Ok, so Saturday we had a joint birthday party for our daughters and I decided it would be fun (not to mention a bit of a time-filler) for the party guests to each decorate their own cupcakes. I was going to have a totally Pinterest-able moment and have these adorable little cupcakes with pink centers for each little princess to enjoy. It was a completely awesome, supermom-like accomplishment...unfortunately it was all happening in my brain.
In actuality, I didn't get around to baking until after 10:00 the night before the party. "It's only cupcakes, I'll be in bed before 11:00." Yeah, right. So I find my box of white cake mix (no scratch baking after 9:00 p.m.) and I get to work. I have this great plan that I am going to make them a little more extra-special by making the center of the cupcake pink by adding some food coloring to a small portion of the batter and adding a dollop of pink to the middle. I am so freaking brilliant!
The next stroke of genius comes as I decide to make one cupcake blue and the lucky girl to choose the blue cupcake wins a prize.
No problem. Now I just need to bake them and off to bed. Cupcakes: 350° for 16-18 minutes. Oven preheated, set the timer for 16 minutes and into the oven. Time ticks away and about 30 seconds before the timer goes off, "Hmmmm, what's that smell?" That would be scorched cupcakes.
While I am waiting, I decided to cut open one of the batch #1 cupcakes to see how my wonderful idea about adding the colored center worked out...
Hmmmmm. Well, at least you can tell there is some pink inside. In my brain there was going to be a beautiful, round pink middle. Why is it things in my brain have such a hard time translating into reality?
While I am waiting for batch #2, I think I eat the equivalent of about four cupcakes by digging out the un-scorched middles from batch #1. Well, I had to do something to keep me awake while they baked! Timer finally goes off and I take batch #2 out of the oven.
Even with the adjusted temperature and time, the second batch is just this side of burned. There were a few that had gone over, but it is now going on towards midnight. I check out batch #1 and I am able to pick out a couple that aren't really that bad. I swap them out and decide that perhaps if I pull the paper off the cupcakes while they are still warm, maybe some of the extra-brown-but-not-quite-burned outer crust will come off. I suppose it helped somewhat. Alright. Mommy needs to go to bed now.
The next morning I assess the damage. I agree with last night's assessment of "it's not really that bad!" Nothing a good helping of pink frosting can't fix. :-) I settle the cupcakes into fresh white cupcake cups and glob on some frosting. I stack them around a couple of cake plates and voila!
With the work finally done, my three year old walks in and says, "Mommy, why are the cupcakes burned?" No joke. "They aren't burned, honey. They're just brown." If I can convince myself, why not the kiddos?
Well, I guess I did okay. Even after all of my blunders, the girls all piled about two inches of sprinkles onto their cupcakes and enjoyed them. No one complained that they had an extra-crispy flavor to them. The girl who had some blue in her cupcake could actually tell and she got her prize.
Sometimes we put so much pressure on ourselves to create the perfect moment for our children. We scour the how-to websites and map out our way to that perfection. Unfortunately, the map does not show us the detours. Fortunately, our children are very forgiving. Thirty years from now, they won't care that the cupcakes were a little over-done. They will remember that Mommy was there. Mommy tried. Mommy loved us. That is the legacy I hope I am creating.
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