A Real Fauxstess Cupcake

So I planned to make the Fauxstess Cupcakes from VwaV this weekend. I got all of the ingredients (except the black cocoa - I decided I could live with a lighter brown cupper), and was ready to go. I made the cupcake part, and it turned out great (despite the instructions, I opted to NOT spray the cupcake liners this time - very wise decision). However, I didn't have so much luck in making the Cream Filling. The recipe called for soymilk powder, and not the low-fat variety (I didn't realize you could get 'skim' soymilk powder!) since it would leave a 'taste'. I knew I had soymilk powder, and it wasn't labelled as being 'low-fat' so I thought I was OK. What wasn't OK was that when I was pouring the soymilk powder into the bowl, a whole pile fell in. I tried to salvage the mixture, but it was way too gross. And it had a 'taste' - perhaps I had the 'low-fat' variety after all, or it was just the fact that four times the amount of powder went in :(

Needless to say, I scrapped the filling. I decided to make the ganache. After topping more than 8 cupcakes, I realized that I could've poked a hole in each cupcake and filled them with jam. Kyle told me to keep going and just leave them plain. Problem was, they were just topped with ganache, and not thick and creamy buttercream icing, so they would be really plain. I remembed someone had made the brownie cupcakes, so I decided to top the wet ganache with some walnut pieces. They were awesome. I didn't mind that they didn't turn out as fauxstess cupcakes anyways! It was like an actual fauxstress cupcake...

And we didn't just eat junk food - I made what was supposed to be a porcini mushroom stroganoff that I had made before. It called for dried porcini mushrooms, which were of course sold out at the grocery store, so I made a mix of oyster and some other kind. It didn't taste as good as what I remembered before, but it was still OK. Part of the problem was that I didn't add much salt. This was because I made another Isa Pizza on Friday night, but didn't taste test the pesto before adding it to the pizza. That wasn't smart, since I must have added WAYYY too much salt. Both Kyle and I were dying of a sodium overdose when we ate it on Saturday for our lunches.

So I'm getting a *little* tired of the kitchen disasters. Fortunately, with the Xmas season on it's way, I'll be making some tried and true delectables. It all starts on December 1st with Skor Bars!!! I can't wait!