Well, almost. Even though I estimated that I needed 100-140 cupcakes I wound up baking almost 200. What can I say? I’m an overachiever.

As freaked out as I was the night before, it wasn’t so bad. I’m not saying that if you’ve never baked a cupcake you should start by baking 200 in one day, but if you’ve got a method to your madness, it ain’t that bad.

I started planning months in advance: what I’d put the cupcakes on, the kind of liners, the flavors. But the real work began on a Thursday. I did a few calculations, made a shopping list, and bought ingredients. Friday was all about baking and frosting. And Saturday was transporting, eating, and sharing. (Sunday was all about recovery).

My mom asked, “Why not buy the cupcakes?” with a distinct “tsk, tsk” in her voice. I told her because I wanted to do it in my most confident tone while the voice in the back of my head agreed with my mom.

But even though she was skeptical at first, as soon as the baking commenced my mom was completely supportive and was the first to suggest that we needed to do a taste test.

Here are a few things I learned…

Equipment that makes life easier:

• 2 12-cup muffin pans so that you can always have 1 in the oven and 1 getting ready for the oven.
• A scooper/disher. Mine is a little bigger than ideal but still made filling the cups easier. I think the right size is the #20 disher, but I don’t have that size and used one about 1.5 times bigger than that but just didn’t fill it up all the way. I also tried the Oxo medium cookie scoop but had to scoop twice per cup and that’s just too much scooping.
• Lots and lots of cupcake liners. I love the dark brown ones I bought from Sweet Cuppin Cakes. They have some really cute colors on there that were tempting but I wanted to keep it simple for the wedding reception.
• A KitchenAid stand mixer isn’t required, but will keep things running smoothly if you are crazy enough to bake 200 cupcakes in a day (I’m not sure I would’ve made it without mine).

Tips about ingredients:

• Do the math up front. I know some you don’t want to hear that, but if you leave it up to your gut you may end up with six times the powdered sugar you actually need. I’m just saying.
• Shop ahead of time and take a list. I went the day before, but wound up forgetting the oil. Still, it was a relief to only have to pop into the store for 1 thing while my mom watched over the oven.

The night before

Okay, so it’s the night before the cupcakes start exploding from your oven. You have the equipment and your ingredients. What now?

• Set up your work areas. Designate a table where the cupcakes will cool & be frosted and make sure it is clean and ready to go. (I used a folding table and covered it in craft paper (taped down at the ends of the table) to create a clean workspace that was easy to clean up when I was done).
• Locate all of your tools and equipment. Where are your frosting tips? Pastry bags? Spatula for scraping down the bowl? All those little things you know you are going to want but you don’t use very often… now is the time to find them (to avoid the heat of the moment meltdown over your missing star tip)
• Set the butter out before you go to bed.
• Go to bed early. Once everything is set out, walk away. Unwind and get some sleep. Once I had everything laid out, I was tempted to start baking. It was 8:30pm. But I forced myself to go watch TV because I knew if I started doing anything at that point I would be up all night. It will be there in the morning, go get some rest.

D Day

Or perhaps I should say B Day. Anyway, it’s here. The big day. You have been planning forever and now it’s time to execute. But first things first:

1. Eat breakfast.
2. Have a plan for lunch. Whether that’s a peanut butter sandwich, leftover fried rice, or sending someone out for rations. You need to eat (for strength and to avoid getting hangry), but you also don’t need to wait until you are too hungry to think and surrounded by cupcakes. Don’t worry, you will get to sample plenty of cupcakes, but real food is important too.
3. Know yourself. If you are a social worker bee and love the extra hands (good for you), have those hands lined up ahead of time. If you are a loner (read: control freak) and others just get in your way (read: stress you out), then plan for that… but consider having one or two friends or your mom standing by just in case. They can keep you company and if get overwhelmed you know you aren’t alone (I find having moral support keeps me from getting too overwhelmed. Wait a second, did I just admit to being a control freak?)
4. Make sure everyone else knows that the kitchen is not open for big stuff. You don’t need someone else coming in trying to cook beef bourguignon or something while you’re mid-cupcake. Also, if you are the primary cook, delegate dinner duty to someone else, you’re going to be busy. (I was lucky to have my mom there to take care of dinner. So not only did I get all of the cupcakes baked I got to eat one of my favorites: bulgogi)

Now Bake!

• Do things in batches. I baked all of the first flavor, then took a break and had lunch. Baked the 2nd flavor, took a break (I’m talking hour long breaks – off my feet and mind on something not wrapped in brown liners). Made frosting, had dinner… you get the idea.
• Don’t worry if the first batch doesn’t come out. Count it as the practice batch and set them aside as samples for anyone who comes by (Luckily we had a lot of family around that I was able to push cupcakes onto). But do take the first batch as an opportunity to hone your method (how much batter per cup? how long to get the perfect golden brown? etc)
• Since the first batch is “practice”, that means you should be overestimating in your math. I had enough extra ingredients to go over my original estimates by half a batch or more.
• Take breaks. Yeah, I know I already said that, but you’ll feel better if you do.
• Don’t stress. They are only cupcakes… (worse case scenario you place an emergency order at the local bakery. But it’s not going to come to that. You’ve got this).
• Sample your handy work! That’s the best part, right? Though truth be told, when I’m baking that much I don’t really want to eat very many sweets. Crazy, right?
• Don’t fear the frosting. Use the largest frosting tip you can find. I found some at a cooking store that was going out of business and wasn’t sure I’d ever use them. But they were perfect. Each cupcake was covered in one circle of frosting. (Update: the tip I used: Ateco #807 though this one looks to be the same size – 9/16 inch diameter opening).

Since this has turned into a long post already, I will continue with a part 2 that will talk about storing the cupcakes overnight, transporting them, and displaying them.

A few years ago, I decided I needed to make a pumpkin pie using an actual pumpkin. Do you get these kinds of urges? I get them all the time. Like what’s the best kind of pie crust? How do you make brown sugar? And what would happen if I substitute a little butter with bacon fat in some chocolate chip cookies?

So I did it. I bought a sugar “pie” pumpkin. When I got it home, I realized I had no clue where to begin. So I consulted books and the internet to figure out what to do with the thing. And then I made a pie. A pie that will live forever in my memory.

While I do still use canned pumpkin, it has become a tradition of mine to make at least 1 pumpkin pie from a real pumpkin each holiday season. And since I buy one or two pie pumpkins as decorations anyway (they’re just cute), the pumpkins do double duty.

So if you have a sugar pumpkin in your decor, consider using it to its full potential.

Now let’s purée some pumpkin.

First, you have to decapitate it. I was a little messy with the first one (on the left), but cut a nice lid from the second. It’s just like cutting the top off of your jack-o-lantern.

Next, clean it out. I’m not sure why, but I tried cleaning it out the same way as I do for a jack-o-lantern – through the hole up top. But then I got smart and cut the second one in half before cleaning it out. This gives you greater access to the inside and cleaning goes a lot faster.

I find an ice cream scoop to be the best tool in my kitchen for this messy job. What’s your favorite tool for cleaning out pumpkin guts?

Place the pumpkin halves on a lined baking sheet (line it with foil or a silpat for easier clean up), cut side down.

Bake at 325 degrees for about an hour. The pumpkin is done when you can stick a fork in it. The skin will still be a little tough, but with light pressure you should be able to stick the fork through the skin and through the soft insides.

Let it cool and then scoop the pumpkin meat into a food processor and whir it into a purée. [You could also do this in small batches in a blender, or put it through a ricer.]

Voila, purée. [I apologize for this photo. No matter how delicious the pie is that you make from it, a tub of pumpkin puree just isn't very photogenic].

Now use it for a pie or any number of other pumpkin goodies.

Pumpkin Purée

adapted from the Joy of Cooking

1 sugar pumpkin

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line a baking sheet with foil (or a silpat).
2. Remove the stem. Cut pumpkin in half (cutting top to bottom).
3. Clean out the stringy membranes and seeds.
4. Place on a lined baking sheet, cut side down.
5. Bake for 1 hour or more (depending on the size of your pumpkin). It is done when you can stick a fork through it.
6. Allow to cool, then scrape out the pumpkin and purée it in a food processor (or in small batches in a blender, or put it through a ricer).
7. Use it as you would the canned stuff.

Q: What to do with all of those seeds? (You did save them, right?)

A: Roast them, of course!

How to: Toss the seeds in a little olive oil or melted butter (1 tbsp or less depending on how many seeds you have). Sprinkle with salt and pepper (or for variety try a little Chinese five spice or pumpkin pie spice). Roast in oven for 30 minutes at 350 degrees or until they start to turn light brown. Let them cool and then hide them from Dan.

When I was in 4th grade, we had to do a demonstration in front of the class. I don’t remember what my demonstration was which really isn’t all that surprising because I tend block out anything that has to do with me speaking or performing in front of others. Then again, I don’t even remember my teacher’s name.

But what I do remember is that some kid in my class did a demonstration for what he called an apple sandwich. I don’t remember the kid’s name, and I don’t remember why he called it an apple sandwich (I mean, it’s not really a sandwich, hello?). Still, I was blown away by this idea, this apple sandwich. Here it is in a nutshell: cut an apple in half and remove the core, put a spoonful of peanut butter on each half. And… eat it. Mind-blowing, isn’t it?

Anyway, let’s make some peanut butter…

What you’ll need:

A food processor

And some nuts. I used a 16 ounce bag of honey roasted peanuts (yum!).

What to do:

Dump all of the nuts into the food processor and attach the lid.

Turn the food processor on… not pulse, but on. Let things whir around…

If you like chunky peanut butter, check under the hood after about 1-2 minutes.

If you like creamier peanut butter, let things whir some more…

After about 3-4 minutes, behold: creamy peanut butter.

A 16 ounce bag of nuts makes about a pint of peanut butter. I had a semi-duh moment when I realized that fact. “A pint’s a pound the world around” or in more duh-worthy words: 16 ounces = 1 pound = 1 pint = 16 ounces.

Store the peanut butter in the refrigerator like you would the natural peanut butters you can buy.

Hey look! An apple sandwich!

Now go put peanut butter on something and enjoy.

Other ideas for your peanut butter:

• peanut butter and jelly sandwich
• try a little on celery or graham crackers (those are from the same food group, right?)
• peanut butter chocolate chip cookies
• “clean” almond butter chocolate chunk cookies — just substitute the almond butter with peanut butter

Homemade Peanut Butter

Chiffa-wha? Chiffonade. It’s a fancy name for cutting herbs or other greens into long, thin strips. It’s literal French translation is “made of rags”. Sounds appetizing, right? Even so, it’s a nice little technique to have in your back pocket.

I mostly use chiffonade for basil (do chiffonade? make chiffonade? I’m not sure the right verbage here). It is nice for bruschetta, caprese salads, pasta, etc. I like it because it makes the basil smaller so it gets distributed better. And it looks pretty. Besides sometimes you need a dash of fancy in your life.

How to make chiffonade of basil

1. Stack your basil leaves. Put the bigger leaves on the bottom and smaller leaves on top. I’m using 5 leaves here, but you can do this with as many as you are comfortable working with.

2. Starting at the tip (non-stem end), roll the leaves

until you have a little cigar of basil leaves.

3. Hold the cigar down on your cutting board and cut thin slices from one end. Go as slow as you need to.

Keep cutting slices…

Until you reach the end of your cigar.

4. Voilá! Chiffonade. Now go fancify your dinner.

A new batch of mini-pies are cooling in the kitchen right now. Once the taste tests are done I will share the results with you. I have four crusts in the test: all butter, butter + shortening (both of these are repeats from round 1), butter + lard, and Cook’s Illustrated fool-proof pie dough which uses vodka.

But for today, I thought I’d share a few tips about making pie dough. Many of these are common knowledge (among those who make pie), but now that I’ve made four different batches of dough in the last couple days I feel like I can add my two cents:

1. Keep everything cold. Especially the fats and liquid. Before I start measuring the flour, I like to put the water into the freezer so that by the time I am ready to use it, it is ice cold. Also, Alton Brown recommends putting your fats (butter and lard in his case) in the freezer for fifteen minutes before you use them. I did this for some and didn’t for others and didn’t see much of a difference as long as the butter was already cold.
2. Work quickly. This kind of goes with point 1 because the faster you work, the less likely it is for the fats to warm up. You want it to stay cold and solid. So I think the food processor is best for this for two reasons: 1. it is fast, and 2. your warm hands don’t touch it much. So if you don’t have a food processor, just keep everything extra cold or chill it after each step.
3. Relax. It is only pie dough. And if there are tears or if it crumbles, patch it together and do your best to hide it… chances are no one will notice.
4. Let your dough relax. Yep, just like you, your dough needs to chillax so don’t overwork it. Don’t take your frustrations out on it… if you’re frustrated, make pizza. Also, this is a good time to be a slacker… do just enough to make it work.

Finally, here are a couple of videos I put together as I made my pie dough. In the first one, I use a food processor, and the Cook’s Illustrated recipe (with vodka)… I like saying I used vodka in the pie crust…

• Cook’s Illustrated fool-proof pie crust via Serious Eats.

In the second video, for those of you who don’t have a food processor (I was one of you until last Christmas), I make pie dough using a pastry blender (one of my favorite kitchen tools), and the pie crust recipe from Good Eats that uses a little bit of lard…

• Alton Brown’s pie crust recipe