So since the passing of John Hughes there has been a surge in his movies being on as of late. Which is great, because I can always watch them. But the thing is, why do I always watch them with commercials?

I own pretty much every movie made by the man on DVD. And yet, I don’t bother to get them out and watch them, but will sit there and watch the edited version on TBS.
I was watching Ferris the other day thinking to myself, I own this. My husband must have thought that too because he walked in and was like…”don’t we own this?” “Why are you watching it with commercials?”

All good questions.

Baking and the bathroom are the answers. Not at the same time though. Don’t worry. I think when I watch a movie that has no commercials I feel like I owe it to the movie to sit down and watch it all the way through. Oh sure there is the pause button, but for some reason it just doesn’t seem right to pause it.
But with commercials I have a potty break. A snack break. And I can bake something while watching as well. And if it comes back on, no biggie, I’ve already seen it. I can still hear it. It’s all good.

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is where I first developed my crush for Mathew Broderick. Dark hair, dark eyes…and what a charmer. Every body loves him. After all, “sportos and motor heads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wastoids, dweebies, dickheads…they all adore him. They think he’s a righteous dude.”

By definition, I had to hate his best friend Cameron for the fact that he wore a Red Wings jersey the whole movie. Nuff said.

Though I loved this movie as a kid, I grew to appreciate it more as a teacher. I can’t tell you how many times “anyone, anyone” was coming from my mouth as a teacher.
“In 1930, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, in an effort to alleviate the effects of the… Anyone? Anyone?… the Great Depression, passed the… Anyone? Anyone? The tariff bill? The Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act? Which, anyone? Raised or lowered?… raised tariffs, in an effort to collect more revenue for the federal government. Did it work? Anyone? Anyone know the effects? It did not work, and the United States sank deeper into the Great Depression. Today we have a similar debate over this. Anyone know what this is? Class? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone seen this before? The Laffer Curve. Anyone know what this says? It says that at this point on the revenue curve, you will get exactly the same amount of revenue as at this point. This is very controversial. Does anyone know what Vice President Bush called this in 1980? Anyone? Something-d-o-o economics. “Voodoo” economics”
Of course, I was far more interesting.

These are pretty simple to make. If you are not a chai tea person, that can easily be omitted. I have kind of thing for chai lately and so the thought of it with some orange and spice sounded really good. And it was. I made these for a Kitten Shower (like for a baby, but was a kitten…this is a story for another day).
I chose to just go with a vanilla spice buttercream as I didn’t want the chai to be in both. It can be a strong flavor if you aren’t careful.

Hopefully if you are reading this you are commenting. You readers haven’t been commenting as of late and it is making me feel like I am doing something wrong, sigh.
Anyone, anyone?

Orange Spice Chai Cupcakes with Vanilla Spice Buttercream Frosting

2 ½ cups sifted cake flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
zest of one medium orange
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
 ½ tsp freshly ground nutmeg
1/3 cup vegetable oil
½ cup light brown sugar, firmly packed
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 chai tea bag
¼ cup water
½ cup buttermilk
½  cup orange juice, preferably fresh squeezed

Preheat oven to 350F. Spray two mini cupcake tins with baking spray. Or grease and flour them.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg in medium bowl. Set aside.

Place sugars in a medium bowl. Add zest. Using your fingers, rub the zest into the sugar. Oils should release and give your sugar an orange flavor.

In a small saucepan, bring ¼ cup water to a simmer. Add tea bag. Leave for 3-5 minutes, depending on how strong you want the flavor. Remove tea bag. Let cool to room temperature. Set aside.

Using a stand mixer, add the oil, brown sugar, granulated sugar, eggs, and vanilla extract. Beat at high speed of an electric mixer for 5 minutes. Scrape down the bowl often.

In a large liquid measuring cup add cooled tea, buttermilk, and orange juice.

Add sifted dry ingredients, alternating with buttermilk/chai mixture, starting with and ending with the dry ingredients.

Mix until fully incorporated and batter is smooth with no lumps.

Bake for  12-15 minutes, or until a wooden pick or cake tester inserted in center comes out clean. Let cool for 5 minutes. Remove from pan and move cupcakes to wire rack to finish cooling. When cool, frost with buttercream.

Vanilla Spice Buttercream

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
6 to 8 cups powdered sugar
½  cup milk
¼ tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground ginger
1/8 tsp fresh ground nutmeg
2 tsp vanilla extract

Place the butter in a large mixing bowl.

Add 4 cups of the sugar and then the milk, spices, and vanilla.

On the medium speed of an electric mixer, beat until smooth and creamy, about 3-5 minutes.

Gradually add the remaining sugar, 1 cup at a time, beating well after each addition (about 2 minutes), until the icing is thick enough to be of good spreading consistency. You may not need to add all of the sugar.

Icing can be stored in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

Frosting source: More from Magnolia by Allysa Torey

By the way, if you are interested in seeing and hearing about my kitchen, then catch my tour over at Jen’s blog, Use Real Butter (it’s up now). Be sure to check out all of the kitchens she has been featuring, it’s been fun to look at all the different styles of kitchens.
So I’m weird. I think that has been established. I am needle and dentist phobic. Also, been established.
My third phobia is spiders. However, I understand that they play a valuable roll in the food chain by eating other bugs. BUT I don’t like them in my house.
So once a month I stand in what I think is the middle of my house and verbally warn any spiders in my house that they are welcome to stay but can not come and out and be seen. If seen, I will send the husband to kill you (one of my main reasons for getting married, full time bug killer ). I do this for bees as well. But I yell at them outside. They don’t listen as well as the spiders. I see them all the time. And I never kill them because I am usually running from them. Because of course, I have a bee allergy. But like spiders, bees play an important role and so I tolerate them. They do at least make honey, which is more than what I can say about the spiders.
Last week,  Jessie over at Cakespy had a post about these yummy cupcakes from one of our local shops, Cupcake Royale. They were Honey Peanut Brittle Cupcakes. I soooo wanted one. But that would be a 45 minute drive and involve me spending large amounts of money. So I figured, why not make my own.
You don’t have to use the peanut butter crunch topping. I found it at the store when looking for peanut brittle (which this time a year is hard to find and I am too busy to make my own). It’s like a Butterfinger with no chocolate, though they make a chocolate covered kind as well. I think that it adds a little depth to the cupcake.
I will say that if you are a honey lover, these are super yummy. I could not get enough of them. I ate them all day long, finally throwing out (the horror, I know) the rest to save me from going up a pant size.

Bee Hive Honey Cupcakes with Honey Buttercream Frosting topped with Peanut Butter Crunch

Honey Cupcakes

½ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
¾ cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup creamed honey
¾ cup whole milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
2 cups self rising flour
Preheat oven to 350F.
In a stand mixer using the paddle attachment, cream together the butter, sugar, and honey. Beat for about  3 minutes, until light and fluffy.
Beat in egg, scrape down sides after blended. Add in vanilla and beat for another 30 seconds.
Starting with the flour first, alternate between flour and milk, ending with flour. So 1/3 of flour, ½ of milk, 1/3 of flour, ½ milk, 1/3 flour.
Blend until fully combined.
Fill cupcake pan (you can use liners, I just don’t like to) 2/3 of the way full with batter. Fill until all batter is used.
Bake for 20-22 minutes.
Remove from oven and let cool for 5 minutes in pan. Then remove from pan and place on a wire rack to finish cooling. Cool completely before frosting.

Honey Buttercream Frosting

1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/3 cup honey plus 2 TBSP
4-5 cups powdered sugar
milk as  needed for thinning out frosting

In a stand mixer using the paddle attachment, cream together the butter and the honey for 2 minutes.  Add 2 cups of the powdered sugar .
Start on low speed on the mixer, beat until smooth and creamy, about 3-5 minutes.
Gradually add the remaining sugar, 1 cup at a time, beating well after each addition (about 2 minutes), until the icing is thick enough to be of good spreading consistency.
Use milk to thin out frosting to reach desired consistency.

To assemble cupcakes:

Take cooled cupcake. Place frosting in a piping bag. Starting at one end pipe in a circle, continuing around and around until you form a beehive shape.
Dip top of cupcake into crushed Peanut Butter Crunch Candy. I used Fairhaven Crumblz Original Peanut. If you can’t find it, crushed up Butterfinger or crushed up peanut brittle would work nicely as well.

Small little set back. Non-graceful me re-injured my foot last night at work. It got caught on something(I think a chair) and OUCH! I was almost back to walking normal and sadly I am close to being back to square one. I’m going to take the time to sit around and organize recipes I have printed off over the years.
So last weekend I went to a much needed girl’s night out. We had a game night with pizza and chips and dips and nice fattening desserts. I brought carrot cake. There were only 6 of us so I only made a single layer and decided to make mini cupcakes out of the left over batter. I used a recipe from Tish Boyle’s the Cake Book. This cake was super moist and it had a nice ginger kick that most carrot cakes do not have(due to the crystallized ginger you throw in). Fun time was had by all, but I once again learned that I have such a dirty mind when playing Pictionary…everything seems phallic to me. Well I am hobbling off to organize some recipes.

Solid Gold Carrot Cake

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp fresh nutmeg
4 large eggs
1 cup granulated sugar
1 1/4 cups firmly packed brown sugar
1 cup canola oil
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
1/4 cup whole milk
1 TBSP vanilla extract
2 TBSP finely chopped crystallized ginger
3 cups firmly packed shredded carrots
1 cup walnuts, chopped

1. Preheat to 350F. Butter and flour two 9-inch pans or mini muffin pans.
2. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, spices and salt in a medium bowl. Whisk together and set aside.
3. Beat eggs and sugars together on medium speed until well combined, about 2 minutes. At low speed, add the oil, melted butter, milk, vanilla, and ginger and mix until blended, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Add the flour mixture in three additions, mixing until just blended. Add the carrots and walnuts and mix until blended. Scrape the batter into the prepared pans, dividing it evenly.
4. Bake cakes for 25-30 minutes until they are dark golden brown. For mini cupcakes, it took 15 minutes.
5. Invert cakes onto racks and cool completely. Frost with your choice of frosting. I used cream cheese frosting…for recipe go here.