Contributing to society one cupcake at a time

I'd like to point out that despite marking the near completion of week two on 24/7 pain meds that I haven't been totally worthless to society. Sure, I've loafed around, unable or unwilling to move more than three times within 10 hours, and have read, written and worked less since the start of the new year than I did in the past three months. Regardless of the fortnight's incredulously sedentary happenings, I'd like to take this blog post to highlight the one truely productive activity I completed: Baking cupcakes.

My friend Clara celebrated her 25th birthday on Thursday and I, despite loathing the celebration hooplah that accompanies some of society's most ridiculous "holidays" like Valentine's Day and disregarding anniversaries, love, love, LOVE birthdays. There are few things better in the world (free things, real mail and surprise flowers) than getting the one day to glow, shine and relish in glorious pomp and circumstance the fact that you came into this world, crying, slimy and naively ready to conquer anything. It's even better when others recognize that day, whether by today's standards of a simple text message or Facebook shout out or by good old fashioned baking.

In Clara's case, I chose all the above, inserting inside jokes about bad Van Morrison cover bands through Facebook and a quick "I'm happy you're my awesome friend who takes care of me when I'm in horrific amounts of pain and doesn't say anything when I get nervous because I'm about to show you my naked bum" Happy Birthday (About the naked bum: Clara took me to her home on Tuesday when I was in major pain crisis at work and helped me change into pajama pants. I was wearing a thong and my modesty, despite my Level 10 pain, came through. Clara didn't mind.). But neither digital message nears comparison to how much fun I had baking cupcakes for Clara and the rest of Friday's Pottery Barn gang.

I decided, while sitting in front of the computer at my new job  on Thursday afternoon thinking about how hungry I was, to make milk chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting. After rushing home before my boyfriend met me, we headed to the store for supplies (A task not easily done after 10 hours of working on a continuous stream of vicodin) and set ourselves to baking. We painstakingly ripped open the Betty Crocker box of cake mix (Which we found out, thanks to Walker's iphone that you can buy it in bulk on Amazon for way, way cheaper) and transformed that mysterious brown powder into deliciously rich, yet light and airy, cupcakes by substituting buttermilk for the water (A trick I learned from the cupcake giftee herself).

The frosting really topped the cupcakes off (no pun intended). While I might cheat and use box mixes for the cake from time to time, I never go store-bought with my frosting. For my peanut butter frosting I trusted myself to my Joy of Cooking book that I got as a Christmas gift three years ago (When my knack for cooking and baking really began to flourish).  The recipe is as follows:

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter (Although I bet chunky peanut butter would be good too if you like a frosting with some texture)

3 oz. cream cheese at cold temperature

1 1/2 TBSP butter softened at room temperature

3 TBSP cream or milk

1 tspn vanilla

Mix above ingredients until smooth (I'm talking baby bottom smooth. If your butter is too cold you'll end up having little chunks of butter hiding in the frosting which is a bit rich unless you're Paula Deen).

Add in 2 2/3 cups powdered sugar, one-third at a time and beat just until smooth and desired consistency is reached.

Now, for all of the baking supplies I have (which pales in comparsion to Clara's. That girl puts me to shame, which is probaby why her blog is aptly named Bite Size Love), I learned -- with the peanut butter, cream cheese, butter and milk already in my yellow Kitchen Aid mixer I've appropriately named, "Happy," -- that I was missing vanilla.

"Just put in peppermint. Nobody will notice," Walker suggested after peering into my pitiful baking drawer that I was crazily rifling through, wishing that vanilla would secretly appear.

I stared deftly at my grinning boyfriend whose sarcastic suggestion reminds me that there's always room for improvising. I thought of my Royal Icing which I use for sugar cookies, recalling that I substitute lemon zest for vanilla, simply because I like a less-sweet frosting and that the three cups of powdered sugar that recipe calls for is sweet enough for Willy Wonka.

"Uhm, I'll just use lemon zest," I said with wavering confidence.

It turns out, zesting about 1/2 of a large-sized lemon and adding that into my frosting was an awesome idea. And of course, I should have known the tart and nutty combination of lemon and peanut butter was going to be a winner from the get go: Three summers ago while on a rainy July day-trip to the coast, my now-ex and I traveled through Seaside, picking up salt water taffy at a Tazmanian Devil rate (I love the stuff, what can I say?) before locking ourselves in his Subaru to read Harry Potter for the day (It was raining and there was nothing else to do and the 7th book had just come out that day).

One of the salt water taffy stores sold peanut butter-lemon salt water taffy, a combination that made us both simultaneously skeptical and interested (It happens when you're both foodies). The taffy was phenomenal; the richness of the peanut butter is warm to the palate, a definite comfort food treat that makes you close your eyes and think of curling up with your sweety under a blanket next to a fire while its snowing outside (hey, I can do cliche fantasies, too). But the tangy pop of lemon adds a kick of tango fun, morphing that romantic fireside snugglefest into something a bit -- Yes, I'm going to go there -- sexier.

The sexy snugglefest session was indeed the perfect topping for the richly light buttermilk milk chocolate cupcakes. The milk chocolate added the third cornerstone of taste perfection, the sweetness, to the unexpected harmonious duo of salty and sour.

But the best part of the cupcakes? The sprinkles of course. As Clara and I firmly believe, you can't have a cupcake without sprinkles. Okay, okay, you can; but why would you want to?

And so, while I might not have been the friendliest of neighbors (I've been rude to the nympho above who recently got a TV and in her typical loud fashion, has to have it on at an ungodly high level), the best family member (I've barked at my mom and ignored calls from my sister because I've been in so much pain and pathetic agony) and especially the best employee (I haven't helped a guest decorate with Pottery Barn accessories or furniture in weeks!), I was at least able to make my friends and coworkers a little happier, one delicious cupcake at a time.