Slice of Life Day 1: Cupcakes
And here we go! It’s Slice of Life Day 1 and I’m talking cupcakes. The long title of my post is: They always look prettier and taste better when you don’t make them yourself or how I spent my Saturday!
I love to cook! You may have seen me sharing some of my favorite recipes here on my blog. For the most part, I enjoy my time in the kitchen, probably because if you follow the instructions things should turn out. It’s math and science and when you feel like it, you can also add your own little dash of creativity.
I’m not as much of a baker. Every once in a while, I’ll see a beautiful pin on Pinterest or a fun video of Facebook and give it a go and realize about halfway through that I don’t necessarily enjoy what I’m doing. Baking (and especially frosting/decorating) takes sooooo much time and never looks as neat as I want it to.
So with that being said, I jumped into my kitchen on Saturday morning ready to bake cupcakes. It was a friend’s birthday over the weekend and we were going to drop some off for a mini (socially distant) celebration. My partner suggested Red Velvet and although it’s definitely not my first choice, I can’t say no to cream cheese frosting so there we were. Red Velvet to me is like a poor man’s chocolate cake – it’s got cocoa in it, but not enough for that rich, chocolatey flavor that I, personally, love. But, I found a recipe people were raving about online, ran to the grocery store for supplies, and was ready to go.
Results
Let’s just say I now have 30 cupcakes sitting in my kitchen that were not up to par. As in, I went back to the store, picked up a box mix and tub of frosting to re-do the cupcakes because I couldn’t give these ones away. I have since tried them again and they’re definitely not great, but maybe not as horrible tasting as I first thought. They’re still not good enough to share with people outside of my house, that’s for sure.
I think two things happened – they got over-beaten (although I followed the instructions exactly) and I may have overcooked them a smidge. You know when you pull something out of the oven and it’s still sticky in the middle? That’s what happened, so I put them back in for two minutes and then they over-baked! They ended up flat and dry and not very tasty at all. It was such a disappointment. Plus, my frosting job was horrendous! No wonder bakers can charge so much for gorgeous-looking cupcakes!
The box cupcakes on the other hand, turned out fabulously (of course)! They looked just like they should and were quite tasty.
This is my third year participating in the Slice of Life Challenge. I’ll be sharing brief posts that show a glimpse of my life in story-format. I hope you enjoy just a slice of my life as a librarian, book lover, and blogger!
