Live and Learn

Feeling down? Frustrated by life in general? I have the perfect remedy, guaranteed to brighten not only your spirits, but whoever happens to be so lucky as to have you for a friend: Bake cupcakes. Today, this lesson was enthusiastically demonstrated and proven by myself with the aid of VCToTW’s scrumptious gingerbread cupcakes with lemony frosting.

Honestly, I have found close to no activity that will make me feel better than whipping up a fresh batch of lovely vegan cupcakes. Unlike knitting or crochet, the finished product may not last more than a day or two for you to treasure, but the instant gratification is hard to resist. Instead of slaving away over the same thing for days or weeks, these babies are done barely 30 minutes after you first start pulling out the flour and inserting cups into the pans. Not to mention the endless creativity to expend on decorations when they’re all done and cooled! Perhaps my favorite part of the whole process, I’ve been dying to get my hands on a real set of tips and pastry bags. Recently scoping out an awesome deal at my local supermarket (20 cheapo bags with 3 craptacular plastic tips) for only $3, I simply walk away without a set in my cart.

Once upon a time, I actually did take a real cake decorating class and wasn’t so awful… I could make a blob that looked remotely like a rose, and sometime the patterns I made with a star-tip could be generously described as… Wavy. Yeah. But hey, it was fun and I learned a lot from it! Unfortunately, I haven’t had the opportunity to practice and hone my skills, lacking the tools and time, so now my ability has diminished further, if one could even think it possible. Nonetheless, I figured that there was nothing that would steady pastry bag like getting in there and squishing frosting out onto some baked goods myself.

And that’s why I ended up with some sad piles of frosting like this:

Oops. It didn’t work out the first time around, so I just kept on going. With a ridiculous mound topping its crown like some bad beehive hairdo, I guess it’s no wonder that I ran out of frosting before covering each miniature cake. Ah well, live and learn. Next time around, I’ll try to be more sparing with the sweet stuff.

I did get a little bit better as I went through the line of naked cupcakes. Eventually I got one or two (!) that looked pretty damn good, if I do say so myself.

Once all the frosting was either delicately piped or crazily smeared over most of my body, I took a deep breath and noticed that I really was feeling a lot better. Daily stress and stupidity forgotten, cupcakes heal all. I can’t wait to share these and spread the joy, too.