My New Years Resolution: Make Cupcakes

My only official New Years Resolution this year was to start making cupcakes.  I’ve always been envious of those people who can bake, those people who show up to events with beautifully decorated cupcakes or cookies. I’ve secretly longed to be one of those people, to craft such beautiful desserts. So, in honor of the one year anniversary of my writing group, I decided to bring in homemade cupcakes for everyone.

Not once in my life have I made cupcakes from scratch, so this was an entirely new experience. I used the vanilla cupcake and the chocolate fudge icing recipes from the book 200 Cupcakes.

It took a while to get all the ingredients together and bake the cupcakes in batches. But the vanilla cupcakes came out perfectly.

I had to keep an eye on my dog, Zephyr. He camped out by the table after I put the first batch of cupcakes up there to cool.

Once the cupcakes were finished, I embarked upon the making of the chocolate fudge icing. This did not turn out quite as well as the cupcakes. Even after adding the powdered sugar, the icing was like warm chocolate soup. Panicked, I called my friend, Helen (one of those amazing baking people) for advice. She told me to whip it up with an electric mixer and add more sugar.

I pretty much had to add the entire remainder of the box of powdered sugar to make it thick enough to put on the cupcakes. The texture was strange, and it didn’t look very attractive. I had hoped to use my fancy cupcake decorating tools, but the icing was too gooey for them to work. On the plus side, it tasted delicious, and the members of my writing group seemed to enjoy them.

Despite the icing fiasco, I was proud of myself for giving it a shot. I believe there will be many more cupcakes in my future. Unfortunately, making the cupcakes did hinder my annual New Years Resolution to lose weight, but sometimes the goals you make for yourself conflict with one another. Next time, I won’t make so many.