Prep Party

I've been in charge of catering for St. Anne's Kick-off dinner and appreciation dinner for the past three years now, this year, I feel like a pro! On the menu this year:  Garden Salad, chicken alfredo , chicken marinara (served over penne), broccoli and apple spice cupcakes w/ cream cheese frosting for dessert. Tuesday night was spent chopping, tasting, boiling and seasoning with my two helpers for 7-11pm. I got all the broccoli steamed, both sauces made, all the cupcake batter made, and all the chicken cut and cooked off.... so I'm feeling pretty confident going into tomorrow night. We should have about 100pp coming this year.  In case you wanted to try, here is the recipe for the Apple Spice cupcakes....which I must say are quite tasty AND easy!
APPLE SPICE CUPCAKES
Ingredients:
3 Tbsp Unsalted Butter, room temperature (45g)
3/4 cup Apple Sauce, smooth
1 cup Granny Smith or Bramley Apples, diced
1/2 cup Granulated Sugar
1/4 cup Brown Sugar
1 Large Egg, room temperature
1 cup All Purpose Flour
1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Ground Cinnamon
1/8 tsp Ground Nutmeg
1/8 tsp Ground Cloves
1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
1/8 tsp Salt

Method:

• Preheat oven to 355
• Line a 12 cup muffin tin with cupcake liners
• In a large mixing bowl, beat butter and sugars until light and fluffy
• Beat in the egg and vanilla extract
• In a small bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and spices together
• Add one third of the flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix until just combined
• Beat in half of the applesauce until just combined making sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl
• Combine half of the remaining flour, followed by the rest of the applesauce
• Mix in the last of the flour and beat until just combined
• Fold in the diced apple
• Divide the batter among the cupcake papers, filling each till about 2/3 full
• Bake until cupcakes spring back when lightly pressed or a toothpick comes out clean, about 18 - 20mins
• Cool for about 10mins before removing cupcakes from pan and cooling on a wire rack
• Once completely cool, make a small hollow in each cupcake using a pastry cutter or apple corer, push into the centre of each cupcake, about half way down, and remove the sponge, leaving a small hole
• Fill holes with caramel/dulce de leche
• Frost each cupcakes with a generous kiss of cream cheese frosting

In work related news, we have two weddings booked in October, which is approaching rather quickly. We have only ever done one other wedding at our establishment (and I wasn't there yet) so needless to say, we learning on the fly here and working to make it as smooth as possible for all parties.  When I first started at BU's School of Hospitality Administration (SHA), I thought, as many do, how cool would it be to be a wedding planner! HA HA I was obviously poppin' the crazy pills when I thought this because that shiz is A LOT of IMPROTANT planning. Judging how I planned my own wedding, aka by the seat of my pants, I can say with complete confidence, fun to do for someone else maybe once or twice a year, but all the time?!?!? Not so much.  Surprisingly I succeeded at making my own wedding a flawlessly masterpiece, but I ask myself can a girl pull this off more than once in her lifetime??!?! I'll let you know in a couple of weeks if it is possible AND if I haven't ripped out all my hair talking with two differnt father/mother's of the bride/grooms.
Baby News: Taygan now weighs in at 14.2 lbs., 24" tall and impressively reaching and exceeding all of his baby milestones :-) This picture is of my Tay-bay obviously riveted by my 10th pan of cupcakes going in the oven while I sing him Wicked show tunes.... hahaha poor thing. (side note, Wicked is Awesome and everyone should see it :-)