Last week we had a big all-hands tax meeting at work. Earlier in the day they held a cupcake throwdown of sorts. I decided to participate, because I recently saw an amazing cupcake recipe online and was dying to try it.
Turns out, I won the best tasting cupcake award! How exciting!
Basically, chocolate box mix cupcakes baked with a drop of frozen cookie dough in the middle topped with homemade cream cheese frosting and voila! You're the winner of a box of Crate & Barrel loot!
(Don't ask Steve about the very official voting system which may or may not have included clapping and a guy spreading his arms as the clap-o-meter...)
In reality, I tested out four different varieties of cookie dough, two different chocolate box mixes and two versions of cream cheese frosting before settling on the optimal combination (woa! someone must not be folding the pile of clean laundry is her bedroom...). I genuinely did not care about "winning." I just wanted people to think they were good.
The sad thing is I don't have a picture of my actual cupcakes. I don't know how that's possible, but in the baking, frosting, decorating and transporting of 4 dozen cupcakes, I somehow never snapped a picture. They were cute. I piped on the frosting in a circular design and dropped mini chocolate chips on top. Very cute.
Plus as a bonus, my collection of cake decorating supplies lives to see another day! I have a rule that I must open the box at least once a year or it will not make the cut at the next move. I built most of the collection a decade ago at Jane's Cakes in Montrose, CA. None of the other collections from my childhood (keychains, roadsigns, scrapbook supplies, etc) have proved quite as useful.
The workday ended with some swimsuit shopping at Target. As always, I was pleased with the selection. And in the end, it was a wholly pleasant experience, with the only downside being the enforcement of the 6-item limit in the dressing room. Don't you hate when they do that?
