Melting Moments tea cookies

Melting Moments: The name is corny, but the sandwiched cookie is divine.  When my friend Bryanna was clearing her apartment for her big move to New York, she offered me a book of afternoon tea recipes.  Everything looked good, but the Melting Moments caught my attention immediately.  They're crisp yet light-textured cookies filled with buttercream.  I had made them months ago with another recipe, which used Bird's custard powder and added jam on top of the buttercream.  I like this recipe better, which uses cornstarch and vanilla instead so there wasn't the subtle chalky taste or texture I got from the Bird's.  I made some other minor tweaks and added the jam to this version also. Trust me, jam plus buttercream induces satisfied groans.  Thanks, Bry!  Maybe I'll make these next time you're in town.

Also, if you're a fan of chocolate and hazelnut together, check back here in a few days for the Hazelnut Melting Moments I also made from this book!

I'm catching up on following all your posts.  It's been a busy summer, especially with the visit of family.  I had fun grilling and chilling with my dad, even if we disagree on how long it takes to cook meat on the grill and how harmful char is.  It's all good -- by a certain age and with living in different states, you overlook the little stuff and enjoy your time together.  And Sis and I had been waiting all summer for a beach outing together.  She brought her little one, who would run around yelling, "Auntie, where arrre yoou?  A-yi, where arrre yoou?"  In these pictures Audrey is hanging with Grandpa, her best friend.  In the one on the left, she's using one of her favorite expressions, "Wooo-ooow!" while she watches the waves.

And my garden has been rewarding me with tomatoes!  There's loads of these little Sun Sugar tomatoes, some big heirloom Brandywine tomatoes, cherry peppers, and the occasional strawberry.  On the right is a sauce I made from the yellow tomatoes, and a salsa behind it from the Brandywines and cherry peppers.  I've been hitting up the farmers market for blueberries, summer squash, and fragrant peaches with the fuzz still on them.  I'm trying, as usual, to milk every moment out of summer before it gets too cold for my favorite produce, beaches, and barbeques.

Chocolate Buttercream Cupcakes

There are many cupcake flavors out there, but when it comes to me and sis our favorite is always good old yellow with chocolate frosting.  They weren't made this week, the week of the 100-degree high in Boston, but earlier when sis visited and requested them.  I've tried a similar combination before, but I was looking for a better buttercream recipe.  This is it.  The one I tried last year involved a sugar syrup, but syrups and caramels are just not my friends.  This one's easier and just as freakin' good.

Making the cupcakes was straightforward and simple, except I halved the recipe and even then only had nine paper liners.  So I sprayed the unlined wells with cooking spray, but don't follow my example.  The cupcakes still stuck to the pan and browned faster.  There was still a bit of batter left so I dug out two silicone baking cups, only to remember why I don't like baking with silicone.  The cake always breaks or sticks to the sides when you unmold it.  Paper is just the way to go.  Afterward, I started the buttercream, cooking the egg whites and sugar a bit to dissolve the graininess, then beating the mixture into a soft meringue.

The mixture is transformed into buttercream when you add the softened butter, and then flavored with melted chocolate.  We piped, then kicked back with a cupcake (or two).  Sis thought it looked like a lot of work, but you've got to put in a little love if you're not using Betty Crocker and Duncan Hines, right?

Wedding Barnyard Buttercream Cupcakes

So, I only helped decorate these.  I just returned from a few days in Denver, where I went to my friend Debbie's wedding.  She and her husband, Jose, served up these cute farm-themed cupcakes at their wedding.  They were a big hit at the reception, and I saw one little nephew snag a cupcake when everyone else was starting on appetizers.

The decorations were made almost entirely of buttercream.  Or, But-R-Creme, as Jose, a food scientist, informed me.  Apparently you can't legally call a product buttercream if it's made with shortening and no butter.  I only helped with the easy parts, namely the sheeps' wool, the pigs' mud, and the grass.  Debbie and Jose did the detailed work... the faces, tails, ears, etc.  Both the wool and mud were piped without a tip; you just keep piping bumps without lifting so you don't get points.  The "grass" was piped using a grass tip.  And Jose used a finer tip to make the pigs' curly tails.  The chickens got little chocolate buttercream eyes.  But the eyes for the pigs and sheep... mini chocolate chips!  The sheep are my favorite.  Tweezers would have been handy, since I felt like my fingers were melting the chips.  It was a fun, late-night, eve-of-wedding activity.

There was no stuffy, fondant-covered cake for the wedding.  It was a Dairy Queen ice cream cake, personalized with a marzipan family of figurines made by Debbie, an artist and art teacher.  The family member on the left is Pork Chop, their cat.  The marzipan was colored and then sculpted and molded around a pretzel to stick into the cake.  Debbie told me Jose was hollow, which I thought was some harsh criticism before I realized she meant marzipan Jose.  The real-life couple looked amazing on their wedding day.