5. The One with the Crappy Cupcakes

It's 7:45pm on a Friday and I'm totally ready for bed. I suppose the glass of wine sitting next to me isn't helping matters, but hey, what can you do? Yesterday was a long day. Thursdays are always long because I have preschool in the morning, a short lunch break, and then teach three jazz classes. But last night, we had our recital theme reveal party AFTER my three jazz classes, so I'm totally wiped. Our recital themes are a huge deal. Like, bigger than Twilight. Our last recital was June 2, and the girls were asking what this year's show would be on June 1st...and every day since then. See, we don't do typical dance recitals like "Shoot for the Stars" or this one that I found today, "Songs That Are Inappropriate, But Awesome"; we put on actual productions. Each year, we choose a show for the ballet "half" and a show for the tap/jazz/hip hop/modern "half", which is the half that I work on. We work out our own storylines, assign classes to parts, audition for soloists, pick out music and costumes...and that's all before October! Anyway, since revealing the theme has become such a big deal, we have started having a "reveal party." Our dancers come to the studio after classes are over and we announce the shows and watch clips from whatever we are using as inspiration. There's snacks and ice cream...it's a blast. This year, we had 86 dancers sign up...yes. 86. Thankfully, not all 86 showed up, but it was still a long, tiring night with the 50ish dancers we did have. All in all, it was a blast and a huge success. By the way, since I'm sure you're dying to know, our ballet this year will be "Sleeping Beauty" and my half will be "The Wizard of Oz." I'm beyond excited...which means you'll definitely be hearing more about the show as time goes on.

As I mentioned, Thursdays are just horribly long days. By the time I get home, I usually throw together something that resembles dinner, curl up on the couch, watch "Grey's" and "The Office," and go to sleep. The end. Last Thursday, however, I sacrificed my super awesome (lazy) evening for "Pad Thai and Cupcakes" with Tyler. Let me just say this: I love Tyler. He will eat literally anything I put in front of him and tell me it's awesome, even when I know it's not. (Ty, if you're reading this, I'm still sorry for that awful pasta carbonara I made last year.)

Here we are. Yes, I know...we're adorable.

 

Anywho, I owed Tyler cupcakes for his birthday and he told me he'd make pad thai if I checked out Pinterest, which I've refused to do (and actually forgot to do...oops.) So, we decided to do it all in one night. (That's what she said...but seriously.) Ty requested pumpkin pie chai cupcakes, so after hours of perusing, I settled on a pumpkin pie cupcake recipe and chai buttercream frosting. Things didn't get off to a good start...and by that, I mean, Tyler bitched about the frosting not having cream cheese and that it wasn't going to taste good. What a whiner. But once I started mixing up the cupcake batter, he shut up.

Pad thai goodness!

 

Mixing up some pumpkin cupcake goodness...or so I thought.

Cupcakes!

I ate an obscene amount of this. Obscene.

 

The food was ready before the cupcakes were, so Tyler and I settled in with Modern Family and ate...a lot. I had put the cupcakes in for the maximum amount of time, but when the timer went off, they didn't look done. I put them in for more time...still didn't look done. So after ten extra minutes, I took them out. Then, I proceeded to make the frosting. Now, I'm not a tea drinker. I love chai tea, but I just have the chai tea stuff you keep in the fridge and mix with milk. It's lovely. Anyway, I used that instead of brewed tea which, in hindsight, was a mistake, but hey, you live and you learn. I decided to double the amount of chai and scale back slightly on the amount of milk in the recipe to even things out. I added the butter and powdered sugar and started mixing. I ended up with something that looked a lot like milk or soup or...well, I won't go there. So, I added a little more powdered sugar...and a little more...and a little more, until I'd added about 3 more cups. Then, it finally resembled something close to frosting so I decided to be done. I frosted 2 cupcakes and brought them to the living room so Ty could finally have his birthday cupcake.

 

It all happened so fast...the middles of the cupcakes weren't quite done, but weren't raw either. The recipe had called for me to spray the muffin papers with cooking spray, but the cooking spray made the papers pretty much melt into the cupcake...thus, I consumed a good deal of pink muffin paper. The frosting was pure sugar and still a little runny. Ty said they were good and I'll admit they weren't terrible, so naturally we had seconds. I packed up half of the cupcakes for him and kept the rest for me. I tried to eat one the next day, but it was mushy and I was afraid the cupcakes from the night before would come back up, so I threw the rest out. Tyler told me yesterday he ate two of his, but that the frosting had separated (ewww!) And he ate them anyway. That's why I keep him around...to make me feel better about my baking. Needless to say, I will NOT be making these again. Maybe Ty was right...cream cheese would have fixed everything.