Cupcakes and Cattle

Who can mess up a cupcake? Hmmmmm....Well...apparently I can!

Sometimes I wonder if I have what it takes in the brain department to actually make a great cook! I made a wonderful Hungarian Goulash for dinner the other night and thought I would top it off with some strawberry frosted cupcakes for dessert! I just happened to have an old cake mix in the pantry along with the appropriate matching frosting flavor, so I dug it out and starting following instructions! I am good at that usually. Well, I got the cake batter mixed, found the cupcake tin (yes, I inherited one of those from my sweetheart, Matt) and even had the paper liners to put in the tin! I felt jubilant! WOW! I actually had all the ingredients in my pantry, which is a goal of mine to develop a well stocked pantry that sports all the necessary ingredients for whatever strange recipe happens to be on the menu, so I was really happy with my little success there. Then I even had the tools necessary for the job. That is an even great accomplishment. My kitchen, as you have probably read in my previous post, lacks a certain number of basics and definitely lacks in the more specialized equipment area, so having the tin and liners was a big COUP!

Okay...back on track here. I fill each liner with batter and use the whole bowl up on the 12 cupcakes as it should be. I thought I was really hitting a home run here. I did wonder at some point if they might perhaps be a little full, but it didn't really worry me enough to seek advice. Heck, how do you mess up something as simple as cupcakes from a box anyway? Right?

I stuck my tin in the preheated oven and baked for the time designated by Betty Crocker. The timer went off and I couldn't wait to see them and start frosting those babies! I open the oven and lo and behold, CUPCAKE TOPS ATTACK! My Lord! I guess I must have overfilled them because they all shared one common top and no matter how careful I was in surgically separating the Siamese cupcakes, the tops promptly tore off and left only the body behind! Ugh! Everyone knows the tops are the most delicious parts! Even Seinfeld had an episode about that!

I was just devastated! It is always very difficult for me to handle failures in the kitchen, but this one was particulary hard to swallow because it all came from a box...no expertise necessary, right? Even a monkey can make cupcakes from a box. So, what to do? How can I fix this?

Cowgirl ingenuity came into play and we had "stuffed cupcakes". I frosted the tops of the bodies and glued the tops back on with the frosting! They looked like plain cupcakes, but they had a surprise filling! At least they tasted fine. Same ridiculously sweet, artificially flavored taste I was hoping for...just a slight change in presentation!

Well, I thought the disaster was averted. We had our dessert, it tasted just fine and we even had a few leftover for Matt to take to work.

The next morning I was contemplating how to store the remaining cupcakes when I was called to duty to help gather momma and baby cows on a 15 section (a section is 1 mile by 1 mile square) pasture. I decided to share in my bounty and offered the ranch owner and the two cowboys helping us cupcakes for the ride out to the ranch. Well, the ill-fated cupcakes once again had a devastating effect. While distractedly eating his cupcake in the truck, the ranch owner didn't pay enough attention to the trailer with our 4 horses in it and struck a curb with the trailer tire, promptly popping said tire and bending the rim beyond repair! UGH again! A quick morning ride turned into a whole morning spent at repair shop and tire dealership instead of out in God's Country in the brisk fall air gathering cattle.

Exactly how can a simple cupcake offer up so much frustration, disappointment and torment? It just did. Simple as that. I guess the moral of the story is that nothing is simple in cooking and baking. Nothing should be taken for granted and finally, DON'T overfill those cupcake tins!