Patrick and Logan

Saturday morning we received the horrible, unbelievable news that late Friday night there was a fire at my cousins Lindsay and Tom's house in Roanoke.  The entire house was destroyed and my cousins's two beautiful boys, Patrick, 10, and Logan, 5, were lost in the fire when the second story collapsed.  Friends of the family who were staying the night all made it out with smoke inhalation and minor burns, and Lindsay and Tom made it out too with smoke inhalation.  They were all driven to Winston-Salem to the hospital there, near where my aunt lives, and spent the night under watch.

Lindsay and Tom lost everything, not only, but most importantly their two boys, but their house, pets, cars, everything.  Lindsay's business was in that house too.  Two fundraising campaigns have been set up to help them get back on their feet, if not emotionally then at least financially.  YouCaring and GoFundMe, which has the best picture of Patrick and Logan.  Your thoughts and prayers are also greatly needed to help Tom, Lindsay and the entire family through this tough time.

Patrick was quiet at times, a very pensive kid sometimes, very curious and smart, highly energetic.  He taught me how to kneeboard last summer at the Lake.  I remember visiting after he was just born while I was in college and Lindsay and I went to make a plate with his footprints on it.  Five years later we did the same thing with Logan.  Those plates hung on the wall in their kitchen.  Logan was a wild child, incredibly bright and always trying to keep up with Patrick, leading to many adventures.  I love those boys!  They were taken to be angels too soon.

It's just unthinkable.  You never expect something to happen to your family, even though you hear about it happening on the news, but sometimes it does.  There is no reason to explain something like this.  Sometimes burdens we have to carry have no reason, we just have to carry them.

Lemon Cupcakes with Strawberry Frosting

When your friend loves lemon cake and strawberry cake, you've got to make cupcakes like that for her bridal shower!

Lemon Cupcakes (adapted from Southern Living)

1 cup vegan butter (like Earth Balance), softened

2 cups granulated sugar

4 large eggs, separated

3 cups cake flour (you can make your own if you don't have it on hand)

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/8 teaspoon table salt

1 cup soymilk

1 heaping tablespoon lemon zest

2.5 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Shortening or cupcake liners

Preheat oven to 350

In a large bowl beat the vegan butter just like normal butter at medium speed until creamy with a mixer, add sugar gradually and beat until fluffy.  Be patient.  Separate the eggs, add the yolks to the batter one at a time, blending each one in.  Put the whites together in a second large bowl for later.

Mix the flour with baking powder and salt in a medium bowl.  Add a scoop of the flour, then a bit of milk, alternating and blend in on low speed.  Then mix in the lemon zest and lemon juice, I add more than the original recipe for more lemon cake flavor.  

Back to that large bowl of egg whites, clean your mixer, then whip them until firm peaks form.  Add a scoop of the egg whites to the batter and stir in.  Add the rest of the egg whites and then fold into the batter.  I didn't know how to fold in egg whites, so here's a helpful page from the Kitchn or a video to watch how.

Put cupcake liners in the pan then add a scoop of batter to each.  I used a 1/4 cup measure a little less full and it filled them perfectly - only fill each liner 1/2 to 2/3 of the way...lesson learned, these rise like crazy.  Don't worry about smoothing the tops, that happens naturally during baking, but definitely don't drop it down like I did because you want air (the whole reason of adding whipped egg whites).  Bake for 18-20 minutes.  Let cool and make the frosting.

When the cupcakes are cool, use a small knife to core the center about 2/3 of the way down in each cupcake.  Pipe strawberry jam into the center of the cupcake and then use the cored remains to add a bit of cupcake back on top to make frosting easier.

I got the original Strawberry frosting recipe from BethCakes and modified it to be dairy free, which took a couple of attempts.

Attempt One with creamed Earth Balance didn't work.  I creamed the Earth Balance, just like for the cake, then added 2 tbs of strawberry jam like it says, then the puree which I left the solids in and it didn't fully mix together as well as it should have.  There might have been too much puree as I added about a 1/2 cup because I wanted more of a strawberry flavor.  Adding the 2 cups of powdered sugar didn't help.  It looked like this:

That's not going to spread well on top as frosting.  To the trash.

Attempt Two worked much better.  I grabbed the crisco shortening as I know my FMIL (a fantastic baker) uses that to make things dairy free for me sometimes, but to my dismay didn't have a full cup, only about 3/4 of a cup.  So I added that to the bowl (it hadn't been fully cleaned out so there was still lots of strawberry from attempt 1), was in a rush for time to get to the bridal shower these were for, so I threw in enough powdered sugar until it turned into a pink frosting and went with it.

That will work as frosting.

Iced half the cupcakes quickly, cut some strawberry slices to top them with, ran to the grocery store for some store bought icing for the rest as I was super late at that point and headed to the shower.  Luckily, they were a rave.  However, I forgot to take pics in the rush.

Lesson learned: have more crisco on hand and start adding liquids to frostings in small small batches.

Four Things

These are always fun to do, and interesting to find year later...

Four names I go by:
1. Christina
2. Ms. V
3. Ms. Vandenbergh
4. Steiner or Nina *by certain family members

Four things I hate:
1. Disrespect
2. Not taking responsibility for self
3. Cleaning
4. Traffic

Four places I have worked:
1. U-Rec at JMU
2. Science Park Rec Association
3. FCPS
4. College Board/ETS

Four things I love to watch
1. Downton Abbey
2. Jane the Virgin
3. Top Chef
4. Chopped

Four places I have been:
1. Puerto Rico
2. Scotland
3. Iceland
4. Ireland

Four things I am looking forward to:
1. The future with my fiance, soon to be husband
2. Seeing students improve on skills
3. Traveling
4. Spring Break

Four things I love to eat:
1. Mom's Ruby Red Corned Beef
2. Thai Peanut Stir-fry
3. Anything chocolate (dairy-free)
4. Strawberries

Four favorite drinks (not water):
1. Coffee
2. Hot tea with milk
3. A good stout
4. Lemonade in the summer