This didnt get as bad a reaction (jesus morphed into voldy)…are Pinoys just really OA?

Name blurred for anonymity.

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Damn. The pre order price of leather bound Beedle the Bard was $100. Today, the collector’s item is selling between $230-$950 worldwide via private collectors.

Why didn’t I have the foresight????

Why books triumph over kindle editions…and why I will still be paying $10 for a book over an equally priced (and therefore overpriced) digital copy that doesn’t take as much to recreate:

1) You can resell a book, but you cant resell a digital copy (at least no where close to what you originally paid for it).

2) Books give you more time away from the computer, ergo less headaches.

3) A book’s weight is variable…the computer, even an ipad is constantly 2-5lbs.

4) Sleeping with a book is safe, whereas, sleeping with your device emits energy that is proven to be harmful to your health.

Lastly, if you become a big fan of the author, would you really want him/her to sign your kindle?

Yes, I know, I haven’t been here lately… but you should be happy for me! I got a job! And I have a few freelance gigs doing a few things when I’m not working!

However, I had a friend ask me to bake a sweet potato (aka KAMOTE) cupcake and OMG i thought it would be easy, but it took me weeks to plan, only to have 2.5 days to work… procrastinated and then ended up working on it a few hours on Friday and the party was on Saturday! shiiiii….

It was the request that really freaked me out. Designs, I could do fine, probably. I have been itching to create cakes using MM fondant, which seems sort of easy! But my friend texted…”a sweet potato/nutella fusion mixed with some type of crushed candied nut like a pecan or walnut. then on top a peanut butter frosting topped with a whole version (not crushed) of the type of nut that is mixed inside”.

Obviously, these guys are connosseiurs of cupcakes! So rather than doing design, I figured I should prioritize taste and do R&D (research and development, aka TRIAL AND ERROR).

I had gathered my materials 2 weeks in advance. (Fat lot that does when you change recipes at the last minute!) Still I found myself working on my “R&D” a day before the party, and that day, I was assigned to pick up my aunt at the airport and drive her to see my grannies 2 hours away! Suffice it to say a back and forth trip would take half a day at least, esp if she’s coming in after lunch. Had to get backup (my husband) to come with so he can drive the way home.

Still, I was able to do one batch on Friday, but it failed. Did the frosting and shoved the bowl in the fridge. After picking up my aunt, we stopped by my apt to eat our sandwiches and she gave me a few tips also (but she has never done sweet potato pastries either), like:

* preparing all ingredients in bowls
* writing down half recipes so you dont get confused
* separating the wet and dry ingredients,
* AND, any new ingredient you throw in should ALWAYS BE MEASURED.

Those tips are possibly some of the best experimental baking tips ever!

I’ve never seen a sweet potato nutella recipe online, so I asked her if I should mix the nutella with the “wet ingredients (milk, potato, etc)” or throw it in afterwards? She said it was definitely wet and should therefore be bunched in with the wet ingredients.

The reason my first batch failed is because I halved the recipe, but (in my confusion and haste) still threw in 4 eggs instead of 2.

My second batch failed because I left it in the fridge too long (more than 12 hours) since I had to travel to the burbs. Some online forums have said it was okay, some say there’s a chance that the cake will have difficulty rising.

By this time, it was Saturday morning and I was close to panicking! My recipe (forwarded by requestor to use as a base) was not working, and the recipe texture of refrigerated batter was too dense, too rich, too heavy! The peanut butter tasted good, but texture was not as creamy as those canned Duncan Hines ones I normally buy when I decorate.

So I called a friend who has probably never failed at anything, especially now that she’s a mom, she sews, decorates, cooks, bakes, writes…she made me realize that aside from the over-refrigerated batter, I may have overmixed it too.

BUT, she said, I could still just work on a Martha Stewart banana cupcake recipe that she uses, just substitute the sweet potatoes for the bananas! WTH! Why didn’t I think of that??? (thanks Sunsh!)

Googled Martha, but found that she used too many weird ingredients, so I did another blind google for Banana-Pecan cupcakes and found one HERE – which was adapted from Martha as well. GOOD. Had no use for the nutmeg I bought last week now, but at least I got to use my 2 lb bag of pecans (over-toasted a few of those too, grr)!

I also did 2/3 of this recipe because I only needed to make 2 dozen.

Did 3 store runs (one asian store for sweet potatoes+ one grocery by foot, and another by car this morning, total. Got hubs annoyed countless of times (maybe cause I didn’t make him breakfast or lunch – was in the kitchen and monopolized kitchen table).

And in the end? It was all worth it! yes, it was pretty fluffy, sweet enough, and balanced out the uber sweet peanut butter frosting! The Nutella was really a nice touch too!

So… in case you were wondering.. here is the recipe!

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Sweet-Potato-Pecan-Nutella-Peanut Butter Cupcakes

Makes 20-24 cupcakes

Idea by Melbert Sebayan, R&D by Mutya Bose-Roldan
{Sort of adapted from oneluckycouple who slightly adapted the recipe from Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes}

2 cups cake flour {substituted 2tbsp cornstarch+APflour=1cupx2} 1 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 (heaping) teaspoon ground cinnamon
1.5 cups of mashed sweet potato (boiled/water cooked for 30 minutes before mashing)
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/3 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature 1 cup sugar 2large eggs, room temperature 2/3-1 cup chopped pecans, plus whole pecans for top Nutella (12 tbsp roughly)

Preheat oven to 350. Line two standard muffin tins with paper liners. Whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon (dry ingredients!). In another bowl, whisk together sweet potatoes, buttermilk, and vanilla (wet ingredients!).

With a hand-held electric mixer on medium-high speed, cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Reduce the speed to low. Add half of the flour mixture, then the banana mixture, and then the other half of the flour mixture, beating until just combined after each. Stir in the pecans by hand.

Divide the batter evenly among the lined cups, filling each about three-quarters full. Bake, roughly 25 minutes and stick a toothpick in the centers, until it comes out clean. Remove from tray, or transfer to wire racks, or some other surface to cool cupcakes completely.

With a paring knife, saw out holes on top of cupcake (up to 2/3 down) and stuff Nutella inside. Place cut out cupcake back to cover the hole. Pipe the frosting (recipe below) onto the cupcakes to cover hole. Top with pecan.

PEANUT BUTTER FROSTING (from allrecipes.com)

yield 3 cups

* 1/2 cup butter
* 1 cup creamy peanut butter
* 4 cups confectioners’ sugar
* 1/3 cup cream

In a large bowl, beat butter and peanut butter until light and fluffy. Slowly beat in 1/2 of the confectioner’s sugar. Mix in 1/4 cup of the cream. Beat in the remaining confectioners’ sugar. If necessary, add a little more cream or milk until the frosting reaches a good spreading consistency.

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Well, the adventure doesn’t end there! After I finished the 3rd and 4th batches, I decided to make another batch of frosting, because the

one I made yesterday was not THAWING OUT. Problem was, I was almost out of confectioners sugar, and the batch I made the day before was this recipe above. I had enough materials to make 1/2 batch. So I did.

It covered about 18 cupcakes. Then I had to try working on the day old frosting. Added more cream, and tried beating it a bit more. It finally softened, albeit flaky, but taste is amazing! Maybe If I had a pro-piping tip, it wouldn’t look so horrible! Ah well.I used the cupcake courier and cupcake tier for the first time, and it really did look fancy! Excellent! People thought I was a pro, LOL! The important thing is, people liked the actual taste! Yes! All in a days work!

You can call a spade a spade, you can say it is what it is, but if it’s bullshit, i WILL call it bullshit. If its trash backed up by intellectual psychobabble, it would still be bullshit.

Nothing annoys me more than encountering a bullshitting artist. There is a reason I am not an artist, i know that first i need loads of skill. When I was little, I was inspired by a homemade book I found in our Baguio home. It was made by a friend of my dad’s, who got people to trace their hands and draw around them with objects representing them. The book had many artists, poets, writers, educators, travellers who had something to draw, something to say. The ballet dancer drew dancing nymphs on hers. The musician had beers and guitars. It was not the art or individual skill that blew me away, but the concept and collective wittiness of all works combined made me love that book so much. You know how you listen to a CD for the first time, not really picking out a favorite song, but liking all of the songs enough for it to make it one of your favorite CDs of all time? That was how I felt about the book.

I traced my hand and drew objects in it. I put an elephant, a timer, a chessboard, water drops. I was proud it was artfully done with fine lines and minimal erasures. I showed it to my dad, who took one look at it and said “Put some more color in it” and then went back to minding his own business.

For him, it was not enough to be called art, or something to be praised. I have no hang-ups about this, I draw on occasion but nothing like my father who IS an artist and well-regarded by his artist peers all around the world. My father made his life into art. He encouraged us to delve into other art programs: I, being skilled in music, my elder sister in writing and the eldest in dancing. Having him as a father gave us a certain standard when it comes to appreciating art and even absorbing a well-framed piece of shit.

I am not so judgemental to the point that whatever is ugly is trash – no, that is not how i discriminate art at all. I just know that whatever piece that does not require skill, or effort, or idea should not be called art. Maybe mediocre art.

There are already plenty mediocre artists out there..including mediocre artists who starve to make it big. Or yuppies with plenty of money buying the fanciest cameras and calling themselves photographers. Or pretty girls who squeal and chant and call themselves singers? Where is the skill? Where is the innovation? Where is the sincerity and originality? Where is the passion?

What’s worse though is meeting an artist who will make a performance art out of breathing. seriously. My feces make curly tails that look more artistic than that.

Yeah, sure, maybe I’m bitter. But we live in a world that is so transparent and varied. Why make art using everyday life when you can fuse, deconstruct, objects and ideas and concepts into endless possibilities into a multitude of color palettes and images?

Because art shouldn’t be about bullshit. It should be honest and it is what it should be. But don’t try peddling me your sketches for $500. I can come up with something similar AND i know you can do better than that.