Orange Vanilla Bean Cupcakes

These cupcakes are really good. If you are looking for something a little on the fancy side, make these. And, if you have a lovely assistant like this one, so much the better. He is holding a bottle of vanilla beans, which we found at the grocery store for something like $4 for a bottle of two. Believe it or not, that is an unbelievable deal on vanilla beans at the grocery store.

My plan over Christmas was to bake a lot of cupcake recipes for the various family parties and get-togethers we would be attending. However, I have learned this fundamental principle of holiday baking: there is always way more food than you will need at any holiday get-together, and you will end up taking a lot of it home. But, heaven forbid we show up with less food, and make it look to people like there isn't going to be enough to go around. This is why people gain weight over the holidays.

Nevertheless, I was not going to miss an opportunity to cook in Melanee's kitchen and use all of her utensils and appliances.

This is Mel's microplane zester. I want one really badly.

She has more counter space in this picture than I have in my entire kitchen.
I also covet her big jars of flour and sugar. And her flat-top stove. And her spice rack. And all of her bowls. She also has a Bosch, which I was too scared to use.

Here is a link to the recipe. You may not think the candied oranges would be worth the extra effort, but they absolutely were.

These orange cupcakes were taken to the family party on Christmas Eve with my dad's side of the family. It has gotten to the point where I only see my cousins on that side of the family about once a year, usually at this party. This party, like every family gathering, involves massive amounts of food. However, it is so much more than that. Traditionally, it has involved three things: a talent show, the playing of the pipe chimes, and a white elephant gift exchange. As I write this, I realize that there are probably lots of Mormon families who have family gatherings where things like this occur. So, really, you'd have to meet my family to understand why this gathering feels so bizarre. When I was little, my contribution to the talent show portion was to sing an extremely off-key rendition of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," while my cousin Trudi danced, my cousin Brittany played the violin, and my cousin Stephanie recited a poem. My parents still have this on videotape. Needless to say, the talent portion of the evening was dominated by my youngest cousins and the children of my older cousins, but it hasn't been that many years since I demonstrated the Tahitian dance I learned in the Polynesian dance class I took at BYU.

The pipe chimes are something that was actually started by my mom, although, for years, my Aunt Mary Ann has been the driving force behind this tradition. My maternal grandfather made the chimes by taking metal pipes and cutting them to various specified lengths. Each pipe has a different number, and sheet "music" is provided in the form of a giant posterboard with the numbers written on it so that, when the number on the board is pointed to, usually by my Uncle Roger, the person who is in possession of that chime hits it with the handle of a butter knife. If everyone is paying attention, the tune of a popular Christmas song eeks out slowly and arrhythmically. If everyone is not paying attention, someone usually starts yelling. This year, my dad and

some of my cousins mysteriously disappeared during this portion of the evening, leaving me, several small children, and my elderly grandmother as the lead musicians. Also, this year we tried to do a song that had chords, which meant TWO people had to be paying attention to hit their chimes simultaneously. Then, my cousin Erin's youngest daughter, Paige, came into the room with a dirty diaper, which her mother immediately apologized for, in the middle of the song, causing me to start giggling and miss a cue. And things went downhill from there.

This year also featured some other, nontraditional games. But the way we always finish the night is with the white elephant gift exchange. This is similar to the gift exchange that occurs in the Christmas episode of the Office where Michael goes overboard and buys Ryan an iPod, only to receive a homemade oven mitt from Phyllis. It's sort of like that. Only, with my family, everybody brings multiple presents. Tons of presents. They are all wrapped, and they are usually pretty crappy, so, in recent years, it has become more about what things you can get rid of than it has about what you might end up with. Everyone sits in a circle, and several pairs of dice start circulating. If you roll a 7 or an 11, you get to take a present. When all the presents are gone, a second round begins where, when you roll a 7 or an 11, you can steal a present from someone else in the circle. I think the best thing I came away with this year was a pocket electronic Battleship game, which I ended up playing the last time I was stuck waiting for my tire to get changed. But I was pretty proud of what I was able to give away.

Here's my cousin Erin holding a copy of the Lubbock 5th Branch Movie. In case you are wondering, I am still in possession of four copies myself.

A few days before I left for Christmas, I ended up going to an ugly sweater Christmas party. I won some game we were playing and ended up with a giant trophy. Rather than throw it away, I decided to pack it in my suitcase (no easy feat) and take it with me to Utah, to be wrapped up and entered in the white elephant gift exchange. Just thinking about it made me smile on my plane ride out there.

The trophy ended up with Zack. He is the oldest of my grandma's great-grandchildren, and the only person in the room who was old enough to know what it was and still young enough to think it was cool. Plus, his parents are both doctors and were working pretty hard not to end up with too much junk to take back home, so it was pretty funny, too.