Nog and Snow

Yesterday afternoon I got a little antsy. I have a fairly ambitious academic weekend set up for myself; I'm actually trying to get the majority of my work for the semester done and out of the way. And, I honestly don't have that much left. I need to respond (rather creatively) to three YA novels, and then work up a Letterman-style Top Ten list of my YA learnings. For my play class, I need to revise (yet again and this time like I mean it) the paper that will become my seminar paper.

I know in my head that these things will require a good deal of work. However, I keep thinking that since the YA stuff is all creative and the Staging History stuff is 'just' revision, I can breeze through these last efforts and be set.

Bearing all this in mind, I got antsy yesterday afternoon because I didn't feel the need to do real work. Therefore, I found myself checking out all the great cupcake recipes for fall/winter. I've already figured out what I am taking to the YA lit last class potluck (and you'll just have to wait and see what happens there) on Wednesday, so I thought I could hold out and just bake on Tuesday.

No luck there!

I've been needing to try out a recipe before I take it to the big Christmas party, and I have been wanting to make a batch of six cupcakes. Without further ado, I proudly present the cutest batch of cupcakes an alchy ever made!

These gorgeous babies are egg nog cupcakes with a healthy amount of bourbon whiskey. I can say 'healthy amount' because they taste like bourbon. It's interesting, really, being a cupcake and tasting of liquorhol, but it's not bad. When I make them for the party, I'll use a lovely smooth rum, but for the test purposes, the Jim Beam I had worked just fine.

I don't know if you can see the recipe in this picture, but making only 6 cupcakes is not an easy feat. It requires measurements like 1/8 of a tsp and such craziness. Needless to say, there was a fair bit of guessing involved. It will be nice when I can make a full recipe and not have to finagle like that. The recipe did, however, make exactly 6 cupcakes.

So cute when they're naked. And here's the striptease version...

So after an afternoon of successful baking and an evening of The Grinch and YA responses, I dozed off to Footloose. It was a pretty good night all in all. But then I woke up to this:

Neither wind nor snow nor dead of night, or some crap like that. So far, each time it has snowed in this apartment, I've walked downstairs to see this postman delivering the mail to this neighbor.

If it were anyone else, I would call this kitschy. But since it's me, I just call it aggravating. The good news is that since I've sat at my kitchen table doing homework this morning, they've plowed the street. Success. Now I just have to see to my car and driveway. Or...maybe I'll just stay in today.

And have another egg nog cupcake.