The battle rages on.

I am a nightmare in the kitchen. I am totally threatened by cooking, it's ridiculous. Don't get me wrong, I can throw together a pretty decent weeknight meal. Let's just say that I'm not a baker by nature. Well, yesterday I put on my brave apron and attempted to make cupcakes with Griffin. We were bored and the TV had been on so long that I just couldn't take Children's programming any longer.

The sad part is that I made these cupcakes out of a box and still managed to have a war with them. Why do I struggle with cooking? I got to the bottom of it in what I will call The Cupcake Battle of 2009.

Griffin and I had a great time tossing in a cup of water over the powdered mix and then slinging in some melted butter and eggs. We laughed while we used the mixer on medium and it swirled into a lovely batter. Then Griffin lost interest and abandoned me to watch Spongebob-traitor!

I then indulged and licked the batter off of the spoon. It was delightful...I adore the taste of cake batter. Growing up, my father told me that if I ate too much of it I would get worms. I had my hand smacked away from numerous mixing bowls as a young girl. So, you can imagine how liberated I felt to be an adult in my own kitchen all alone with a bowl full of cake batter. I dipped the spoon in over and over between plopping some into the cupcake wrappers to be baked. I was in heaven.

Well, I was so engrossed in my secret indulgence that I totally didn't read the directions that said to spoon in 2/3 worth of batter into each wrapper. I filled each one to the rim and stuck it in the oven before I read the directions. What should have been 24 cupcakes turned into 12 and I think that I ate about 4 cupcakes worth in batter. So, I made HUGE cupcakes. No biggie.

Then, I went to get the icing only to discover that we didn't have any. Great. I ended up using the recipe on the side of the confectioners sugar box but realized that I only had soy milk instead of milk. So, my frosting came out more like a glaze.

Griffin came to sample my cupcakes and loved them. Throughout the day as I floated around the house doing chores, I would find discarded cupcake wrappers on the floor. He ate 5 of them over the course of the afternoon. This must be what it feels like to cook something that your family enjoys.


I learned:
*Check to make sure that you have all of the ingredients BEFORE you start cooking.
*Read the directions as you go instead of after it is already in the oven.
*Don't eat half of your batter as you go.

I am well on my way to culinary genius.