A Cupcake Project

As the credits for the movie, Julie and Julia, rolled on my television screen I found myself not only pleased with the movie, but inspired. It was so fun to learn more about Julia Child's beginnings as a world-renowned chef. Meryl Streep is one of my favorite actresses, and she did a phenomenal job with her portrayal. Everything I learned about Julia was a treat. The inspiration came from watching modern day Julie take on the task of cooking her way through Julia Child's, The Art of French Cooking. Julie had a passion for cooking and for writing, and she wanted to take on a project that incorporated both. She challenged herself to cook all 574 recipes from Julia's cookbook in 365 days, and she blogged about the whole experience.

An idea began to form in my mind...

What if I cooked my way through a cookbook and blogged about it? Well, not a cookbook. I am no chef and have no interest in that. But I love to bake. I have several very scrumptious baking cookbooks that never get opened. Hmmmm. Would there be a point to this project?

I decided there were be a few goals I could meet through this project.

1. Cracking open a cookbook that sits in my cupboard. When you never crack open a cookbook, but store it for years on end, this becomes a good goal.

2. Sharing a passion that I have with my daughters. I love to bake cookies, brownies, cakes, etc. and think about baking with my girls all the time. I never get past the "thinking" and get to the "doing" with this activity.

3. Spending time with my daughters. See #2.

4. Sharing my love of friendship with my girls as we choose different friends and neighbors to share our baked goods with each week.

And so it was decided, a goal was set, and a book was chosen.

We will be baking through this lovely Cupcake Recipe Deck that was given to me by my sister a couple of years ago...

50 recipes in 52 weeks, one each Sunday. I think we can do it. There are 50 frosting recipes included which make up the 100 total recipes in the deck. The need for frosting will be determined as we make each recipe.

We started tonight with the Applesauce Cupcakes.

They have been mixed, baked and sampled, and they are delicious. The batter was a little thicker than we expected, and I didn't read the "mini cupcake pan" note until the batter was loaded in the large cupcake pan, but it didn't matter. They came out very well. Cooking time was approximately 10 minutes in a Pampered Chef cupcake stone. The topping suggestion was melted butter, sugar and cinnamon. I highly recommend it.

Oh, and if you haven't seen Julie and Julia, it's worth the rental.