Vanilla Chiffon Cupcakes and "Big Lifts"

Our daughter turns 13 this month. I took a trip down memory lane to see what celebrations and cakes she has had so far-

• Her first birthday was a joint party for two babies- a picnic in the park with a variety of cakes. We moved to Georgia just a few weeks after this. 
• The second birthday was a celebration at home with chocolate cupcakes. 
• We were in India for her third birthday and celebrated with all the grandparents and a beautiful cake from a nearby bakery in Mumbai. 
• The fourth birthday was a brunch celebration with a Frozen-themed cake from a local bakery- this was at the height of her Frozen phase. 
• Her fifth birthday was a picnic at a park pavilion with vanilla cupcakes with a ganache frosting and pretty flower sprinkles, and a brand new baby brother in attendance. 
• The sixth birthday was an ice-cream-themed celebration at home with friends and neighbors and a homemade ice cream cake. 
• The seventh birthday was a tea party with a castle cake, a special one as my parents were visiting from India. 
• Ice cream became a recurring theme for birthdays as the eighth birthday was an ice cream social with a brownie rainbow cake. 
• The ninth birthday was celebrated in a state park with just our family- it was the pandemic- and the cake was a raspberry macaron cake from Trader Joe's. 
• The tenth birthday was a small one with an tricolor ice cream bombe cake and build-your-own pizzas. 
• The eleventh birthday was the longest party- a sleepover with a brownie pizza cake. 
• The twelfth birthday was a party at home with a karaoke machine and a bunch of new and old middle school friends, and two homemade ice cream cakes. 

And now this entry into the teens. My daughter and one of her best friends, both turning 13 this month, wanted to throw a big joint birthday bash for all of their friends. After all the birthdays at home or in parks, we were happy to orchestrate a bigger party for this milestone birthday. The two girls and the four parents collaborated to make it happen last week- and it was big, fun, memorable. Joint birthday parties are a great way to share the work, expenses, and also the fun, planning, creativity, and ideas! It was nice to come full circle and have another joint birthday party for her 13th, twelve years after her first joint birthday. 

 

Thanks to the birthday friend's dad, we were able to affordably rent a fabulous venue downtown for 2 hours on a Friday evening- a big room that they decked out with a big disco ball and a great speaker system. It was the perfect setting for a dance party. The theme was- black, silver, purple, disco ball. Much of the fun was in the planning, which included two separate shopping trips (girls + moms). The girls put together a playlist for the occasion. We shopped for coordinating little black dresses at a consignment store, and they accessorized with birthday tiaras and sashes (and sneakers). The other mom made a beautiful birthday banner with their names. 

The refreshments were easy and crowd-pleasing for middle-schoolers (read, thoroughly "junky") - pizza,  cake/cupcakes, Izze sodas, chips. The cake was a popular and luxe one from a local bakery, called "tuxedo"- rich chocolate with a chocolate almond custard filling and white buttercream. The sparker candles were festive in the dark disco ambience. 

Tuxedo cake from a favorite bakery

I made vanilla-vanilla cupcakes as an alternative to the chocolate-heavy cake. For the cupcakes, I tried this recipe for vanilla cupcakes. There are many cake mixing methods out there, and typically I use the creaming method where you start with butter and sugar. This recipe is a sponge cake/ chiffon cake, which starts by beating eggs and sugar into a thick and airy foam. I doubled the recipe and used my stand mixer. 

The cupcakes were fun to make, and the texture was perfect. I've never before achieved a crumb that so closely resembled a "bakery" one. I do feel like my cupcakes turned out quite dry (not as the recipe advertised)- and that was likely user error due to over-mixing and possible over-baking. Still, not bad for a first attempt! This is my new favorite cupcake recipe.

For the frosting, I made a batch of the less-sweet ermine frosting which is my absolute favorite, and a keeper recipe. I tinted it purple (too light, as it turned out), piped it on quite hastily, and used some purple and silver sprinkles.

Vanilla cupcake with ermine frosting-
purple and silver were the party theme colors.
Two silver stars for the two birthday girls

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A new recipe I tried this week- Instant Pot fried rice. Typically, fried rice started with previously cooked rice. This recipe starts with raw Jasmine rice and cooks it in the Instant Pot with water flavored with some soy sauce, garlic, and toasted sesame oil. While the rice is cooking, you heat up a pan on the stove top and scramble eggs and thaw some frozen peas, and stir these into the cooked rice. This is a clever way to make some tasty mock-fried rice. I can see myself using this recipe regularly to make a quick side for Asian stir-fries. This time, I served it with some soy curl and mushroom Manchurian gravy. 

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Weekly round-up--

• A short and beautiful piece of writing (the link is a picture of the full text): I was Trying to Describe You to Someone by Richard Brautigan
• My son and I watched The Secret Life of Pets (2016) on Tubi on a movie night. It was quite entertaining, and the closing scene made me tearfully miss our Dunkie Boy. The song in this scene- Lovely Day by Bill Withers- is a favorite of mine. 
• I finally got my hands on a novel that held my attention- The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware. It is an atmospheric mystery, a twisted tale of family secrets.
• I love that my small town is vibrant with community events- we try to attend as many as we can. This week I went to an aerial gymnastics showcase by adult students. One of my friends was a performer, and it was mind-boggling to see the impressive talents of "regular" people with day jobs who do hobby aerial gymnastics. 

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A Moment of Fitness: I started discussing strength training in my last post- why it is important, and the modalities for doing it. What exercises should one do to train muscles? The exercises fall into 12 buckets- 5 types of compound movements that exercise big groups of muscles, and 7 types of isolation movements that exercise one muscle group or body part. For me, this was a big aha moment. There seem to be an overwhelming number of exercises out there, how do you make sense of it all? Well, when you learn that everything falls into a rather small number of categories, then it seems much more manageable.

Today, I'll talk about the 5 types of compound movements. These are called "big lifts" and they are some of the most important exercises you can learn and do, because (a) they target groups of muscles simultaneously, making them efficient and giving you more bang for your buck in terms of exercise time, and (b) they are the most functional, mimicking the movements we do in daily life and making you stronger for your day to day activities. The NYTimes published an article about these fundamental exercises recently- here's a gift link to the full article. (They include a sixth fundamental movement, rotation.)

Here's an introduction to each of these big lifts. For each of these lifts, there are endless variations- some will be better for beginners, some will be more advanced, some use bodyweight (no equipment needed) and some use free weights or machines. You never have to be bored, there's always a new version of an exercise to try. I'll name a few versions for each lift. Search for the exercise names in any browser to get links to pages with descriptions and pictures and videos that demonstrate the exercise. 

1. Squat: A real life example of the squatting movement would be getting in and out of a chair, and in and out of a car. Many sources will tell you that the squat is the single best exercise you can do. It uses all the lower body muscles, and also the muscles of the core. 
1. You can do a bodyweight squat anywhere at all, no equipment needed
2. Wall squats are an isometric (meaning, you hold a pose) version where you hold a squat against a wall
3. For people with mobility issues, a chair squat is an easier alternative
4. A goblet squat is one where you hold a weight in front of your chest with both hands as you squat
5. A Bulgarian split squat is one of my favorite variations, where you squat on one leg while propping up the other leg behind you on a bench or platform. It is an example of how single leg versions of exercises give you added benefits of improving balance and stability
2. Hinge: This is when you fold over at the waist by pushing your hips back and keeping your back flat. A real life example is bending down to clean a table.
1. Good morning- yes, that's the name of the exercise. An easy bodyweight way to learn the hinge movement.
2. Deadlift- the quintessential hinge exercise. The sumo deadlift version is when you place your feet wide apart, much like the stance of a sumo wrestler
3. Romanian deadlift- a version that is easier for most people
4. Single leg deadlift- two in one- improves balance and stability even as you strengthen leg muscles
3. Push: Like pushing a grocery cart or stroller, you're pushing weight away from your body. Focused on the upper body.
1. The classic example is the push-up, which needs no equipment
2. The classic gym exercise is the chest press where you lie face-up on a bench with feet firmly planted on the floor and push weights away from your chest
3. Alternating chest press is when you use one hand at a time
4. Incline chest press is when you lie on an angled bench instead of a flat one
4. Pull: The opposite of pushing something away. Like when you're wielding a broom and raking leaves by pulling the broom handle, a rowing motion. Focused on the upper body. 
1. Bent-over row is when bend from the waist and pull weights up to your chest
2. Single arm row uses one arm at a time to pull weights
3. My personal favorite is the renegade row which is a combination strength and core exercise
5. Press: When you're lifting something over your shoulders, as when lifting a bag into the plane's overhead compartment.
1. Overhead press/ shoulder press/ military press- you sit or stand with weights held next to the shoulders, then lift the weights above your head
2. Push press- a variation of the overhead press that recruits the legs to generate power
3. Dumbbell power snatch- one of my faves, a coordinated movement where you smoothly and speedily take the weight from ground level to all the way overhead

Next time: the 7 types of isolation exercises.