Chronicles of a Late Bloomer

The cupcakes above are not actual size. In fact, I shrank them down (”reduced,” as our grandmothers would be fond of saying) so as to avoid undue temptation for me or you or anyone else who doesn’t need delicious chocolate cupcakes on their mind. These are the cupcakes I made for my friend’s birthday yesterday, and dealing with the before-and-aftermath of baking them was tricky to say the least. It was a lot like sitting here, looking at the photo of them, and trying to avert my eyes. No really, look away. STOP IT.

I made them from scratch and, without going into the gorey, gooey details, they turned out pretty amazingly. Having never made the recipe, though, I wasn’t prepared for the abundance of cupcake batter it would produce. I probably could have halved the recipe and still had batter to spare., and so I quickly made another dozen cakes to take to staff meeting. There, I reasoned, I could be rid of them and at least get them out of my house.¹

Of course, there was enough batter left for about another half dozen, but I reasoned that I could bake those up when I ran home for lunch hour and then figure out what to do with them. Yes, a part of me thought about eating them all at one sitting, freezing them and attempting to thaw and eat them only one at a time, and any other number of ways that those cupcakes and my intestines could meet and have a one night stand. I tossed the extra batter into the refrigerator and went to work — the diet equivalent of pressing “pause.” I needed more time to think, and only physical distance from the batter could give me clarity.

Then, though, there was the question of the frosting. Again, the recipe I tinkered together was both outrageously delicious and overly abundant. Too. Much. Frosting. To be fair, one ounce of frosting within 500 feet of me is Too. Much. Frosting. Here this was, though, begging to be licked off beaters and “accidentally” “spilled” so that I could just taste it one more time. Just make sure the recipe is right. Just make sure it doesn’t need one more dash of cocoa.

Man. It was a long morning.

I ran home for lunch to finish icing the gift cakes for my friend. Then, I pulled the leftover batter out of the oven. I sat the bowl on the counter, poised with a rubber spatula and a handful of sprinkles. There I stood, staring down the chocolate goo, for a good 12 minutes. All of those scenarios ran through my head again — the midnight binge, the frozen attempt at slowing things down, my “good” behavior this week and related “need” for a reward, and so forth. Then, I picked up the bowl, headed to the sink, and tossed it all in.

I packaged up the leftover frosting and gave it to my friend as part of her birthday present. I licked my fingers (and yes, it was totally delicious) and went back to the office.

This regime is very, very hard work.

1. It turns out that trying to offload 20 or so chocolate cupcakes in the beginning of January is harder than it seems. Most everyone — even the waifiest of waifs — turned me down with excuses of “trying to do a little better” and “not needing” to indulge. [↩]