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Monday, July 14, 2014

Of frosting and friendship: Owl Cucpakes

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You can no doubt see where
the owl came from...


The college where I spent my undergrad years, amusingly, did not have an official mascot when I first attended. Since I had just left a high school where we were a color rather than some alliterative animal (Big Green was only marginally better than calling us "the Doors"), I didn't find it that odd. Still, as a writer for the sports section of the college paper, calling us the "Bryn Mawr College Mawrtyrs" had always seemed overly literal.

The owl had long been the school's unofficial mascot, joining the ranks of other Beanie Baby-esque animals wearing minuscule college t-shirts in the campus bookstore. In my junior year (if this is false, someone with a better memory please correct me) the college officially voted that the owl would be our official athletic mascot. It still blows my mind that next year will be my 10th college reunion. Weird.


Whooo wouldn't want one?
At a picnic potluck for college friends one spring day, I was tasked with bringing dessert. Deciding to embody the saying GO BIG OR GO HOME, I decided to make some adorable and thematic cupcakes. And so the Owl cupcakes were born.


This recipe is best made with friends, for manual labor if nothing else. Like all artistic cupcake decorating endeavors, please leave yourself plenty of time, as things as simple sounding as 'separate several dozen Oreos without breaking them' takes more time than you'd think. 

  Or at least more time than I'd think.

Recipe and more photos behind the cut!

A Blustery (and Bloggery) Day: SF Food Blogger Bake Sale 2013

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Closeup on cookies by Irvin (Eat the Love) and me, among others!
Ironically, I've meant to update my blog several times in the past few weeks (or even months), but here is a reason that I can't pass up: this month was the annual Food Blogger Bake Sale. Once again, we were outside Omnivore Books--I totally meant to pick up a copy of Shauna Sever's newest book about vanilla, independent bookstores need supporting!--and it was a windy and hilarious day of delicious baked goods, amusing conversation and, most importantly, happy customers enjoying the food we and other awesome food bloggers had made.


I made Dr. Seuss inspired cookies, adapted from a recipe I found online. They came out pretty cute, but be warned--the dough is very damp so it's very hard (or rather easy to do it wrong) to make perfect spirals.

Seussical Sugar Cookies, taken with love from Swirled Sugar Cookies.