CUPCAKE DISASTER!!!

First, Happy Heart Day to everyone! I hope you all have something just a little special planned with your Valentine today. Here at my home, V'day is not such a big deal.

"Hmmm, strange . . . "

you're probably thinking since I decorate so much for it, but me and Hubby really don't do anything special. He absolutely does not like V'day one bit. That's okay by me. He usually makes up for it with my birthday! ;o)

Anyway . . . my post today was supposed to be how I got all in a baking mood this morning. Hubby had to work until 5:00 a.m. and was in bed till 11:00. Son No. 2 had left for work around 6:30. And Son No. 3 was sleeping off a wild and crazy night of X-Box Live play. So, this morning the house was

quiet, peaceful . . . it was nice.

What started my baking frenzy this morning was bananas going bad. I have this thing about bananas getting over ripe. I really have a hard time throwing them away. They must be made into banana bread. (I'll share that recipe later.)

After successfully completing the banana bread job, I decided I'd try a new cupcake recipe I'd seen on Martha's site. The silly thing is, the cupcake recipe I always use always turns out the best little cakes - moist, dense, flavorful. They almost melt in your mouth. And the best part is I use a box mix and tweak it a bit.

(I'll share that recipe later too!)

If it ain't broke, don't fix it . . .

right?!

So, I'm getting excited about trying out this new recipe and using the cute V'day papers I bought, and decorating them with the cute little cake embellishments I have, and sharing the whole process with y'all.

Getting all the ingredients ready!

My vintage cupcake pan!

Super-cute cupcake papers!

Right away when I really started reading the instructions,

they sounded . . . well . . . different . . .

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment,

combine flours, sugar, baking powder, and salt;

mix on low speed until combined.

Add butter, mixing until just coated with flour.

(two sticks of butter were to be cut up into 1 inch pieces)

The butter part was odd to me. Was I making cake batter or pie crust??? Oh well. The guy who wrote the recipe owns a bakery in NYC, so he must know what he was talking about.

Thick, rich batter! Tastes good too! ;o)

Well, long story/short . . . two sticks of butter . . . four eggs . . . 1 cup of light cream later (I didn't have whole milk like recipe called for) . . . these cupcakes ended up being a huge mess! GRRRRR!!!!

Oh my! That doesn't look right!

First, I guess I put too much batter in the cups. Then, they didn't rise and they spread out all over the dang pans! There were a few comments with the recipe that said this was happening, and some suggested to use double the baking powder than the recipe called for. That when this guy made them on the show, he used 2 tbsp of baking powder where the recipe on the site called for 1 tbsp. Did that. Could the use of light cream in place of whole milk had been issue?

I dunno.

What the heck!!!???

Anyway, I wished I'd just stuck with my tried and true recipe that always works. The cupcakes themselves are pretty tasty, although they are a more coarse, crumbly cake than I usually like.

I've had better!

Live and learn, right? Well, I salvaged the ones I could and tried to decorate them as cute as possible even though they had tops like a

round aircraft carrier.

At least the banana bread came out yummy and delicious and looking the way it should!

Thanks for visiting!

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