Snow Day Vegan Ginger Cupcakes

We're having a snow day in Madison - the snow started last night, and some things canceled, but the really heaviest snow started this morning, and it's still coming down. We shoveled about 4 inches before work, and just did about another 8, or who knows, 'cuz it drifted, after dinner.

The Madison Schools are closed; they even closed the University, at 3:30 - and Mark just told me that there were places where the snow was up to his knees on his walk home.

I came home about 2:00, and shoulda done some paperwork-type stuff I have hanging around - I'm supposed to write up a meeting I attended, close to 3 weeks ago, and I also should finish my forms for foster parenting. But I talked to John and he & Megan were enjoying their snow day, watching the Office on DVD, lying in bed drinking coffee and eating Milk Duds, so that inspired me - I ate some chocolate, drank coffee and watched a movie on DVD, Zach Braff's Last Kiss. It was a little too much of a combo of silly and intense - lots of scenes of people having earnest relationship conversations, and the music's not as good as Garden State. It was filmed partly in Madison, there was a big wedding at a fancy house out in Maple Bluff (might've even been the Governor's Mansion) but once the fun of looking for Madison scenes wore off, and I couldn't recognize any of the extras, I bailed.

I tried out a recipe for vegan ginger cupcakes, as an experiment for the next one-dish dinner. I used my favorite Mollie Katzen gingerbread, left out the egg, and used soy yogurt instead of dairy yogurt called for in the original. Rach and I talked about doing a drizzled frosting on these, but they sank a bit in the middle, so I made a fluffy frosting with vegan margarine & shortening and lemon juice. As many times as I have made this gingerbread, it still surprises me - I think there are too many acidic variables with yogurt, molasses, and the baking soda - sometimes it is the most easy to work with batter, sometimes it explodes (or sticks, or sinks).