Peace Love Cupcakes

This post is my third and final one about baking. It's going to be all about cupcakes because there was just too much to say about them in the post about cake. My earliest cupcake memories are from elementary school when I seemingly got to eat cupcakes regularly as whoever's birthday it was always brought in cupcakes that day for everyone in the class. Along with those Duncan Hines Fudge Marble cake mixes I used to love baking, I also made vanilla cupcakes from cake mixes a lot too. I have happy memories of repeated cupcake baking phases in my life. Throughout March 2006, when I lived on Hilgard, I was in a (cake mix) cupcake baking craze and made multiple batches, listening to Mazzy Star the whole time. The year I lived at home in Toronto between Austin and Montreal, I used to make cupcakes for my parents (and myself) all the time, this time from scratch, usually on Thursdays. I didn't teach those days and just worked from home, so in the afternoons I would take a break to bake cupcakes. Then I'd go to a step class and when I'd come home, I'd eat dinner and have a cupcake.

I make 4 different kinds of cupcakes: 1. vanilla cupcakes using a recipe I found online but which is supposedly from the Magnolia Bakery in NYC. (Side note: In December 2009 when L. and I were in NYC for the weekend we went to Magnolia Bakery and the cupcakes were delicious. The cupcakes I make are delicious too but I doubt they are the exact recipe they use in the bakery. In June 2011, L. and I were in NYC together again. This time we stayed with J. in Brooklyn. One day we all went to this cupcake store called Cupcake Land whose tagline was "Where cupcakes rule." I don't remember much about the actual cupcake - I think it was pretty good - but I think the tag line is so cute!) 2. These Mexican Chocolate cupcakes (Mexican because they call for a bit of cayenne pepper; so not exactly hardcore Mexican) I got out of this amazing cookbook L. (a different L. than above) gave me. They are delicious too. 3. Chocolate cupcakes I got from Martha Stewart's website. These are especially moist and delicious, perhaps because of the buttermilk? and 4. Red Velvet cupcakes I got from a recipe printed in the Toronto Star. These ones are fabulous... I think because they contain my favourite baking ingredient: sour cream!

My weakness when it comes to baking in general, and cupcakes in particular, is the icing. I'm not very good at making icing both consistency and quantity wise. The icing I make always tastes good but my cupcakes never look that good and I can never master getting either the right amount of icing or the correct thickness. Improving my icing skills should really be a goal, but somehow it doesn't seem like a goal I'll likely succeed in. I'm always so impatient to just eat the cupcakes that making them look pretty and doing a good job with the icing is less of a pressing concern when I have a batch of freshly baked cupcakes in front of me ready to be eaten.

It's interesting to me how over the past ten years or so cupcakes have become so popular. I've lost count of the number of cupcake stores in Toronto, and they exist everywhere in North America. Three years ago when S. and I drove from Austin to Nashville via New Orleans we saw (but only stopped at one) multiple cupcake stores in all three cities. It was definitely during the winter/spring of 2009, and my last in Austin, that I got a lot more into cupcakes. I went fairly regularly to this cupcake truck there called Hey Cupcake! (whose cupcakes were really good) and I started baking cupcakes from scratch then too. It was so much fun to seek out new cupcake recipes and start trying them. A further indication of cupcakes' popularity/dominance is that at the last two weddings (out of a grand total of 3 :) ) I've been to, my brother A. and his wife L.'s in September 2008, and L. and K.'s last September, cupcakes were served instead of wedding cake. The cupcakes at both weddings were delicious, and I think having cupcakes in lieu of cake is a great idea. It's much easier for guests to just eat a cupcake whenever they feel like it throughout the night (and easier to go back for seconds :) ) than it is to have a formal wedding cake with plates and forks, etc. At both weddings there were lots of varieties of cupcakes too which is important and another advantage over cake, since there you can really only have one flavour.

During the year I lived at home between Austin and Montreal, not only was I in a permanent cupcake baking phase, but I was also determined to visit and try out as many cupcake shops around Toronto as possible. I must have gone to about 12 or possibly more... but throughout the year of course. To be honest, they've all blended together in my head. Overall, each store was good, which I guess isn't too surprising since it's pretty hard to mess up a cupcake, especially if you have a whole bakery devoted to them. One store which I actually do remember clearly is called Prairie Girl (its tagline is: "Live life one cupcake at a time" which I think is a very good one.) It first came to my attention just after it opened in April 2011 when I was home for a weekend and had dinner at L.'s house. She had picked some up because the store is located right downtown near her office. My cupcake was good. Then funnily enough a little while later, my dad who works in the same building as L., also saw Prairie Girl and bought some. For a while my parents were really into them and were getting them fairly regularly. I did like them but mostly I remember that there was just way too much icing on them. Icing is the hardest part with cupcakes! The ones I buy in bakeries always seem to have too much, while the ones I make myself have way too little. I need to find the perfect amount... But back to Prairie Girl, in early May I read an article in the Toronto Star which found that a Prairie Girl cupcake had 678 calories and 30 grams of fat. I couldn't believe they had that many calories. That's way too many! It was a good reminder that cupcakes should be eaten in moderation. I also think it's a reason to go homemade as I'm pretty sure my cupcakes don't have that many calories. I think it again ties in to the excessive amounts of icing.

To be honest, I am not as excited about or as into cupcakes as I used to be. I think these things just go in phases though... Montreal is just not as cupcake friendly a place as Toronto is. Cupcakes aren't as popular there. Cupcakes also aren't as easy to transport as cookies and I've been so obsessed with that coffee cake the past few months which explains why I haven't been baking them as much. I should bake some soon though. I will always love cupcakes though, and feel certain that sooner or later, I'll be back in a cupcake baking craze. Until then, I should just enjoy whichever other sweets I happen to be particularly into.