Mocha Spice and all things nice

Well...today was good and not-so-good. I don't want to say 'bad' because it really wasn't bad. Just not-so-good at parts. I did some grocery shopping. Good. I saw a few one-act plays, one of which featured one of my students. Good. It rained all day, and I was woken up this morning by the shaking of the apartment in the wind. Not-so-good. I tried a new cupcake recipe. Very good. I realized around 1pm that I had student papers to respond to by 10am tomorrow. Definitely not good.

So, you see, today was a mixed bag.

But, overall I think I can say that I am pleased with today. I'll feel better once I get the student papers taken care of.

In the meantime, a word about the cupcakes.

I tried the Mocha Spice cupcake recipe that I found here.
This was possibly the most complicated batter I've made so far, but that was only the case because of the incredible number of spices involved. There was such a great deal of measuring go on. However, all the measuring done, the cupcakes were a success.

The idea of spices including cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, and (to me the most frightening) ginger in my chocolate cake was a bit unsettling. But, I think the fact that the cake was more mocha than straight chocolate made me feel a bit better. Who knows.

Anyway, the spice is quite appropriate for fall, or pre-winter as we are now having in Maine. And the basic chocolate icing I made for the top is nice and comforting in its Hershey-ness.

Here's the glamour shot of the cupcakes on the tower my mom sent me a couple weeks ago.


And here is the naked shot. This cupcake is fairly boring to look at, but the flavor more than makes up for that.



















And please notice the blue cup of milk slightly behind the cupcake. I had to drink milk as I iced the cupcakes just because the frosting looked so rich. I wasn't even tasting as I went, I might have gone into a sugar coma if I had.