Picks, Pirates, Potables, and Pastry

Today we'll take you on a journey of Craft Night, where girls get together with needlenose pliers and guitar picks.  Mix CD's will be made, pub cheese will be devoured, and the gossip will fly amid Key Lime Cupcakes and Brown Sugar Daiquiris, on this installment of Lifestyles of the Broke and Crafty.  

The lovely and talented Kelly invited us into her home for a Pirate Party.  We listened to iTunes all night, and Kelly made mix CD's for each of us from her vast collection of music.  Dramatic Irony was the craft goddess for the evening.  She brought us guitar picks, beads, findings, and tools to make rock star earrings.  In addition to heavy metal, there was fire involved.  I burned my finger perforating a pick with a hot needle, and feel like that just adds weight to the whole rock star vibe of the evening.  Everyone's earrings turned out beautifully.  I'd say it was one of our most successful Craft Nights.

Aside from sequins and hot glue, the most important ingredient for a good Craft Night is food.  Yes, we like a little drinky, but if there's no pub cheese, we just sit there like lumps at the work table.  Actually, we've never had CN without it, and I shudder to think what would really happen in that instance.  We're all watching our spending habits, and when Kristin showed up with generic crackers, we immediately forgave her.  But each of us had the silent, nagging fear that she made the same choice with the pub cheese.  Not our gal!  Rondelé, all the way!  Crisis averted.  

I had the whole day off, and decided to make cupcakes from scratch.  Harvest Time was having a sale on Key limes, so the choice was obvious.  I found this Southern Living recipe on freshcrackedpepper.com, and made a couple small adjustments:

Bree Lime Cupcakes

1 3/4 c cake flour

1/4 tsp sea salt

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 c (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature

1 1/4 c sugar

2 large eggs

1 1/2 Tbsp Key lime juice

3/4 c milk, with 1 Tbsp lemon juice (substitute for buttermilk--who has buttermilk in the fridge?!)

1 Tbsp finely grated lime peel

Preheat oven to 350˚. Line two muffin pans with liners.  Whisk flour, salt, and baking powder together in a medium bowl.  Beat butter in a large bowl until smooth. Add sugar, beat to blend.  Beat in eggs, one at a time, then lime juice, and buttermilk.  Mixture will be curdled, fear not.  Beat in a third of the flour mixture, then a third of the "buttermilk" until smooth, repeat until ingredients are incorporated, then fold in the lime peel.  Fill liners about 3/4 full, and bake 20-25 minutes.  

Bree Lime Buttercream Icing

1/2 c butter, softened

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/8 tsp sea salt

1/2 tsp cream of tartar

1 (16 oz.) package powdered sugar

3 Tbsp Key lime juice

1 to 2 Tbsp milk

1 1/2 tsp lime zest

Key lime slices for garnish

Beat butter, vanilla, salt, and cream of tartar at medium speed until creamy.  Gradually add powdered sugar alternately with lime juice and milk, a little at a time.  Beat at a low speed until blended and smooth after each addition.  Beat in up to 1 tablespoon additional milk, for desired consistency.  Fold in lime zest.  Frost away!

Finally, the brown sugar daiquiris.  So, what do you do with 20 ounces of Key lime juice after you use the 4 tablespoons of juice you need for the above recipe?  You drink it, silly!  Real daiquiris are very delicious and very easy.  It's a 1:1:1 ratio of lime juice, rum, and simple syrup.  Simple syrup is a 2:1 ratio of sugar to water, gently boiled until the sugar dissolves.  You can make a lovely clear daiquiri with silver rum and white sugar, but I chose brown sugar, and although it wasn't picture-worthy (kinda dishwater brown, if you ask me), it was a delightful libation that was gone in an instant.  

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What's the Statute of Limitations for Pansy Theft?

I just love cupcakes.  They're cute, portable, suitable for all occasions, and they make people smile.  Really, I like making the cupcakes more than eating them, which recently led me to improving the recipes, and not focusing so much on the decorations.  My decorations are stellar, though, and I'm sure that if the cupcakes tasted like crap, people would hardly notice because of the distracting art.  In fact, the art has been so distracting, people haven't come close to imagining where the art came from, or the horror each cupcake endured to become a dessert.  

Let's start with the fact that I'm incredibly frugal.  The designs I create are usually the result of some improv work in my pantry.  Whatever I can beg, borrow, or steal, I do.  My secret thrill in cupcake making is creating something fabulous for pennies.  Several years ago, while deciding what to bring to an Easter dinner, I remembered seeing Martha sugarcoat nasturtiums and Johnny Jump Ups.  I hatched the plan.

Gorgeous devil's food cake, dark chocolate frosting, superfine sugar, egg whites, and pansies.  Easter was days away, and all I needed to do was get my hands on some flowers.  Living in an apartment, I didn't have a garden of my own.  I looked in the produce section, but the only flowers I could find were floppy and ridiculously expensive.  I could go to the nursery, but I didn't have time for plants to grow.  I needed them immediately.  

And then the deviance started.  

There was a house.  There were pansies that wouldn't be missed.  Pleading the fifth amendment, (although I feel I have already paid for my sins), I will not reveal the location or owner.  Shaky-handed, I entered the yard, and snatched dozens of pansies in every color.  Stealing was surprisingly easy.  And it was the first and last time I ever did it.  Swear. 

 I went home and rinsed the blooms, clipped the stems, brushed each petal tenderly with egg wash, sprinkled the glistening sugar, and let the beauties rest in the fridge overnight.  The next morning, I peeked in the fridge, and the flowers looked amazing.  They had curled up a bit, and were dry enough to do their duty in my gastro-artistic plan.  I baked, cooled, and frosted the cupcakes.  Then applied the flowers.  It was the loveliest treat I had ever made.  Right out of a page in Living magazine.  I would surely put this on my resume to Martha.  Looking back, it might not have hurt to mention my criminal background.  

I took pictures, fawned over the cupcakes, tried them out on several platters, to the point that I was making myself late for the Easter engagement for which they were intended.  Finding the perfect platter was a chore, but how to cover them?  Saran wrap was far too confining.  I didn't have a cake stand cover, but I did have Marky.  He could just hold them for the 45-minute drive to El Paso.  Doing my best imitation of June Cleaver, I picked up the platter, swung around to hand them off, and *SLIP*!  

Face down.  All 24 cupcakes.  On the carpet.  We didn't even make it out the door.  I stood there, not breathing.  Marky started picking them up.  After all the picture taking and time wasting, by the grace of Duncan Hines, the frosting was already dry, and didn't leave a trace on our carpet.  And the miraculously vacuumed carpet did them the same favor.  The pansies, however, were smushed.  All the effort to keep the petals curly and light, trashed.  Obviously this was cupkarma for stealing.  I accepted the once delicate statues as bas-relief, and placed them back on the platter.  With Saran wrap.  As we drove, I tried to rationalize not telling my family they would be eating food off the floor.  I would have to tell someone.  Mom could keep a weird secret.  As we walked in, I whispered my confession to her.  She took one look, and assured me, "They'll never know."

Dinner was lovely, and the time had come to unveil my stolen, soiled treat.  I walked to the kitchen, unwrapped the platter, walked to the table, and *SLIP*!  All 24.  On the carpet.  For all to see.  

Don't steal, and don't deceive your family.  Or this'll happen to you.