

Whew! What a weekend!
On Thursday and Friday I took the cardio-boxing and step class at my YMCA. Both classes are taught by the same instructor and she plays hip-hop gospel music - remember me pumping my arms up and down to "Praise him!"? This week, besides totally kicking my butt so that I was completely sore all weekend, she says during our cool-down stretching:
Pretend there is a flashlight on your butt and shine it to the sky!
Shine it!
Oh yeah! This little light of mine, I'm going let it shine!
After class, I shined my light on making some knock off Mrs. Field's Chocolate Chip Cookies and Cupcakes with Chocolate Frosting. I got the Mrs. Field's pseudo recipe from the Los Angeles Times S.O.S. section. The main deal is that you blend oats and flour into a powder for the dry goods. You also grate some chocolate so you'll have little flecks of chocolate in the every bite. However, this is one of those starts-great-ends-bad stories.

When they came out of the oven, they were so pretty and smelled great. I ate one and they were delicious. However, when I tried them on Saturday at the start of the completely awesome Simpsons Movie, they were bad. These cookies are definitely only good warm! Oh well, at least I ate two of them while they were hot.
On Saturday morning, I made Baking Illustrated's Yellow Cupcakes with Simple Chocolate Frosting recipe (page 345). I made the frosting before for the Sound of Music Sing-a-Long. However, this time I didn't whip the ganache and just let it cool down in the fridge. It made for a nice dense frosting that was way chocolately. Also ate one of the these during the completely awesome and hilarious and wonderful Simpsons Movie. (Really, go see it!)

Today, I went to Empress Pavilion for some dim sum with my friend Julie. Then, we went to Hipcooks in Lincoln Heights (near Chinatown) for a Knife Skills class. It totally rocked! Sharp knives can save your life and your cooking. Not a hyperbole, but a fact! :) I have a new wish list for knives. I'm looking forward to the Persian Immersion class next weekend!

After they came out of the pan, the instructions say to pop them out onto a plate and then reinvert onto a rack. Sounds simple, no? Well, when I tried to go from the plate to the rack, it totally fell apart because the cake stuck to the plate. Cake particles seemed to fill the kitchen. D'oh!
