Hubby's 26 and some Despicable cupcakes

Hubby's birthday was this past weekend! It was nice to get out of the lab for a bit to celebrate. We headed back to our hometown and had a pool party/bbq at his parents' place with friends and family (our place couldn't hold that many people AND I definitely don't want to go in the pool at our apt complex...ick).

Perfect beer pong form on his birthday. No surprise here.

His parents took care of the main food (Hubby didn't want me to do a bunch of cooking that day, despite my protesting), so I focused on making desserts for the day.

Dessert 1 - Chocolate chip cookie cake. This is what I make almost yearly for Hubby's bday. In the past, I used an Emeril cookie cake recipe (with some adjustments) but this year, I saw something pretty great on Pinterest (surprise surprise!). You can find the "Pinspiration" for the cookie cake I baked here.

I ended up getting a bit angry because I set a timer for the cookie and when it went off, I was busy working on something outside and no one told me! So I came back into the kitchen to the smell of beginning-to-burn cookie! >:( Fortunately, I managed to cut off the edges that got the brunt of the burning but the top of the cookie was MUCH too dark.

Hence, the frosting. Please excuse the quality of the minion. The frosting I used (Sparkle Gel, which I do not recommend because it is watery and spreads out, even with proper kneading and mixing *my personal experience*) settled and made him look...not so good.

Despite the slightly overcooked outside, the middle of the cookie was still squishy goodness (the secret is the corn starch!). I will definitely make this recipe again.

Dessert 2 - Despicable Me Minion Cupcakes. Pinspired again, except I couldn't find the pin I linked just now. I found the pictures that people pin from Google (I HATE THAT) that didn't have instructions...so I kind of had to make it up.

Anyway, Hubby LOVES Despicable Me and especially loves the minions (honestly, they're hard NOT to love). So when I saw this "pin" (if you can call it that...damn people pinning Google searches), I decided I had to make them for him.

Makin' minions. Don't I look stylish in a shirt that's not very flattering?

It was pretty obvious that the minion bodies were Twinkies (or Twinkie substitutes). A trip to Safeway surprised me with candy eyeballs! The picture I had seen had used Smarties and I thought it looked a little funny. I didn't manage to find any black licorice rope so I had to improvise with regular black licorice cut into skinny strips. Here's the result:

He looks like a minion, right?! (I mean the one in the front). They came out pretty well. Here are a few more (since all the minions look different).

             

            

Here's the recipe and such of how I did them (in retrospect, I should have taken more pictures but I was frantically trying to get these done before Hubby found out about em):

What you'll need:

• Cupcakes (I was short on time so I used Betty Crocker boxed mix...in the future, I'll make em from scratch).
• White frosting
• Blue decorating frosting
• Black drawing frosting with thin pen tip
• Candy eyeballs (I found mine by the frosting in Safeway)
• Silver cupcake sprinkles (Cupcake Gems is the kind I used)
• Black Red Vines (it's Red Vines brand black licorice...confused yet?

1. Cut Twinkies into 2 pieces. You don't necessarily need to cut them in half since minions come in all sizes!

All sizes, see? source

     2. Using the black frosting, attach eyes to each Twinkie (each minion gets either 1 or 2 eyes).

     3. Still using the black frosting, draw a circle around each eye (or the 1 eye if that's the case). I got as    

     close as I could without getting the drawing frosting all over the eye. Don't forget straps down the 

     side to "hold the glasses on".

     4. Using the silver sprinkles, carefully sprinkle a layer of them on the glasses you've drawn on the 

     minion Twinkie. Ideally, you could use silver frosting but, sadly, my Safeway is not quite that well 

     stocked in the baking section T-T. 

     5. Draw a mouth on your minion. It's better to draw the mouth on the minion after you've done your 

     sprinkles so they don't end up with glitter on their lips.

     6. Slice the black licorice into pieces. Cut along the twist of the licorice to get a decent sized straight 

     piece licorice. Use these thin strips to give each minion a unique hairstyle. I like the combovers and 

     center parts but spikes are great too :)

     7. Frost your cupcakes with the white frosting.

     8. On the bottom of your minion, CAREFULLY (so as not to have all of your hard work fall off of 

     the twinkie) pipet out enough blue frosting to generously cover the cut side of the Twinkie. 

     Carefully place it on top of a cupcake. Make sure to push slightly to make sure the blue is visible   

     under the minion.

And voila! You have made Minion cupcakes! 

Eh, para tu!

Overall, the birthday party was a success. Happy birthday, Hubby.

Queueing posts and scolding chemists.

Wow, last blog post on July 27th, I look very very useless!

I apparently don't know how to properly queue posts. Well you'll all get to see my posts queued for the days last week. Apologies for not noticing sooner. I have been working on Supporting Information for the publication of my first first author paper!

Speaking of supporting information:

I want to take a post to discuss this article.

*Note - "Supporting information" (in this discussion) refers to the data a chemist collects as evidence of the identity of the compound they have synthesized. Most journals require extensive characterization including - proton NMR, carbon NMR, IR, and high resolution mass spec or elemental analysis.

*Note 2 - Find out more about Elemental Analysis here (I only link this one as it is the topic that this article pertains to).

Brief run down of the ChemBark story if you don't want to read it - In the supporting information file for a journal article that was just accepted into Organometallics, the PI (presumably) wrote a note to the student that was overlooked by NOT ONLY the writers of the paper, but also 3 reviewers AND final editors before publication:

Emma, please insert NMR data here! where are they? and for this compound, just make up an elemental analysis…

TONS has been said and posted in the science community regarding this statement. I only want to mention 3 things:

1) "Screw you" to whichever author said that (just in case it wasn't the PI). I can't even begin to describe the effort and time I've been putting in to my SI to make it complete and as perfect as I can. I am disgusted that you'd rather just "make up" data than take pride in your work and prove to everyone you've done what you've done.

2) I wonder what affect this event will have on the synthetic community. Will we need to start providing even MORE information (proof of attendance at a "certified" facility, signed expert affidavits, providing samples for journal editors to analyze themselves)? And how will we all look at each other's SI now? Can we truly believe what our colleagues are telling us?

3) Our responsibility as scientists is to search out and report the truth. When you lie about a yield, fudge a spectrum, "make up an elemental analysis", how can you truly call yourself a research scientist? Shame on you. Do you know how many papers I'd have at this point if I had made things up? Reputation is all a scientist has when they need to find collaborators or funding; who will fund or work with someone that will just make things up?

Organometallics had their official response published. If you're interested you can read it here. While I'm unhappy that there appears to be no actual punishment (they're keeping the article accepted but won't print it until they receive confirmation of the elemental analysis data), I understand that the editors can't make the decision to ban them for a certain amount of time or anything. I don't even know if they deserve to be banned...but something more needs to happen.

Aaaaaaand end chemistry rant. Back to positive posts! Coming up tomorrow - Hubby's bday and Despicable cupcakes.

Slow Cooker Saturday: Introduction

I'm happy to introduce my weekly blogvent (is that what we call it?): Slow Cooker Saturday! 

Why Slow Cooker Saturday? Easy: I. Love. My. Slow Cooker. I always say I wish I used it more often and now this weekly post encourages me to do so! These weekly posts will talk about slow cooking tips, recipes, dreams, wishes...just about anything slow cooker related!

First thing this week, I'd like to introduce my slow cookers:

Slow cooker number 1! She's a 4.5 qt cooker from Target (you can find it here). Inexpensive but works so well! You really can't go wrong with CrockPot brand.

Slow cooker number 2! 6 quarts and a great digital display! Got lucky getting this guy. When Hubby was moving out of the house he lived in before we moved in together, the previous tenants left a number of things behind. This pot was one of 'em. Nothing like getting a huge CrockPot for free (slow-cooked whole chicken in this thing is amazing)!
   This one is especially EXCELLENT when I know I'm going to be leaving work late because it has a timer. When the timer reaches zero, the temp automatically changes to warm, preventing overcooking.  I wish all of my slow cookers had this option.

And "slow cooker" number 3. It's not quite the same thing but I thought I'd include it. My "little dipper", also picked up when Hubby was moving out of his old house. I have some recipes for stuff to make in this little guy so I'm hoping to have a reason to use it soon.

Showing the different sizes of slow cookers I have reminds me that size matters when it comes to slow cooking! You're going to want to have the slow cooker between half and 3/4ths full for most recipes (though some recipes will specify if you should fill the pot more or less).

If your slow cooker isn't full enough, you won't have enough liquid to properly cook the food and you'll end up with dry or even burnt food (I learned this the hard way, yikes). Too much food will lead to uneven heating and possibly undercooked food. Practice makes perfect when finding just the right amount for your favorite recipe!

Do you use a slow cooker at all? What size (or sizes!) do you have?

Inaugural blog post: My Blog Feels Funny

Here we go! I'm finally REALLY committing to a blog!

What do I intend on posting here? Really just about anything I feel like. But I know most commonly you'll find that the day's post is about one of the following:

Food/Cooking/Baking
Knitting
Crafting
Chemistry

I reserve the right to write about anything, I suppose, but that list is what I know and I like to write what I know.

So welcome! And, to quote The Producers: "If you like our show tell everyone, but if you think it stinks keep your big mouth shut!" ;)