chocolate chips....

well after much delay i finally made my first cupcakes of the year and as promised they were chocolate chip ones from martha's book! they turned out a little dense for my liking, the recipe called for egg whites beaten into 'stiff peaks' but not over beaten.... well being the novice i am i really dont know when to turn the electric beater off.... i mean stiff peaks are stiff peaks right.. you cant get any stiffer? well i think i must have as im sure the egg whites are in the recipe to keep the mixture light....?!?!

anyway they werent a complete disaster, they were edible and most who ate them didnt complain! i made some chocolate buttercream with the edition of 175g of 70% cocoa chocolate... yum! it was probably the best tasting icing i have made so far :)  i was too lazy to decorate them in any sort of impressive fashion so i just crumbled up some choc chip cookies and piled them on top of the icing...

oh and most importantly... i got a new camera! its not an SLR but next best thing i think! 10MP and 12 optical zoom for a pretty good price, im pretty pleased and hopefully it will make my blog a little prettier to look at .... this is how my cupcakes (and photos) turned out

well besides the semi failed baking we didnt get up to much in the weekend, just relaxed, cleaned the house (speaking of which, the landlord is selling! so we are going to have to find a new place to live.... im dreaming of a big kitchen!), caught up with my mum etc etc

on saturday we went to western springs in the early evening for a impromtu picnic and it was beautiful! havent been there since the end of winter when it was pretty bare and uninspiring! i managed to put my new camera to use and grab a few practice shots

ants in my pants....

i am dreaming of all the things i want to do this year and thinking i may write a things to do in 2010 list, the draft includes a lot of travel! i want to go to japan, singapore, amsterdam, paris and the gold coast... amongst others! me and my lovely are also starting up a joint bank account to save or at least to attempt to save for a house..... might be a few years off yet haha but at least its a start! we are starting off the year with a trip to the old faithful which is sydney! we are leaving in feb and i cant wait (even though i just started back at work!)

id also like to travel more of nz, after spending new years in rotorua id like to go down there again with some spare money and see lots of the attractions, especially as i have not visited them since i was young! the south island is also in my mind, i have never really liked the idea of it but it would be a shame not to explore it when its right in the backyard! im going down to christchurch with my mum in june so thats a start! would love to hire a campervan and travel around :D

MOST importantly i am going to try and get out of debt, which i know seems a funny thing to say with all this dreaming of travel.... but it has to be done

so thats just a FEW ideas i have, lets see if any of them come to fruitian!

i feel as though i havent really been in the baking mode recently but now i am back at work i am dying to get on with some cupcakes! i mentioned in an earlier post that i was considering trying out every martha stewart cupcake recipe from her cupcake book... i have no idea if this is possible but i am starting with the chocolate chip cupcakes on page 22 (the first recipe in the book) and we will see where it takes me! im going to bake them tomorrow morning so i can take them into work (as the recipe makes 30?!?!)

the other day i did manage to knock out some macaroons from nigellas book, they were ok but i had to buy HOME BRAND shredded coconut and it was revolting! it was huge big strands that were too big for macaroons so they turned out slightly dry! i have to note that i never use home brand unless i absolutely have to! i think their products are of poor quality so i try to steer clear! anyway it was the only shredded coconut on the shelves :( i am going to retry them with some higher quality coconut and dip them in melted chocolate....

they ended up looking ok though....