An ode to the cupcake

Do you believe in self-fulfilling prophecies? I do.  I believe that what you tell yourself about yourself has a way of coming true, even if it isn’t.  And I’ve been telling myself for a while now that I suck at baking.  Hence, the suckage at baking.

Having said that, my issues with baking are, indeed, the result of legitimate disasters in the kitchen.  There was the time I tried to make delicious pull-apart monkey bread and yet the dough simply would. not. rise.  Yes, I used fresh yeast, and the correct amount. I put said dough in the warmest place in the house—the laundry room, while the dryer was going.  When a considerable amount of time had passed and the dough had not yet risen a single millimeter, I did the normal thing and started to blow dry it.  With my blow dryer.  Nothing.  So I just said screw it and cooked the dough like it was, since I was in a time crunch.  Nastiest monkey bread in the history of the world.  It tasted exactly like raw dough, except raw dough with all the moisture sucked out of it. Drizzled with icing.

Fail.

Then there was the time I tried to make this amazing brownie/cookie/oreo recipe, but got ahead of myself and misread the directions and ended up mixing all the brownie mix with the cookie mix before I realized that OOPS.  That’s, like, completely wrong and there is absolutely no way to save this.

I called Matthew, bawling, because I had ruined yet another would-be delicious baked good. He thought someone had died and was very relieved when he finally made out the words “ruined!” “brownies!” “ALWAYS!” “wife!” “failure!”

Fail.

HOWEVER. Cupcakes. The one thing I have never sucked at. Cupcakes are my crowning glory. They give me great happiness—everything from the creamy and delicious batter, to the way that batter smells when it’s baking, to the icing, to the eating of the icing, to the pure delightfulness of the sprinkles. 

Speaking of icing and sprinkles, this weekend I tried out a cheap Wilson decorating kit I got at the grocery store for $6.99, and it basically rocked my world.  It made the icing part of baking cupcakes MUCH easier and quicker, not to mention the cupcakes looked completely legit as a result. Just thought you should know.

Oh, and also.  I tried out this recipe because it seemed pretty amazing, and how could 50+ bakers be wrong? And they weren’t. I must say, the consistency and flavor of the cake was perfection.  You use a real vanilla bean, which was pretty much mind blowing.

But anyway.  That’s all just FYI.  The main things I wanted to accomplish here today were A) to convince myself that if I can be good at cupcakes then there’s no reason I can’t be good at other baking-related activities and B) let’s all stop telling ourselves we suck at things we don’t necessarily suck at because we’re making ourselves suck at them. Probably.

Happy Monday!