it’s been a while since i baked anything other than emergency microwave brownies and muddy buddies (which aren’t baked at all, actually), so today i decided to make something yum. enter banana cupcakes with vanilla frosting topped with wet walnuts. they’re sweet and moist and purdy good if i do say so myself.
somehow i often find myself with an open can of coconut milk and a desperate need to not waste it. enter coconut cupcakes. baking really does solve every problem in my life.
spring is coming, and i found a teensy bit of inspiration at asian food market. i was browsing the spice section and found some intriguing flavor extracts. they were so cheap i had to get at leeeeeeast two of them. i went with jasmine essence and something called amyl acetate, which mimics a banana flavor. i had no clue what to use the jasmine for when i bought it, but by the time i got home i was ready to bake. jasmine green tea sounded good but i didn’t get any matcha powder, so i went with my second idea: orange blossom cupcakes. they use just a teensy bit of jasmine essence–just enough so it smells like an orange grove when you raise the cupcake to take a bite. yuuum.
i’ve always been picky. i have very specific ideas about what i like or don’t like, especially when it comes to food. this was problematic for my parents when i was little and was only amplified when i went vegetarian and eventually vegan. i’ve grown up a little since then, and because of my restricted diet i’ve forced myself to become more adventurous with food and eat whatever i can. i rarely pass up a vegan dish because it contains an ingredient i don’t like. i really hate mushrooms, but when a friend of mine cooked up some woodears i ate them. very slowly.
i miss tortoni. i miss it a lot. biscuit tortoni is an italian ice cream my dad always used to get me boxes of from nasto’s old world desserts in newark, new jersey. it’s an amaretto ice cream topped with crumbled coconut macaroons and a maraschino cherry and it’s the bomb. unfortunately, it is so not vegan. this cupcake is a salute to the dessert i miss so much.
THE SNAGGLEST TOOTH 