Behind the Curtain

Taking Off

As you read this I am half-way enroute to Italy, where I will be for about 3 weeks. I will return in August with many photos, stories and (hopefully) quite relaxed. I hope everyone has a wonderful July!

Letter Writers Alliance

 Donovan and I are happy to introduce the Letter Writers Alliance!

In this era of instantaneous communication, a handwritten letter is a rare and wondrous item. The Letter Writers Alliance is dedicated to preserving this art form; neither long lines, nor late deliveries, nor increasing postal rates will keep us from our mission. Members of the Letter Writers Alliance not only have access exclusive downloads, the member area and LWA items, but they also carry on the glorious cultural tradition of letter writing.

You can become a member when you purchase the LWA stationery or just get the membership on its own (or just the stationery on its own, for that matter). There is also a Letter Writers Alliance blog. Prepare your pen and paper, moisten your tongue, and get ready to write more letters!

Ode to a Cupcake

After seeing many yummy looking cupcakes made from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, I finally picked myself a copy. Although I am not a vegan, I am quite pleased with this book. May be the best baking book purchase I've made in a long while.

I still had a lot of currants left, so I decided to alter a couple of the recipes to make a cupcake that would use up the rest of my currants. The cupcake recipe is a variation on the Chai Latte Cupcake on page 109 (I excluded all the spices, as they suggested when using Earl Grey and added the currants) while the icing recipe is a variation on the Rosewater Glaze on page 118. They turned out quite yummy, but not too pretty to look at. (I didn't fill the cups up enough, so they didn't pop-out as I hoped.) I'll have to work on my presentation! And please excuse the dark picture – just as I finished the rain came pouring down and hid away the happy ol' sun. Here are the recipes of my alterations:

Earl Grey Currant Cupcake with Raspberry Glaze (Vegan)
Cupcake Part
1 cup vanilla soy milk
4 bags or two tablespoons Earl Grey tea
1/4 canola oil
1/2 cup vanilla soy yogurt
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 all-purpose flour*
3/4 whole wheat pastry flour*
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon grated orange zest
* Or omit whole wheat pastry flour and use only all-purpose flour, 1 1/3 cups

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and line muffin pan with cupcake liners.
2. Heat soy milk in a small saucepan over medium heat till almost boiling. Add tea bags, cover, and remove from heat. Let sit for 10 minutes. When ready dunk teabags a ew times in soy milk and squeeze gently to extract any soy milk before removing. Discard tea bags. Measure the soy milk and tea mix and add more soy milk if it is less than 1 cup.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together oil, yogurt, sugar, vanilla, orange zest and tea mixture until all yogurt  lumps disappear. Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt into wet ingredients. Fold in currants and keep mixing until large lumps disappear; some small lumps are OK. Fill tins full and bake about 20 to 22 minutes until a sharp knife inserted comes out clean.
4. Makes sure cupcakes are completely cool before adding topping or it will melt.

Raspberry Glaze
1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
1 tablespoon margarine
2 to 3 teaspoons soy milk
1/2 teaspoon raspberry lemonade juice (or any other juice that strikes your fancy)
1 teaspoon crushed currants

With a fork, cream together half of the confectioners' sugar and margarine until the mixture resembles fine crumbs. Add in soy milk, crushed currants and juice, and beat in remaining confectioners' sugar. Mixture should have consistency of thick batter with a satiny sheen. Adjust consistency if needed by beating small amounts of confectioners sugar or carefully dribbling soy milk.

Knitting Again

After a long time I'm picking up my knitting needles again. Right now I'm working on a net shopping bag with a pattern form yarndemon. I'm planning on making it a two toned bag, with the bottom and the straps being the bold blue you see above and the body of the bag being a light foam green hue. I've been day dreaming about making a tiny drawstring bag to hold the folded-up net bag so I can keep it in my purse, but I'll have to see how big it is when I'm done.

I looked at a lot of grocery net bag patterns before going with this one. I decided on yarndemon's pattern because it has no seams and it was the only one I saw that had smaller sized netting on the bottom to deter escapee fruits and such. It is started off on double needles (my first time on double needles) and is then worked in the round on circular needles when it gets wide enough. I probably won't finish this before I leave for Italy on Thursday and this little project will end up coming with me on the trip. But it should be a quick knit, so I am still planning on bringing something else to work on.

As far as making a decision between the wrist warmers or the tank top for the travel knitting project, I have yet to make a decision. I think I'm just going to take both patterns to the knitting shop and figure it out from there.

Paper Doll

images © Amy Earles

The wonderful artist Amy Earles has these nifty paper doll sets in her etsy shop. They aren't paper dolls in the sense that you can give them new outfits, but they you can move their limbs and play out wee narratives with them. The assembly kits come in two kinds: with the connecting brads (which are their "joints," per say) or with out the brads. Either way, I'm sure they would be fun to put together and (dis)play.

To keep up with the nifty things Amy creates, check out her brand new blog, Wool & Water.

Green Toes

image © Simple shoes

Green living has been something on my mind a lot lately. Some upcoming posts will be dedicated to this subject with an explanation of where my motivation came from, but for now, lets start with your toes:

• Recycling old flip flops into cute espradrills with a pair of knitting needles.
• How to make shoes from old tires
• Simple's line of sustainable shoes, Green Toe (GT Jane pictured above)

And why not take your green toes for stroll to a low impact Woodland home?

While we are talking about shoes made from old tires: Check out Miss Joeri's Flickr set of Fashion during WWII. The most interesting photo to me is the image showing how rubber used on the roads was stolen to resole shoes during the war, as well as the various other ways they tried to make durable soles.

(Shoe links via Eco Chick)

Parisian Market

Parisian woman in the Place de la Concorde
by Jean Beraud, 1890

• Tongue & Cheek's guide of Things to do when visiting France.
• Helena Frith Powell's article Why do French Women Always Look so Chic? uncovers French women's beauty secrets.

Currants, How I Love Thee

The currants at the local farmer's market have been taunting me for some time now. Yesterday, I finally bought two little pints of them, one of white currants and one of red currants, with the goal to find a very yummy recipe to do them justice. I couldn't find one that pleased me, so I decided to make a variation of my own using this recipe as a base. This is what I ended up with:

Currant Mini Tea Cakes
Makes about 18 mini-cakes
INGREDIENTS
    * 1/4 cup butter, softened
    * 1 cup sugar
    * 2 eggs
    * 1 1/2 cups milk
    * 1 teaspoon orange juice
    * 1 cup all-purpose flour
    * 1 cup whole wheat flour
    * 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
    * 1 cup fresh currants

DIRECTIONS
1. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the milk and orange juice. Combine flours and baking powder; gradually add to the creamed mixture and mix well. Stir in currants.

2. Transfer to greased muffin pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. Remove and place fresh currants on top of each muffin for decoration. Place in oven for 15 more minutes, until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Use knife to remove sides from pan and a spoon to un-stick bottom. Cool for 5 minutes on a wire rack.

The mini-cakes turned out pretty darn delicious (as approved by my boyfriend and his roommate). I was surprise just how flavorful they were, of which I think is entirely due to that fact that I used fresh currants rather than dried ones (as the base recipe calls for). The fresh currants made the inside very moist and wonderful. 

I made two batches: one normal style and one with vanilla added in. The vanilla didn't vastly improve the flavor, but if you are a fan of vanilla, go ahead and throw it in there.