Cupcakes

Where did the obsession originate? With the girl in Sur La Table one day on a shopping trip with Melissa Leilani-- a shopping trip where I was NOT going to spend any money. But that darn girl talked me into buying a cupcake tree. It was on sale, in my defense, and I was with Melissa. . . who is the devil to shop with. She never talks me out of anything. Besides the tree, which was very pretty, the girl talked me into a recipe book for cupcakes. It was all over.

I made my first real batch, make that three batches, for Secret Garden's opening night. & it was so much FUN! They were so pretty, and they tasted pretty good too. & then it got worse. I made them for Ben's birthday, and then we got engaged, and I got a plan in my head. Instead of a wedding cake, we were going to have cupcakes. & not just any cupcakes. COOL cupcakes. PRETTY cupcakes. & really really TASTY cupcakes. I hate that wedding cake doesn't ever really taste good. The frosting is generally awful. The cake is usually dry. BLECH. Ours would be different.

So the process began. Recipe books were purchased. There was a trial run with many flavors to try. . . and what was the result? They liked them all. So we had 6 different kinds of cupcakes at the wedding. We made a total of something like 24 batches. . . 400 cupcakes. It was insanity. But generally speaking, they were pretty, and tasty, and even cool. Mission accomplished. & somehow, after all that, I still feel like trying more. I'm curious. I have to see if I can do better. Jenny's birthday, here I come!