Jelly Doughnut Cupcakes and rant

I feel as though I have been really hard on myself lately. Mostly for not being able to find time to do more baking and work on the blog. Of course I pick a hobby that involves putting out a lot of money, money that I don't really have to be putting out in the first place. I really get unhappy when a full week has gone by and I haven't made anything. Not baking equals not blogging. Everyone told me that blogging would be a full time job and that I would have to be very committed to it. I understood the risks before I went into this. What is the point in having a blog when I am posting so infrequently? When I do get the chance to bake there is a brief moment of happiness, like 'yay I can go blog about this now'. That moment is short lived because I then remember how all we have is a crappy digital camera that does not do my food justice. It is such a long and stressful process trying to get decent pictures for my posts. The lighting in our apartment is pretty terrible too, so that does not help either. I see other blogs and I am blown away by the pictures and the long passages that accompany the recipes. All the followers that these bloggers have, all the comments. I just wonder what am I doing this all for. Baking makes me happy. Baking makes me feel good and makes me feel useful. I enjoy making something that others can appreciate. I love playing with flavors and ingredients and tools that I never have before. I just feel like that isn't enough. I don't know what to do, how to get my name out there. How to get my food out there. I feel stuck in a rut right now. Money is tough and time is short and life is stressful. There are days I just want to give up and go back to not having a passion or hobby. But what good would that do? I apologize for my rant :( 

Moving on, I made jelly doughnut cupcakes! They were a bit of fun to make mostly because I am a nerd and was excited to use lemon zest for the first time. Plus I have never made filled cupcakes either. Surprisingly simple. I just used my smallest circular cookie cutter and stuck in in the top and twisted and tada the middle of the cupcake came right now. The only negative things I could say about these cupcakes are I did not like the jelly filling. I used raspberry jam and I guess I now know I do NOT like raspberry jam. I would like to make these again, just have to figure out something different to fill them with.


Ingredients:
1 cup flour
1/2 cup light brown sugar
½ cup milk
1/4 cup butter, at room temperature
1 egg, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon lemon zest
1/4 teaspoon salt

good quality red jelly (any flavor)

powdered sugar

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350. Grease and flour or line 6-8 wells in a cupcake pan. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg, vanilla, zest and milk beat well. Add the flour, baking powder and salt. Beat until the batter is light and fluffy. Fill each well 2/3 of the way filled. Bake approximately 15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the middle cupcake comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack and take a small corer, knife or melon baller and scoop out some of the center of the cupcake. Fill with jelly (I just spooned it in). Sprinkle with powdered sugar.
From Coconut & Lime