I love to bake. A lot. However, I’m not a huge fan of sweets unless they are mixed with something salty.  This does not prevent me from filling my house with luscious smells of heaven though as I bake yummy treats. I’m not such a fan of cooking, even though I love vegetables and dinner type foods more than sweets, but I could bake constantly.

My favorite treats to make are tiny versions of things – individual cheesecakes, tarts, and cupcakes.

Monday I got the urge to make cupcakes and wanted to try something I hadn’t really tried in awhile – a snickerdoodle cupcake. Despite my general dislike of sweets, I am a sucker for snickerdoodle cookies. My grandma makes the most delicious ones known to mankind and had me hooked at an early age.

Making them was a bit of a chore. It took an hour and 15 minute or so to make one batch. Luckily, it made more than a dozen so that saved me from pulling a baking all nighter. They couldn’t have been more perfect as I pulled them out of the oven. They looked just like snickerdoodle cookies.

I had a bit of issues with the frosting I made not wanting to stiffen enough but I tried it on half of them anyway. The other half I gave in and put on store bought frosting. Boo.

The cupcakes were brought in tonight to Gangplank for the Phoenix Design Week events planning meeting. Developer Ignite was occurring simultaneously, so my leftovers were brought out to the crowd. They were snatched up fairly fast. Unfortunately too fast for me to take a picture of the ones with the homemade frosting.

At one point someone wanted to marry my cupakes. Another told me they were beautiful. My cupcakes bring all the boys to the yard!

I think my next attempt will be something that tastes like a banana nutella crepe. That in a cupcake might surely be the best treasure ever.

Did you have one of my cupcakes? Leave a comment and let me know what you thought and if you have any interesting suggestions for future cupcakes. I love making my own recipes.

I can’t begin to rave enough about how truly awesome the first Reopen Phoenix was last night at Gangplank. I have had such an exhausting past two weeks that the last thing I wanted to do this Friday was go out. I had planned on skipping the various friday night activities around the valley, going home to a run, some take out, and a movie while working on some side tasks. After hearing about a collaborative jam session at Gangplank, I thought I’d swing by to at least check it out for a short while.

The result?

I ended up staying until it ended which was shortly after 9:30. I was able to get get a great head start on my side tasks for the weekend and got to chat with some incredible people.

Reopen Phoenix was truly spectactular. Had I had a better voice this week, I would’ve been singing. I think I have been asked to do that next time.

There were so many different people there and the blending of their different styles and genres was amazingly inspiring. There was some Johnny Cash, a great cello solo, acoustic and electric guitar, country, rock, rap/rock infusion, and more. I pulled out my macbook and some chocolate covered almonds and went at it while dancing in my chair and singing half the time. I would also like to thank Bully for eating some of them with me so I didn’t finish them off myself

I don’t quite have the time for a band, nor can I seem to find the right one, so things like this are perfect for me. It’s higher on my list than rockaroke I think.

I think everyone that was there, and not specifically for the event, was impressed. I know several people, myself included, would like to see this on a frequent basis. I think this combined with bringing a barista in might make me move to Gangplank. Wait, I stopped drinking coffee. Okay so a barista in case I might want some tea.

Let’s do this again. Soon.

Love,
Tonia (Lil Ms T if you’re nasty)