(no subject)

[camwyn]

Did not mark Pi Day yesterday with any actual pie. Made cupcakes, though. I found a chocolate cupcake recipe in the America's Test Kitchen cookbook of revised comfort food recipes- the revisions being intended to lower fat and calorie counts without screwing up the flavor, resorting to tiny servings or using weird ingredients (they specifically cited the "reduce fat in your cakes by using PUREED PRUNES!!!! instead of oil!!!" and muttered something about that not being a cake at all). The recipe uses bread flour and bittersweet chocolate and cocoa powder and two eggs and canola oil and salt and sugar and baking soda and white vinegar (substitute leavening so you don't need as many eggs) and salt and instant espresso powder (3/4 teaspoon) for the cupcakes, and the frosting uses confectioner's sugar and cocoa powder and lowfat milk and a little butter rather than being buttercream. Steps the calories down from 450 cal. per full-bore frosted cupcake to around 320, which may not seem like much but is very nearly an entire can of Coca-Cola's worth of calories, and drops the fat like you wouldn't believe.

And it's good. I mean it's good enough that I am going to look into cream filling recipes and then check out how you make solid smooth chocolate tops with white squiggles on them because I am pretty sure that this is one step away from being an acceptable substitute for the sadly-lost Hostess Cupcake.

Comments

[telophase]

My lunch today consists of leftover meatloaf and scalloped potatoes from that very cookbook! The scalloped potatoes are the best I've ever had, but my previous scalloped potato experience consists of nasty ones from catered buffets and institutional cafeterias so take that with a grain of salt. The meatloaf is meatloaf, but the glaze is fantastic.

My husband made the oatmeal chocolate bars, which he really likes, but which I find okay but not thrilling.

[camwyn]

I made the meatloaf first, though I didn't do the glaze because I'm not really used to glazed meatloaf. Next time I do it I'll give it a try. And the potatoes sound like a great idea- I didn't even look at that part of the book yet.

[telophase]

I'm glad we did the glaze, because we couldn't find 90% lean ground beef, and ended up with 93%, so it's a bit dry, but the glaze makes up for that. The recipes makes a lot of glaze; Toby just dumped it all on top, which turned out to be a good choice because we liked it so much.

What we really like is meatloaf cooked with bacon on top, which is going to add a bit of fat to that recipe if we do that, although cooking it on a rack elevated should help drain the excess.

[camwyn]

Lord, yes. I got 90% beef myself and when I saw how much fat was in the baking tray after the recipe was done I was so glad for that elevated rack...

[ladyoflorien]

For the solid chocolate tops, I have something you could experiment with. If you melt chocolate pieces (your basic chocolate chips will serve) with 1/4 parts peanut butter, you end up with a creamy spreadable chocolate that hardens as it cools without turning into the consistency of chocolate bar bricks. It might turn out a little rich, but if you wait for your cakes to cool completely then spread the melted chocolate/peanut butter on top, you should end up with something of a similar consistency to hostess cakes. Then it's a matter of letting it cool and using a pastry bag to draw the white frosting squiggles on top.

(It also serves as a lower cal solution to a buttercream, since you're getting all your texture and oil from the peanut butter.)

[camwyn]

According to at least one web site I checked, the top of a Hostess cupcake is usually replicated with some form of ganache, so that's chocolate and heavy cream. I'm going to have a look around for alternative constructions of similar texture- I like the chocolate/peanut butter, though.

[synchronicity2]

Unrelated to cupcakes:

Thinking about this:

http://www.rei.com/product/854936/gt-tachyon-30-womens-bike-2012-closeout

Any idea re: sizing? I found this chart,:
http://www.bikesdirect.com/products/gt/images/tachyon_wmns_geo.gif

And I stand 5'4" (64inches) with a 30 inch inseam.

On the Diamondback bikes I rank an XS, but this chart is weird. Any clues?

[camwyn]

Oo, good question. Um... hrm. The usual formula I've seen is metric and for road bikes; you want a road bike frame that's .67 * your inseam in centimeters. For a mountain bike you want (.67 * your inseam in centimeters) - 10 to 15 cm, because stopping suddenly and hitting the top bar with your undercarriage is more likely, so mountain bikers want to size their bikes to avoid that. What you've got there is a commuter model rather than a road bike, so probably you want something closer to the mountain bike measures; you're not going to be needing the massive speeds, but the ability to pedal and put your foot down quickly during starts and stops on city streets.

So your frame size comes out to around 36 centimeters under the mountain bike version of that formula. Basically that's meant to be the length of the seat tube. Either a size XS or a size S would do the trick. The major issue for me has generally been 'if I have to stop suddenly and come out of the seat, do I still have an inch or two of groin clearance?'. With the women's frame there having the top tube at a slanted angle you could probably manage the size S without much of a problem.

As for the quality of the bike itself, I'm not familiar with the GT brand, but REI's usually pretty good about the brands they sell being of good quality.