Planet Cupcake

We were baking again today. There was no stopping us. After church my brother and my niece and nephew, pictured above, came back to my house. End result, as we say here in Buffalo: More cupcakes than we can eat without major attacks of conscience.

I will violate my rule against taking food pictures.

There are cranberry cupcakes, gussied up in pink frosting, and chocolate chip cupcakes, for whose frosting Barbara chose an orange theme. She is like Leonard Pennario. She breaks rules.

So much fun on a drizzly Sunday. The Christmas tree is still up and we plugged it in. The kids have been enjoying getting oriented to the Latin Mass and while they were decorating the cupcakes we heard them humming the Kyrie.

The cat napped on the couch with my brother. That is what is called a catnap.

Our cupcake recipes came out of a book I had picked up somewhere and barely glanced at until now. The recipes were really simple, so they could be thrown together while Georgie was beating a Christmas cookie tin like a drum and Barbara was chasing the cat through the kitchen.

It is a British cookbook. Oh, look, I just found it on Amazon. Wow, what is this? The people who rated it gave it really low grades. One comment goes: "Unbelievably a waste of my money. Good thing i did not purchase another copy as a gift - this is so shameful. Total garbage to be exact. If there is a zero rating.... this book will qualify."

"Total garbage to be exact." What, can't they follow directions? We did two different kinds of cupcakes and we sort of mixed and matched frostings with other recipes on the book but they both turned out great.

And this is why it pays to buy second-hand cookbooks: The book keeps calling for Self-Rising Flour which, of course, nobody has that. But on the back page the previous owner had helpfully written in beautiful handwriting: "1 cup self-rising flour is equal to 1 cup flour, 1 1/2 teas. baking powder and 1/2 tsp. salt."

Thank you, previous owner! No need to look it up.

Now it is back to work. But it is fun to take a break. You enjoy it while it is going on and afterwards you feel ready to take on the big challenges.

That is what is called the frosting on the cupcake!