Champagne Buttercream

When I was a kid I loved icing.  I took my first cake decorating class at 11 so I could learn to make roses, simply because eating a rose seemed less strange than a glob of icing. Then the gastric bypass surgery happened. For 6 months I couldn't eat any sugar among other things like most meat. In October my surgeon cleared me to slowly introduce regular foods into my life.  I couldn't wait to get home and have a slice of my Dad's yellow buttercake with tinned chocolate butter-cream  On the first bite, it tasted so sweet I thought I was going to implode.  It happened with icing, honey buns, jelly donuts, and thus my love affair with the insanely sweet ended. 

Since then I prefer whipped icing but California Cottage Food Law requires icings that don't need refrigeration so my favourites are 86-ed to sell to the public for the present.  It basically leaves me meringue and butter-cream.  It did occur to me though that I often don't make butter-cream in my personal kitchen. I make the chocolate kind, but other butter-creams I hadn't made since I was at the country club. Most people who've worked in restaurants and bakeries can tell you that for business reasons butter cream often has about 30-60%  vegetable shortening. Alot of vegan  commercial icings are all vegetable shortening. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's just not my forte. So when I set to make the champagne butter-cream for the Strawberry Champagne chiffon cupcakes I knew what I wanted to do. Simple, fluffy, delicious, celebration in my mouth. ^-^

Ingredients

1.5lbs of unsalted butter at room temperature

2-3 cups of icing (powdered) sugar sifted (I'll get a mass for this the next time I do this)

3 tbsp of champagne I used Barefoot Bubbly Pink Moscato

1/3 cup of strawberries pureed. If you use frozen you may want to start with a quarter cup and work your

Procedure

Beat butter till fluffy (low-med)

Gradually beat in add sifted sugar  (it should basically look like the desired consistency, leaning on the thick side) (low)

Beat on medium till fluffy

whisk in champagne and strawberry puree

Beat on low for 1 minute.

Ice cupcakes and enjoy!

The cake recipe I used is a pretty standard Japanese recipe for Strawberry Chiffon. I used a Wilton 27 tip and some light pink sanding sugar I bought at Spun Sugar in Berkeley. If you're local  you gotta check them out.

mmm, butter, sugar, alcohol. And it's pink!Now that's what I call the makings for a good birthday cake ^-^

How Dating and Job Hunting are alike

I got this email last week or so from Andiamo  that started: "Dating and job hunting have more in common than you might think.  Here are 6 ways that job hunting might give you dating déjà vu" I've excised the obvious advertising but here's their plug: they're a IT and sales recruiting agency. website

1. Know what you want. Tall, dark, and white collar or windblown surfer start-up, when it comes to a romantic partner we know what we like without thinking too much about it. We’re attracted to people who ‘fit’ and ‘get’ us. The same is true about the kind of company you work for. It may take some soul searching to find out what you prefer.
   So true! The other thing I've noticed in both job searching and romantic endeavors is, to quote a Lauryn Hill album line "What seems right, may not be right for you" 
2. Know where to find it. Ask all of your coupled friends how they met and you’ll get just as many answers! The key is to get out there and look everywhere. There is a reason it’s called a job hunt.
   Interesting concept. Really get out there and look everywhere? Not sure how I feel about that one
   
3. Put your best foot forward.  Do you remember the date who showed up late, smelly, and who talked only of themselves? Yeah, me neither. I’m sure he/she was a great person but never got a second date because everything about him or her said, “I don’t care.” Don’t let that happen to you!  You have to not only make them believe you are special, but that they are special as well.  I try to do this. Albeit my city life makes certain aspects tricky. For example, my work clothes are pretty tomboy-ish and sometimes plans are made that I can't go back home in between work and the date. So I may change a shirt or something, or just show up. Learning about our similar interests is one of the best parts, I love to ask questions about folk. And it's no secret that when I like somebody, romantic or otherwise I will bake for them till they're in a sugar coma. lol.
   
4. Don't badmouth your exes. As tempting as it might be to explain that you left your last job because your boss was crazy or that your previous company was mismanaged, sharing these feelings could reflect badly on you.Seriously though, I hate it when folk do that. Especially the first date, already a new info overload as it is. Eventually it's likely to  come up as you exchange life experiences. And it's true some ex-es are just plain bad but let us look forward to a bright future ahead. 
5. The next day follow-up. Would you wait around after a fantastic date with your dream girl/guy to see if s/he calls you?  Send an email to follow up or a handwritten note if that is more your style.
   
   I could learn alot from this one. I have the classic guy move of waiting 2-4 days.  We never worry about being over-eager when we send thank-you notes after interviews, why so with dates?
    
6. Give it time. Understand that a job search is not a one-night stand, or even a summer romance. This is a process that could take several months.
   
   Now what about summer jobs or contract work? Isn't that kind of like that. This is the love-cynic in me speaking. As long as you know what you're getting yourself into. But being aware that like temporary positions, you never know what may happen. You might decide to join the circus when it leaves town. It may be love. The tax office may hire you as a year long employee. One of you may end up with child, if it's biologically possible.  Just keep that in mind.
   
   The other thing is alot of us get caught up, at certain age or stage of life thinking we've got to find someone. I'm guilty of it myself, there's this small southern belle part of me that still thinks if I'm not married by 30 it probably won't ever happen. Logically I know that's false but culture has a funny way of affecting you.

You know one thing I learned the most from reading this? I am not at all enthused about the prospect of dating. I just don't want it bad enough. Dating is just one of those things that tends to "happen to me" rather than me seeking it out. However on rare occasion I fall, I fall hard. There's a reason my life's mantra is "Go big or go home!"  It's  similar to my job hunt. For awhile I was content not to really search, than I decided I wanted to volunteer in Americorp  and the whole Operation Hire Jasmine. However in someways this is different. Dating isn't the end all and be all, I'd not consider starting a "marry Jasmine" website. Though I know some people who have thought about it, lol. Being an engineer is very important to me whereas getting married is not a goal of my life. If it happens, it happens, if not I have enough love in my life with my friends and family

 I've never had a job that I didn't like, there was always something that kept me wanting to go there each day. Even the temp jobs, and when they were over I looked back fondly for what it was. But one thing I've never done is settle in a job search. I only apply for jobs I want.  That's definitely something to remember.


Happy Thursday,
Jasmine

Engineered cupcake: a dream in the works

Strawberry Chiffon Cupcakes
with Champagne Buttercream Icing

/yesterday was my birthday.   Not a milestone by any stretch of the imagination.  I still remain firmly a twenty-something with 30 gunning for me.  But as Sophia from "Golden Girls" said "Every year without a headstone is a milestone" ha.

People always ask "what did you do for your birthday", this year I affirmed that I am ready to take hold of my other passion.
Baking , I love to bake. It's a stress reliever, it's a creativity release, it's how I show my appreciation.  Baking is a beautiful science.  Many of my friends don't understand how I can just go in the kitchen and experiment with baking. Trust me, it's been a process.  As I tell people who compare my feasibility as baker versus engineer; You must keep in mind I've been baking since I was a kid, almost 20 years. Wait till I've been engineering for 20 years, it'll be unbelievable, lol.
But I digress,
 I've been wanting to sell my baked goods as long as I can remember and now it's a possibility!

Thanks to AB1616 I can sell home-baked goods.  Planning is in progress.

Starting small is key, the types of goods I want to sell are:

• Cupcakes
• Muffins/ Breakfast breads
• Cookies
• yeast breads

The name? Obviously "Engineered Cupcake" precisely baked goodness. This is seriously hard work, I kinda knew it would be but I never imagined. I've learned alot from my nearly 4 years of working in restaurants  hotels, country clubs, and for caterers.  Lessons that I keep to heart.

Right now is mostly research and development. Development of the menu, pricing, finalizing the logo.  Development of the menu of course means lots of taste testing. In a stroke of irony, one of the most popular cakes seems to be chocolate. It's ironic because I personally don't really go for chocolate cake. That's probably the reason I bake chocolate goods so much, I don't eat too much of it. lol.
The other thing is knowing my local demographic, so vegan and/or gluten free are a must.  In the past week I've made about 5 batches of chocolate cake... mercy.  I think the vegan gluten free chocolate mini cupcakes I baked for my birthday celebration are pretty near "the one".

I figured my birthday was a perfect time to taste test some recipes with my friends, etc.
Baked

• Coco-coconut Cupcakes with Cocoa Hazelnut Icing (Vegan AND Gluten Free)
• Chocolate Cupcakes with Chocolate Orange Butter-cream Icing (Gluten Free)
• Strawberry Chiffon Cupcakes with Champagne Butter-cream Icing

 Ideally I'm hoping to have my license in the next 2 weeks and aiming to sell at March's Art Murmur.

Stay tune for all the exciting things to come!

Happy Friday,
Jasmine

Super Bowl Blackout, my thoughts

That's the nite the lites went out in...wait wrong state
 source:ESPN

Watching the game yesterday with a buddy who's also in the industry, we couldn't help but be a bit amazed and ashamed at that 34 minute blackout during the Super Bowl.  It just always astounds me that the wealthiest country in the world has  infrastructure that we do.It was unbelievable  though it did kinda help the local team (49ers) though not quite enough.

Despite the internet, it wasn't the fact that the Superdome wasn't "ready for this jelly", Beyonce's booty did not knock out the power. The halftime show was ran on 100% generated power, not supplied by the venue's main grid at all they say. Though the ensuing memes of that possibility were hilarious. In fact the whole outage thing was hilariously teased throughout the twittersphere. My personal favourite: @PBS :This might be a good time think about alternative programming. #SuperBowlBlackOut #WeHaveDowntonPBS

This morning wanting to learn more about the technical issue, I read this on the New York Times site: 

Michael Burns, a spokesman for Entergy Services, the local utility, said that his company’s distribution and transmission feeders that serve the Superdome were never interrupted. Power did not go out elsewhere in the city.

Hmm... now that's interesting but understandable. That part of the country (South, Southeast) has random blackouts, it's an unfortunate part of life that we accept.  During hurricane season, tornado season, really hot weather, freezing or snowy weather, all of which are fairly regular occurrences in the South.  I was thinking that this was actually one of the better days for power stability. 

Entergy and SMG, the company that manages the Superdome, issued a joint statement explaining the power loss:
“A piece of equipment that is designed to monitor electrical load sensed an abnormality in the system. Once the issue was detected, the sensing equipment operated as designed and opened a breaker, causing power to be partially cut to the Superdome in order to isolate the issue. Backup generators kicked in immediately as designed.
“Entergy and SMG subsequently coordinated start-up procedures, ensuring that full power was safely restored to the Superdome. The fault-sensing equipment activated where the Superdome equipment intersects with Entergy’s feed into the facility. There were no additional issues detected. Entergy and SMG will continue to investigate the root cause of the abnormality.”

Sample Panel Schedule source

Looking forward to finding out if the breaker opened for a good reason or if there were some error within that. If it was for a valid reason than it was just one of those inconvenient things that must happen. Though I still have to wonder how the circuits are set up at the Superdome that a single breaker tripping causes a blackout over such a large area of the stadium.  Isn't that weird? Wouldn't you think that'd be more than 1 breaker, a true or simulated arcing event causing whole panel tripping maybe?  Since I've never been involved in wiring anything nearly that big or seen a schedule I'm just swagging. It In fact I'd love to see the schedule for the Superdome. A schedule is kinda like a home's labels on the main panel (circuit box/break box) except being for a larger facility it's larger.

So to be fair, stadium lights take forever to warm up, they have a crazy long strike time.  The other thing being that start-up procedures are long and involved for safety's sake. If the superdome would have caught on fire, even a small fire we would all be talking way worse than about an outage. I'm just saying.


EDIT [2.5.13] Let me just add that I'm just a engineering grad (09) who anyone who's read my blog or twitter knows I have limited actual engineering experience, (thanks recession) but  does have almost 4 years in the construction industry. So if you have any insight, please feel free to comment as such - JDKS