Danger Cupcakes: Spicy Chocolate

These are some super dangerous cupcakes :)

Reminder: I'm not a chocolate fan. A few years ago, Target launched their Choxie brand of chocolates. They looked so good that even a non-chocolate eater such as myself had to splurge and buy some. I remember reading rave reviews of the spicy chocolate but I don't remember if I actually tried it or not. But I decided that this would be fantastic in a cupcake! Once again, no pictures :( But just to give your eyes something to look at, here's my blurry devil's food with whipped chocolate ganache again!

The spicy chocolate ones looked similar to these, except they were topped with a chocolate cream cheese frosting that was piped in a similar fashion to my Drunken Cupcakes. I attempted to top them with some red round nonpariels I have, but I think I waited too long after piping and they mostly didn't stick. Oh well. Here's the recipe I used (I adapted a few recipes I found, so I don't have to link to anything here!)

4oz unsweetened chocolate, chopped
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/4 cup water
1 1/2 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
1/8-1/4 tsp ground chipotle pepper*
1/4 tsp cinnamon
2 sticks unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
3 large eggs
1/2 cup sour cream
1 tsp vanilla

1. Boil 1 1/4 cup water.
2. Combine chopped chocolate and cocoa powder in a medium sized bowl, add boiling water, whisk until smooth, set aside.
3. Sift flours, baking soda, and salt into a bowl. Add the chipotle and cinnamon, set aside.
4. In a standing mixer, beat butter until creamy.
5. Add the brown sugar and beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes.
6. At medium speed, add eggs one at a time, beat well between each.
7. Add sour cream and vanilla and beat until combined.
8. Add about a third of the flour mixture, beat briefly until combined.
9. Add about half of the chocolate mixture, beat briefly until combined.
10. Repeat, adding flour, chocolate, then flour. Beat until just combined. Scrape down bowl if needed.
11. Fill cupcake papers about 3/4s full. Bake at 350 degree oven for 22-25 minutes or until cake tester comes out clean

*I ended up using about 1/4 tsp and probably more of the chipotle because it didn't have the aroma or strong flavor that I was looking for. I think next time I'll just omit the cinnamon, since it made it taste more like a spice cake than a true chipotle chocolate cupcake. I made them for some friends that came over for dinner one night and they seemed to like them. I also had my mom try one the next day when she came over. She likes chocolate, but has the lowest tolerance for anything spicy of anyone I know, even me. I think she was a little hesitant at first, but even she liked them. They had just enough spice to make you curious after you swallowed them. It was more like an aftertaste effect and I think they turned out just fine. I topped them with a chocolate cream cheese frosting, because I am obsessed with cream cheese frostings :)

Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting:
8oz cream cheese (room temp)
1/2 stick unsalted butter (room temp)
4 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder

1. Beat cream cheese and butter until smooth
2. Add powdered sugar, one cup at a time, beating in between additions until combined
3. Add cocoa powder, beat until combined

*I don't like chocolate, and I LOVED this frosting. I ate a few of the cupcakes, and I was pleased with the way the flavors all combined. Definitely something I'll make again (without the cinnamon), especially since that have a bit of an unexpected "wow" factor to them...

Small- Batch Vanilla Cupcakes

(Ok, so obviously this picture isn't for a small batch, but once again, I figured I'd give you something to get your mouth watering)
So by now, I've gotten used to the cupcake baking method. I could recite the steps in my sleep. Butter, sugar, eggs, extracts, start and end with dry ingredients, alternate with wet. I feel like a pro now. I can honestly say that I've only ever made ONE batch of boxed-mix cupcakes! I feel it's a sham to use a mix and flavor it. Real bakers bake from scratch! Although it is occasionally a necessity to bake from a mix if time is not available, but I think I've gotten it down to enough of a science that using a mix would only save me a few minutes of measuring out the dry ingredients. And some dishes. I seriously LOVE baking cupcakes. I wish I could open a bakery so I actually had a place to take them. BUT, I'm going to talk to the higher-ups at my job about me selling the cupcakes at the office every once in a while to raise money for the families we serve! How cool would that be?! Cupcakes for a cause!
This installment: Small Batch Cupcakes. Coming soon: chipotle chocolate, white chocolate rasberry, halloween brownie cupcakes, and pomegranate green tea! Still to be baked: key lime, hostess style, cheesecake, and pear vanilla bean. And whatever else I come up with...

I had a former coworker request that I make her some vanilla cupcakes with no frosting, so I made a small batch right before making my Cosmopolitan Cupcakes. These cupcakes can easily be made into almost any flavor by adding different ingredients/extracts. For example, if you want to make lemon, use lemon extract and some lemon zest. I edited this post because I realized it was useless to post the original recipe since I changed it, so here's the recipe I used:

Ingredients:
2/3 c. flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/8 tsp. salt
2 tbsp. sour cream
2 tbsp. milk
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract*
5 tbsp. unsalted butter, room temperature
1/3 c. sugar
1 egg
Instructions
- Prepare your ingredients: In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. In a liquid measuring cup, mix together the sour cream and milk.
- Beat butter until smooth, then add sugar and beat until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, combining in between each addition. Add vanilla and mix until combined. Add one third of the flour mixture and combine, then add half of the milk/sour cream mixture. Add another third of the flour mixture, then the rest of the milk mixture, and finally the rest of the flour. Beat in between each addition. Batter will be think.
- Fill six cupcake liners equally- about 2/3 to 3/4 full. Bake about 15-20 minutes until toothpick inserted into center of cupcakes comes out clean. Cool on wire rack before frosting.
*Once again, my obsession with using sour cream overwhelmed me. This time, I chose to use a half-and-half mixture: half fat-free sour cream and half low-fat milk. Since the recipe only made enough for six cupakes, I didn't have the heart to try one so I have NO IDEA how they came out. The person I baked them for said she ate them rapidly and thought they were fantastic and would like more please. So I guess that means they came out good. Next time I use and half-and-half mixture, I think I'm going to go full-fat on both halves. They're cupcakes, they aren't supposed to be healthy!
* If you want to make a flavor other than vanilla, simply add 1/2 tsp of a different flavor of extract instead of the vanilla or in addition to the vanilla. I find that vanilla doesn't usually clash with a flavor and can smooth out many cupcake flavors so I generally use vanilla extract in almost every cupcake.

Drunken Cupcakes

I'm still in the process of posting recipes and photos of my past baking adventures. Hopefully I'll catch up soon, because I think I'm at the point where I'm going to get more adventurous and start tweaking recipes and creating my own recipes and flavors! I'm excited in a way, but I'm running out of places to take my cupcakes since I'm now not the only baker on the block, so I'm concerned that more and more are going to end up in the trash :( Maybe I'll start making smaller batches... people will eventually start getting sick of cupcakes. Crazy, right?

So here are the next installment of cuppies: Cosmopolitan Cupakes!

Well, I guess they were more like cranberry lime cupcakes with cosmo glaze and lime buttercream frosting... but close enough. I got the idea from my lovely collection of liquor bottles that hardly ever get used. While baking The Opposite of Low-Fat Lemon Cupcakes, I saw the fabulous bottle of Patron Citronge sitting there above the sink and knew I had to use it to make some sort of cupcake. This was the first time I had a complex flavor idea and translated it into an actual baked good. I searched the interweb for recipes, and here are the ones I used for each component (I made some changes here and there and I'll make note of them):

I can't for the life of me figure out where I found this recipe, just know that it's not my own!

For the Cupcakes:

1/2 cup unsalted butter
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1/2 tsp salt
2-1/2 tsp baking powder
3 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup buttermilk
3/4 cup frozen cranberry juice concentrate or cranberry punch concentrate, thawed
zest of 1 lime
1 cup dried cranberries, chopped
2 drops red food colouring (optional, if you would like a stronger reddish tint in the cake)

1. Allow all ingredients to come to room temperature. Preheat the oven to 350F. Line muffin pans with cupcake papers.
2. With a mixer, beat together the butter and sugar until fluffy.
Add the eggs 1 at a time and beat until well combined.
3. Combine all dry ingredients in a separate bowl.
Combine buttermilk, thawed concentrate, zest, and cranberries in a separate bowl.
Add in 1 cup each of the dry and wet mixtures alternately, beating on low until the whole mixture is well combined.
4. Fill cups with batter two-thirds full. Bake at 350 F for 20-25 minutes or until cupcakes
spring back in the middle when touched lightly. Cool for 10 minutes in pan.

 *I didn't use buttermilk for this recipe. Since I was intrigued with using sour cream instead of milk, I decided to use fat-free sour cream. The result was a nice, moist cupcake, but I think I'm going to start using a half and half mixture of  whole milk and whole sour cream because I think the fat also enhances the flavor in some recipes. I don't think the fat would have done much for these, because BOY were they sweet. Not disgustingly sweet, but they packed a punch with a bit of tartness from the cranberry juice concentrate. I also didn't use the food coloring because 1) I don't have food coloring, I have icing color and 2) I didn't see the point since I was glazing them... Here are the cakes pre-glaze:

I got the recipe for the glaze here

For glaze:
1/2 cup cosmopolitan

Heat the cosmopolitan over med heat until thickened and slightly reduced.

Brush with cranberry/vodka glaze when cupcakes are still slightly warm.
When cupcakes are completely cooled, frost with Cosmo Buttercream

* I used some of the cranberry juice concentrate instead of cranberry juice for this, and added vodka and the Patron Citronge. I cooked the cocktail FOREVER and it still didn't thinken much. So I just poked holes in the cakes with a toothpick and brushed it on while it was still kinda thin and it didn't turn out too bad. Here are the cupcakes post-glaze:

For the Frosting:
I actually kind of winged this one. I decided that using a cosmo buttercream would have been an overload, so I made a basic buttercream frosting and added some lime juice, lime zest, and icing color to achieve the extra lime effect. Came out pretty tasty, and I had  TON left over... that's my issue with frosting- I either have way too much, or not enough to pipe them :(
But anyways, I garnished them with lime zest. Once again, I had big plans for garnish but I couldn't find what I needed! I wanted to use drink umbrellas or cute swizzle sticks. I could have used cut plastic straws, but I didn't.

This is with the flourescent lights on in the kitchen, the color looks fantastic!

But this is more of the real color with the light on under the microwave. Still pretty, but I was going for more of the first color.

I really like this picture :o)



The Opposite of Low-Fat Lemon Cupcakes

I whipped up these little delights for the State Attorney's Office for my favorite attorneys. One of them was leaving, so I figured I'd give her some to celebrate and help everyone else drown their sorrows because they were losing an amazing coworker!
While searching for recipes for my devil's food with whipped ganache, I saw some recipes for chocolate sour cream cupcakes and I thought sour cream would probably be an amazing component for a cupcake. These were my first batch using sour cream and my first attempt at a cream cheese frosting... they were awesome. Definitely the kind that demands a glass of milk or water to accompany it, because they were super dense and very rich. But so yummy :)

I found the recipe at http://www.dianasdesserts.com/

Here is the recipe for the cupcakes:
Lemon Sour Cream Cupcakes
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 
2 teaspoon baking powder 
1 teaspoon baking soda 
1/2 teaspoon salt 
1 cup (2 sticks/8 oz/226g) unsalted butter, softened 
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1tsp. lemon extract 
2 tsp. vanilla extract 
3 eggs 
2 (8-ounce) cartons dairy sour cream 
2 teaspoon finely shredded lemon peel

Instructions: 1. Preheat the oven to 350 degree F (180 C). Line thirty 2 1/2-inch muffin cups with paper bake cups; set aside. In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; set aside.  2. In a large bowl, beat butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add granulated sugar and vanilla; beat until well mixed. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add flour mixture and sour cream alternately to beaten mixture, beating on low speed after each addition just until combined. (The batter will be thick.) Stir in lemon peel.  3. Spoon about 1/4 cup of the batter into each prepared muffin cup *(See Tip Below). Bake in preheated oven about 18 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted in centers comes out clean. Cool completely on a wire rack before frsoting and topping cupcakes with lemon or orange zest (optional).  I followed the advice from some of the user reviews and beat the crap out of the butter before moving on to the rest of the recipe so the cupcakes came out fluffier, but I could have probably beat it longer. I also added about 1tsp (I think, I don't remember measuring, I may have just winged it) of lemon extract (not originally in the recipe but I added it in above). In the process, I learned a valuable lesson about capping extract bottles when you're finished with them... while trying to get one of the batches of dry ingredients into the mixing bowl, I knocked over the lemon extract and it got EVERYWHERE. The kitchen smelled great, though, and luckily lemon extract is relatively cheap compared to vanilla. So now my printed recipe has some battle scars because it soaked up most of the extract. Like a nerd, I just smelled the paper but was disappointed to learn that it doesn't smell like lemon; just paper. Oh well. I topped them with some lemon cream cheese frosting for an extra kick of artery-clogging deliciousness... I can't remember where I got the recipe from (allrecipes? recipezaar? no clue...), but it's a generic recipe so I don't feel like I've ripped anyone off by not linking to their site on this one. Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting: Ingredients: 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened 1/4 cup unsalted butter 2 teaspoons lemon zest 2 tablespoons lemon juice 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 5 cups confectioner's sugar Directions: Beat cream cheese, butter, lemon juice, lemon zest, and vanilla together until smooth and fluffy. Add confectioner's sugar in two additions. Beat until creamy. Add more icing sugar or juice as needed for easy spreading. Makes about 3 2/3 cups. I think I added just a bit of lemon extract (I actually had some left after my spill, and no, I didn't wring out my recipe paper for this) to the recipe, and I'm not sure how much lemon zest actually made it in there. I just zested until I was tired of it and used whatever I could get off of the zester (I don't even know if that's what it's called). I also didn't quite use the 5 cups of sugar. I think a 1lb box of confectioner's sugar contains about 4 1/2 cups, but it worked out fine. I wasn't piping it anyways... I think I initially tried to use the ghetto ziploc method, but gave up. I ended up just using  a spoon to spread it on, and it didn't turn out bad with a little experimentation with technique.

 Being that these were specifically made as gift cupcakes, I wanted them to look a little fancy. I went to the store but couldn't find anything cute to use (I wanted little lemon drop candies or something along those lines, but no luck) so I picked up some blueberries.

I was told by my favorite cousin that they look like surprised eyes... and by a former coworker that they look like boobs :) I have very creative people in my life and somehow my cupcakes always end up looking like hilarious things. They still didn't look as fancy as I wanted, so I started brainstorming... it was kiwi season and I had a couple kiwis on hand. I busted out the paring knife and started meticulously cutting and placing bits of kiwi, and ended up with a not-too-shabby final product.

I like this artsy-style picture, and it was even taken with my antiquated iPhone 3G. I was actually up pretty late decorating them because I wanted them to be just right. They weren't what I had envisioned, but I was still confident enough to not leave them anonymously in a ding-dong-dash style at the SAO. And I also had to weasel my way through security at the court house (at least most of the bailiffs recognize me) without giving up any of them for the "I want to make sure they aren't bombs in disguise" trick that they tried to play. But I did get the guilt trip of "why didn't you bring us any?!"  Here's a less flattering picture of the final product, along with some others that I took from various parts of the decorating process.

My first experiment with... CHOCOLATE!

I said it before, I'm a vanilla girl. So venturing in the land of chocolate was risky for me, especially because tasting them to determine if they were good was out of the question. I had to rely on hubby to taste them... he wasn't dancing or singing about them but he said they were good. I took the rest to work and all but one or two were eaten. The consensus was that they were good... meh. I need to stop waiting for people to shout from the rooftops about my confections before I'll think that I've actually baked something that tastes good. Oh well, I don't bake for anyone else, I do it because of the therapy!

So here's my Devil's Food cupcake with whipped chocolate ganache frosting...

Don't mind the blurry picture (it was the only one I took), I took it with my iPhone 3g prior to upgrading to my mack-daddy iPhone 4. Thanks to my DH for bringing me up to speed with tech stuff :) anyways... the recipe was courtesy of Chockylit, which is the cupcake blog that dreams are made of. I also got the chocolate ganache recipe from that blog as well and followed the directions (sort of) to make it into more of a frosting. I let the ganache (made with Ghirardelli chocolate) cool but it didn't thicken much at all, so beating it didn't really help a whole lot either... it was nowhere near pipeable. So I did the scariest thing I do in the kitchen- I winged it. I added some confectioner's sugar and prayed I didn't mess it up too badly, but it actually turned out alright! Whew! I didn't fully pipe on the frosting- I think I tried using the ziploc bag method, which never works that great and makes a huge mess. Luckily my mom got me some awesome Wilton piping tips and bags for my birthday, so this was one of the last times I had to suffer with ghetto ziplocs. And thanks to my dear sister-in-law, every time I look at this picture, I think of poo (and now you will too! great...) because she said it looked like "entrails" from a distance. And now I know what "entrails" means. DH took some of the extras to the fire station with him and they were devoured (but those FF's will seriously eat ANYTHING!) and I took most of the rest to work...

So what are these cupcakes symbolic of? I've noticed that I can kind of relate most of my baking adventures to a specific period of my life or some kind of emotion. I made these darkies when I was transitioning OUT OF CHILD WELFARE!!!! So amazing. So they're symbolic of change; of me taking the plunge and starting fresh to give myself a much needed break from the stress. I decided that I was actually going to pursue this cupcake baking thing since I tried vanilla and chocolate and no one died, and now I had more time and energy to actually do something other than laundry, grocery shopping, and vegetating on the couch on the weekends. Holy motivation, Batman! These chocolate treats were the jumping-off point for the rest of my cupcake baking endeavors, and they were only made the first week of July. So it's been about four months of baking. I hope my oven is stretching out its hammies, because it's going to get some good workouts from here on out (I'm proud of myself for not making a lame warm-up joke here given that I was talking about an oven).

I'm kind of clever, I think. I don't know if anyone noticed the eggs in the background of my blog, and the fact that my first post contained the word "birth" in it. And I occasionally refer to my cupcakes as my "babies." Those who know me REALLY well know that I am much more of a cute polka-dot or artsy background than some boring beige eggs. But the eggs were too perfect to pass up- they are a key ingredient in most baked goods and they are super symbolic of the point I'm at in my life. Because DH and I are TTC!! Err... my husband and I are trying to bake a baby. I think whatever cupcakes I make next (which will probably be this weekend) will be symbolic of this whole baby thing. I've been super emotional the past two nights (which is way out of character for me) and I can't figure out if I'm pregnant, PMS'ing, or if the fact that we've had nothing but horrible luck in trying to conceive for the past seven months is finally starting to catch up to me. 

We were planning on waiting for a few more years. I wanted to continue to travel somewhere exotic every year and Josh wanted to continue to fulfill his childhood dreams of owning every latest electronic gadget he could get his hands on. But in December of last year, I switched to a new baby doctor who told me that another surgery wasn't going to help my aching uterus, and we needed to get pregnant asap. I shrugged it off, but he was pretty persistent. Persistent enough to get me to verbalize that we do own a home, have a sizable nest egg tucked away in a savings account, have the most wonderful marriage of all times, and are currently working in stable careers making some OK money. And on top of it, we're pretty darned mature and responsible for our ages. I thought DH was going to laugh in my face and tell me I was a pushover for listening to the doctor, but he was surprisingly alright with the change in our plans. So we figured we would wait until August of this year to start trying, as I was attempting to change careers and become a teacher. That didn't work out for me this year, but I'm glad it didn't. Everything works out for a reason... after four months of thinking about it, we started to get too excited about the prospect of having a family and I stopped taking the birth control... and... nothing. For six months. At first I was relieved- three, then four, then five months with no pain! I lost weight, my skin improved, I felt fantastic! But then as time went on I realized that I was really looking forward to having a little one. I've always wanted a child and I'm a very maternal person. So I went to the doctor to make sure nothing was seriously wrong, and was put on the Provera challenge. After doing some reading, I found out that if the Provera induces a period, it means you are producing enough estrogen and are capable of ovulating. So that was some good news. And the doc said to try two cycles, and if I'm not pregnant or don't start cycling on my own, then it's time for Clomid.

OMG. Clomid is so scary... people have twins on that stuff! And twins already run in my family! *gulp* Not to mention... I never thought I'd be talking about fertility meds. That's the part that gets depressing... I'm the kind of person that works very hard to achieve goals and won't stop till I make it. But no matter how hard I try, I have no control over my body and it's a difficult pill to swallow. I grew up dreaming of getting married, having a home, and a baby. Two out of three is awesome, I know. But I never thought that I would have difficulty getting pregnant. And sometimes it gets difficult to be a social worker and work with so many families that never wanted children, don't want the ones they have, or royally screwed up their chances of keeping the ones they had. Not to mention those that got abortions. It gets harder as the days go on to hear about people getting "accidentally pregnant." I'm happy for their blessing, but I can't help but be a little bitter. It's another process I have to work through. Forgive me for baring my soul here, but putting my thoughts in writing has always worked wonders with my ability to remain resilient. So I'll probably be venting my baby-making woes occasionally on this blog, and I apologize in advance for those that don't care. But I'm also very thankful to my friends... my true friends... who are the greatest support a girl can have. And sorry to all of you if I make you fat with my cupcakes. It's multi-faceted therapy, because as you all get fat, it'll make me feel better about myself if I get fat too!! hahaha :)

The Birth of my Cupcake Baking Habit

I consider myself a vanilla kind of girl (I'm still resistant to calling myself a woman) in more ways than one. Vanilla in the sense that I'm mostly boring, don't enjoy taking risks, am scared of most things that are even remotely scary, and live in the suburbs with my husband and my dog. There are many of my type in the world. And I'm also a vanilla type of girl in the sense that I strongly prefer vanilla over chocolate because... I don't like chocolate. Yes, I have ovaries. And no, I don't like chocolate.
So vanilla was the logical place to begin my adventures in cupcakery, not only because it was a cupcake I would actually eat but because it was safe. And I LIKE SAFE. And so it began...
... in Winchester, Virginia in October of 2009 when I bit into a Georgetown Cupcakes key lime cupcake. OMG. I was hooked on the idea that a single-serving cupcake could be such an experience. I kept that thought in the back of my mind for a few months with full intentions of dabbling in cupcakery when I felt motivated enough to do it. At the time, I worked in child welfare. I don't think I need to explain the kind of stress I felt from working 40+ hours per week in hell... on top of that, I was trying my hardest to do yoga as often as possible and I was taking online classes at the local community college. So, yea. I didn't really have the time to even think about putting on my Betty Crocker pants and whipping up some batter and frosting. And on top of all of that, I was dealing with the agony of endometriosis. I'll let you google/wikipedia it if you so choose. In a nutshell, it's an incurable and somewhat mysterious disease in which rogue girly tissue grows where it's not supposed to, and every "that time of the month," that tissue wreaks havoc on your insides. It's kind of like having hot knives stabbing you in the baby maker. I'm sorry to poke fun at something so serious, but I feel like I'm entitled to do so after living with the hell and coping with it in my own ways. Anyways, I planned to take a few days off of work so I could suffer at home (thank God for birth control, I at least knew when I was going to feel like dying), but for some reason felt like I still needed to be productive. So I looked up a recipe, and birthed my first from-scratch cupcakes... vanilla cake. Vanilla frosting. My babies.
I didn't think my cupcake baking would go anywhere, so I didn't take pictures. And I thought they were pretty tasty, but maybe I was biased. The husband said they were good, but he's not that into vanilla and is a die-hard chocolate fan. He likes living life on the edge, I guess... as evidenced by his profession of running into burning buildings. So I snuck the rest of the cuppies into work and left them anonymously on the conference room table. That way, if they sucked, I could pretend I didn't know who brought them in. I heard a few people say they liked them, and it made me feel better. It was like someone saying they thought your baby looked cute.
In baking my safe cupcakes, I realized that the process was very therapeutic to me. It was productive, creative, time-consuming (and MY GOD I needed a hobby), stress-relieving, and something to take my mind off of the 981287689734 responsibilities I had at work. And so my hobby was born.
I'll post recipes, pictures, etc. as I go along. I'll also try to slowly chronicle my baking adventures to date. I don't know where this blog will go, but I'm hoping it's step two in my quest to avoid sitting in a therapist's office trying to figure out how to cope with life's curveballs. Between yoga, acupuncture, baking, blogging, and having a supportive husband, I hope I end up being balanced and sane on the other end of this crazy chapter of my life.