I could make it look the way that I wanted. I could organize and reorganize and categorize. As I found more and more apps, I became more and more satisfied with my product.

Now, as a shopper, I'm conflicted. I love to spend money, but I feel guilty doing it. Consequently, I often feel buyer's remorse when I spend >$200 in a clip. Buying 2 iPhones at $200 each +service and activation should have brought me to my knees... it didn't. That says a lot about my satisfaction that the money I spent was worth it.

So now, Apple is coming out with a tablet that's rumoured to be like a large iPhone. There are tons of artist predictions out there on the interweb of what it will look like and what functionalities it will have, but the best prediction? The price point. It's supposed to be available for <$1000. Win.

I'm still on my laptop PC, but I'm thinking I could become bi-computer-ial (?). After all, Macs are a little better for graphic design and even some lab work.... I'm keeping my ear to this gossip mill so I can once again get a toy that I won't regret buying.

Tripping on Amino Acids

I was reading this post today and was amazed by all that I didn't know about amino acids and athleticism. I've taken more biochemistry classes than I can count on both hands, many of them specifically related to protein biochemistry and I don't know anything relevant about amino acids. I don't know how they're metabolized (except for a few key players), how they partition in the body, or which amino acids make up a majority of the pool in the body.

I was astounded. As a protein biochemist, I was appalled that I didn't know these things. As a sometimes-athlete/biochemist, I was intrigued. I had no idea that glutamine was the most abundant amino acid in the body, but when I got to thinking about it, that made a lot of sense. It contains 2 amines (the peptidyl amine and the functional moiety) so it's very useful in metabolic reactions. It can be deaminated to produce glutamic acid, it can donate to several hydrogen bonds, it can form salt bridges since it's often protonated at physiological pH.

I knew from my extensive education that branched chain amino acids (BCAAs) were important for athletes due to their necessity in muscles, but I had never sat down and pondered this. They play a crucial role in oxidative metabolism (they're used as fuel) and are a crucial component in the immune response after physical exertion (again, related to glutamine!)

I guess I've never given much though to the human body as a whole, since I'm so ofen focused on my one little protein. I don't give amino acids the credit they deserve for all the varied activites they are part of. I've always said that lysine is my favorite amino acid. Today, I'd like to give a shout out to BCAAs with a special nod to glutamine. Thanks!

In the beginning...

Hello my name is Jenn and I'm an addict. I mean-- I'm a chemist. No, wait, I'm a culinary architect? I'm a fiber artist?

What I'm trying to say is that I wear many hats.

I wear them figuratively, of course, otherwise I think I would look pretty silly. And of course I don't wear them (figuratively) all at once. I'm a graduate student working on my PhD in chemistry and like many of my peers and colleagues, I'm not yet sure what I want to do when I grow up. I'm a formally trained scientist-- I've been working at the bench for most of a decade now-- but that's not my passion. I like to learn, I like to teach, I like to create, but I'm not good at coming up with new and exciting ideas for research. I like to read scientific papers and aspire to know all there is to know.

I like science, but I'm not ready to teach it as a career. I'd like to go into the "real world" for a bit since I'm currently a 21st grader.... hmmmm. I tried an internship as a science writer, but I don't really know the reality of that career choice. I feel that I write fairly well (for a scientist), and do enjoy the flexibility of it. For now, I'm just playing it by ear, trying to get through graduate school.

When I'm not doing lab science, I can often be found doing kitchen science. I LOVE to bake, a passion that was passed to me by my father. Every December we have a Christmas Cookie Weekend Extravaganza where we employ pounds of butter, 2 Kitchen-Aid Mixers and LOTS of sugar to produce massive quantities of cookies. It's good times. I bake throughout the year, but that weekend is one of my favorites. Kind of funny to look forward to Christmas so I can bake, huh?

The rest of the time that is not spent mixing and creating and concocting, I spend with my husband, dogs, movies, and knitting. Let me clear something up here: I'm not OLD... well, not as old as most. I'm in my mid-20s and I LOVE to knit! It's my dirty little secret.

I envision this blog mainly focusing on science, cooking, movies and knitting/crocheting as those are the general topics that most interest me. So hold on tight and enjoy the ride!! Thanks for stopping by!