Birds, cupcakes

The bird that Boy caught.
Originally uploaded by average lavender

Boy and Girl managed to sneak this bird through the kitchen door when I wasn't looking.  I thought I heard a car door shut, so I went to the office room and even then I didn't notice the bird!  Was it alive when they brought it in?  How long had they been playing with it?  George buried him in the grub-filled compost. 

On a more delicious note: I tried making some Mocha Stout Cupakes this past Wednesday.  I used a recipe for Chocolate Guinness Cake I found over here.  One of the local breweries does a mocha stout, so it seemed a natural, possibly superior, beer for the cake.  In the end I was left feeling, "Meh."  Some changes I made to the reicpe, aside from beer substitution, were using unsweetend cocoa and Dutch process cocoa (which resulted in halving the amount of baking soda called for - check it out: baking science), and using 1/2 cup less sugar than called for.  I was aiming for a less sweet cake that would let the stout shine through.  What I got was a cake that was less sweet but just sort of tasted like it had more sour cream than it actually did.  I think that in addition to reducing the sugar, the cocoa should've also been reduced - it's a mocha stout, duh.  Better luck next time.