Blog’s imaginary cupcake shoppe

Today I’m letting Blog take over (always a risky proposition) to weigh in on the hottest topic in America today. No, it’s not the upcoming election, Obamacare, or even “Jersey Shore.” It’s cupcakes. What’s on your mind, Blog?

Well, Diana, it seems cupcakes are the new martinis. I mean, a few years ago everyone was obsessed with developing crazy new martini recipes, like the Scarlett O’Hara (vodka, Irish whisky, with dirt-rimmed glass and turnip slice garnish). But right now, the craze is definitely cupcakes. All you need is an oven, a cupcake pan, and your imagination, and you too can develop a menu of exotic cupcakes and open yourself a cupcake shoppe (and I hope you are pronouncing that “shoppee” in your mind when you read it).

I, Blog, would name my awesome shoppe “I’ll Cup Your Cake” or maybe “Cuppeecake-adelic.” It would have a sign shaped like a what? A cupcake! With sparkles. My spokesperson would be Elijah Wood. Why? Because I found this super excellent photo of Elijah Wood with a Cupcake:

Need I say more? And I would offer great cupcakes like these:

1. The Jalapeno Ranch. Cornbread cupcake with spicy bits of jalapeno, with fluffy Ranch dressing flavored buttercream frosting.

2. The Death by Chocolate. Dark chocolate cupcake with chocolate chips, bits of real Godiva 80% cacao chocolate, fudge pudding filling, chocolate buttercream drizzled with chocolate and dipped in chocolate sprinkles, with a chocolate chocolate chip truffle on top, topped with more drizzle and sprinkles, all tucked inside a bigger dark chocolate cupcake with chocolate chips, bits of real Godiva 80% cacao chocolate, fudge pudding filling, chocolate buttercream drizzled with chocolate and dipped in chocolate sprinkles, with a chocolate chocolate chip truffle on top, topped with more drizzle and sprinkles.

3. The Death by Vanilla. Vanilla cupcake with vanilla chips, vanilla pudding filling, vanilla buttercream drizzled dipped in vanilla sprinkles, with a vanilla truffle on top, topped with more sprinkles, all tucked inside a bigger vanilla cupcake with vanilla chips, vanilla pudding filling, vanilla buttercream drizzled dipped in vanilla sprinkles, with a vanilla truffle on top, topped with more sprinkles.

4. The Meat Lover’s. Meatloaf with gooey cheese filling, topped with garlic mashed potatoes and a meatball.

5. The Wapatuli. Captain Morgan’s rum cupcake with Hawaiian punch/Everclear flavored filling, and Malibu/Jack buttercream frosting.

6. The Lady Gaga. Electric pink cupcake piled very, very, VERY high with glitter frosting and topped with Beanie Babies.

7. The Thanksgiving (seasonal). Sourdough stuffing cupcake with gravy filling and bits of real turkey, with pumpkin cream icing, sprinkled with corn.

8. The Lost. Coconut cupcake with bits of Apollo bar, buttercream frosting flavored with MacCutcheon scotch, topped with a Dharma brand macaroon.

9. The Handyman. Oriented strand board cupcake topped with spray foam insulation.

10. The Wisconsin. Cheddar cheese flavored cupcake with bits of bratwurst, dipped in beer batter and deep fried, on a stick.
How could my cupcake shoppee possibly fail with treats like these on the menu? My mouth is watering just imagining it. Or would be if I weren’t merely a mouthless, non-corporeal, anthropomorphized being. Yum.

[<--P.S., you can get the actual awesome instructions to make an actual meaty meatlovers cupcake like this one here!]

Blog interviews the cake-like thing

I'm so embarrassed to even talk about this, I'm just going to defer to Blog tonight.  He's here to report to you on the Saga of the Cake-Like Thing:

Blog:  Well, a lot of really weird $#!+ went down in Magic House this evening, if you pardon my departing from my usual AP Stylebook-type language.  Cake-Like Thing, what exactly are you, anyway?

CLT:  I'm a labor of love, Blog, a labor of love.  You see, last weekend was Davie's birthday, and Diana forgot to get him a cake.  She felt bad tonight when they were driving home from dinner, so she said she'd make him a belated cake.

Blog:  You do resemble a blighted cake, yes.

CLT:  BELATED.

Blog:  Oh.  Sorry.  Go on.

CLT:  So Diana quick found a recipe for chocolate cake online, which she planned to doll up with some extra ingredients and what-not.

Blog:  I'd say the what-not was a mistake.

CLT:  Hold on, Blog, let me tell!  She put together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, sugar, salt, vanilla, water, oil and eggs, and dumped it all in a pan, and put the pan in the oven. 

Blog:  You mean A.B.  The oven's named for Alton Brown, the host of "Good Eats," and Danny Elfman doppleganger.

CLT:  Right.  Whatever.  And then she realized it should have been 3 teaspoons of baking powder, not 3 tablespoons.

Blog:  Uh-oh.

CLT:  Too late though!  And seeing as the real Alton Brown wasn't there to tell her what that signifies from a food chemistry point of view....I was born....

Blog:    Not a cake at all but a...

CLT:  Cake-like THING.

Blog:  So how did you come to look like that?  All...leprous?

CLT:  First I swelled way up.  Then parts of me cascaded down the sides of my pan.  They fell on the oven floor and burned, which meant Diana had to scoop burning chunks of batter out of the oven and fling them into the sink, then rush to run the vile, stinking things down the garbage disposal.  And then she put a protective cookie sheet in the bottom of the oven, which got burning goo on its bottom, and more burning goo on its top. 

Blog:  This is not good.

CLT:  As smoke filled the kitchen, Diana soldiered on making amaretto glaze out of butter, sugar, amaretto and creme de cocoa.

Blog:  Hoping that alcohol might cover a multitude of sins. 

CLT:  She also made frosting out of powdered sugar, more butter, milk, cocoa and more amaretto.

Blog:  Booze and butter, the only hopes of the culinarily incompetent.

CLT:  Yes.  And meanwhile, having puffed up and gushed goo, I now collapsed into a more normal but oddly disfigured size and shape.  The timer went off that I was (supposedly) done baking, and Diana put a toothpick in me to test, praying I was so she could remove me from the violently smoking oven.

Blog:  What happened?  Did the toothpick come out clean, indicating you were done?

CLT:  My top was crispy, but my edges swirled.  Like pudding.

Blog:  Sweet Mary and Joseph!  Your edges swirled?  What did Diana do then?

CLT:  She cranked the oven up and went out to watch the hockey game in the living room.

Blog:  She is really hard core.

CLT:  I know, most women would have fainted.  In the end she decided I was as done as I was going to get, and took me out of the oven.  Then she slathered me with amaretto glaze, cut me into square-like things, put frosting on two of them, and then whipped cream.  Then she chipped some of the hard stuff off the sides of the pan, crumbled it, and sprinkled it on top.

Blog:  And she served you?  What did Davie say?

CLT:  He said...wait for it...that I was delicious.

Blog:  No.

CLT:  Yes!  And in fact, I was delicious!  Can you believe that?  Here's how I would have been described on a dessert menu in a fancy restaurant:

Chocolate Amaretto Decadence

With rich chocolate flavor and textures ranging from chewy to molten, this is more than a cake.  Topped off with scrumptious chocolate amaretto frosting, whipped cream and crispy fudge crumbles, it will overwhelm you with decadent deliciousness! 

Blog:  Well, I don't know what to say!

CLT:  I do--eat me.

Blog:  What?

CLT:  Seriously, try a bite.

Blog:  Say, you ARE delicious!  That's just nuts!

CLT:  Diana dodged a bullet, that's for sure.

Blog:  Is she going to make you again sometime?

CLT:  I don't think it's possible to replicate the combination of open oven door, smoldering goo, and pan shuffling that brought me into existence.  So alas, no, Blog.

Blog:  It's too bad, because you are one tasty cake-like thing, Cake-Like Thing.

CLT:  Thank you.