I am officially thirty weeks preggers! Ten weeks left to go before we get to meet little Liam, who Evie has fondly nicknamed “eep” because she has trouble saying “Liam.” Ted and I are trying to tell her daily how much we love her (not hard at all) and how when the new baby comes she will still always be our little girl (again not hard, but hard for her to understand). I have no doubt that she will be an amazing big sister, as daily she helps me put dirty laundry in the laundry basket and every Saturday she helps me bake the cake of the week.
This week our cake was splendidly easy to make, but also very expensive because of one ingredient, saffron. For one jar of the bargain brand saffron threads at Safeway the price was twenty-three dollars. Which caused a mild panic, but then I realized I had a fifteen dollar off purchase at Safeway, and I did not have to buy any other ingredients for this cake- so I splurged to see what was so amazing about this spice. When I went home I of course had to research saffron’s history to figure out what was so amazing about this spice. I found out a lot of interesting facts about saffron, but mainly that it is the most expensive spice in the world and that it can be used for a lot of purposes, such as perfumes, hair dyes, and medicines. I was worried about cooking with saffron because I also read that it can be very bitter, and that a little saffron can go a long way. Because I had to heat the saffron threads with two tablespoons of orange juice, I thought that the majority of any bitterness would be diluted with the sweetness of the orange juice. As it turns out, the saffron mixed with the orange juice tasted a lot more like honey to me than anything bitter, and the color was beautiful. The rest of the cake called for pretty standard ingredients, a grated orange rind, three eggs, flour, butter, sugar, and baking soda. With a homemade icing of orange juice, powdered sugar, and grated orange rinds to top it off, our Mini Orange Saffron Cupcakes were complete.
Here is the book’s picture:
Here are my mini cupcakes:
Evie ate four of them. Yes, she takes after her father.
Tomorrow my sister is throwing me and Liam a “Sprinkle”, a mini baby shower, since this is my second child. I am very excited, especially because we are eating Mexican food.
Next week will be hectic, I am a co-sponsor for our Junior class, which means Prom – and that is what is happening next Saturday- wish me luck . . . better yet, sanity!