My beauties

I wrote this last Sunday but didn't have time to post it until tonight. Thanks friends.

As I finish up my week of cupcakes, I’d be abashed if I didn’t take a moment and talk about the what’s and the why’s I did this. I know a lot of you are curious as to the reasoning’s behind so many Instagram posts and facebook updates regarding my bakingness. I hope that I can give you a little clarification.

The obvious reason was that I wanted to practice. One of my friends (I still have those) asked last week if I’d be willing to make some cupcakes for a graduation party. I was excited as this was the first opportunity that I had to share my skills with other people outside of my family. I didn’t want to let her down and knew that if I practiced my cupcakes skills, I’d be able to make something that she’d find to be awesome. I found though, that I didn’t want to open a cookbook and make any old cupcake. I wanted to put my signature onto it. I wanted to create a cupcake formula that would stick out as one that people would enjoy and that I could call my own.

It took me a couple of days to create a worthy recipe. I poured over cookbooks, finding formulas and writing down the similarities and differences of each. I made so many batches of little cakes that in the span of only 4 days I went through 4 pounds of butter, almost 1.5 pounds of flour, a pound of cocoa, a gallon of buttermilk, a pound of chocolate chips, and almost a pound of sugar. I made chocolate, triple chocolate, devil’s food, orange, and raspberry. I filled some with cream and decorated others with cute little sugar crystals. I wanted things to be perfect for this party. I wanted them to bite into my little beauties and have a flavor sensation hit their palettes.

 

 When the day finally came to stop practicing, I was sure something was going to go wrong. I spent the entire workday pining over everything that could go amiss. Melissa would forget to take the ingredients out so I would be working with cold ingredients. The power would go out and I wouldn’t be able to bake them. The utensils would break. The little beauties would fall onto the floor when everything was done. My friend would hate them. All of these emotions coursed through my body as blood through my veins. Man, I really do have issues. I wanted everything to turn out and I was convinced that it wouldn’t. I was wrong. Everything turned out great and as far as I know, my friend and her party peeps loved them. Melissa took out my needed ingredients. There were no floor messes or breakages. Everything went as I needed them to go. I was happy. Nervous…but happy.

This wouldn’t be an interesting post if I didn’t tell you another reason I went to all of this effort. At the beginning of the week, I didn’t quite understand why I was trying so hard. I’m not really one to like cupcakes, or any sort of cake for that matter. I especially steer quite clear of anything chocolate cake related, as the bitter taste of the brown demon in any form elicits terrible sensations on my tongue. So, why did I work so hard to create something brilliant? It was a way to distract me. It provided me a way of escaping the demons that haunt my soul. My friend doesn’t know this but by asking me to make her some cupcakes, she was helping me to battle those little thoughts that creep into my head if I stand still for too long. I’m sure she wonders why I keep saying thank you to her for letting me do this but it’s no wonder in my mind. My escape from the treacherous fiends who plague my head is baking. Baking reroutes my thoughts and directs them towards something that I can feel happy about.

As I close cupcake week and look forward to what delicious treats or baked goods next week might hold, I decided to make little beauties to celebrate my new outlet. These birthday cake beauties shock the tongue with a sweetness overload. They are a vanilla cupcake with festive sprinkles folded nicely into the batter. A filling of sweet vanilla cream echoes the feelings the cake itself brought to the table. I topped each cake with a rich vanilla buttercream and even more sprinkles.

Enjoy!

-Jer