“Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.”

- Damon Runyon

Yay! Who's excited for today's cupcake post? I am! But, as the title states, I am on a cake tangent. So while I will be linking to a cupcake blog, the focus will be on cake in non-cupcake form. Got it?

I was browsing through Gigi Cakes, and saw her recipe for Banana Dulce de Leche Cake. I became quite excited because I remembered seeing a can of Dulce de Leche in the cupboard, and had wondered if there was anything I could use it for. This was my big chance!!!

It was pretty easy to make, and even the batter was super yummy! I have decided, though, that I'm not that into mascarpone icing, and if I make it again I might try cream cheese icing, or even no icing! The cake itself is that fabulous!

Hmmm...Am I forgetting something? Oh yeah, the story that inspired part of the title of this post, which most of you will probably find more interesting than the cake portion of this blog. Spit-swapping!

So, Benny and I were with a bunch of our peeps at the movie theatre, waiting for Expelled to start. I had bought a giant pretzel, and he was helping me eat it. You know how they come in paper envelopes? Well, I had taken out my gum and stuck it in the corner of the paper. So there we were, happily munching away, when I look down and notice that my gum was no longer in its little corner. Oh no!

I made it known that I couldn't find my gum, and proceeded to search for it, first on myself, then I got up and searched my chair...it was nowhere to be found. I sat back down.

"I found it", said Benny. He sounded a little grossed out.

My gum had fallen out of its corner and onto the pretzel, and it was Benny who got a surprise with his next bite. It was so funny! Well, at least Dave and Julie (who were sitting next to us) and I thought it was funny. Benny, not so much.

Whoops! I almost forgot to post about cupcakes!

First of all, what is a cupcake?

The all-knowing Wikipedia says:

A cupcake (the common US term) or fairy cake (the common British term), is a small cake designed to serve one person, usually made in a small paper cup container. As with larger cakes, frosting and other cake decorations, such as sprinkles, are defining characteristics of modern cupcakes.

Cupcakes are often served during a celebration, such as children's classroom birthday parties. Additionally they can be served as an accompaniment to afternoon tea. They are a more convenient alternative to cake because they don't require utensils or dividing into pieces because they are smaller.

A simple cupcake uses the same fundamental ingredients as most other standard cakes: butter, sugar, eggs, and flour. Nearly any layer cake or loaf cake recipe can be used to make cupcakes.

Yep, I think that's a pretty straightforward explanation of what cupcakes are. Fairy cake? heehee!

Let's see if Noah Webster's 1828 has anything to say on the subject...Nope. Nothing on cupcakes. Maybe fairy cakes? Nothing there either. Darn.

Well, in honor of British terms, I shall link to Airy Fairy Cupcakes.

And now, story time! Late in the afternoon on Wednesday I was at work rolling a perm for like the second hour in a row. It's not because I'm slow, it's because the lady was Chinese, and so, of course, was her hair. Meaning it was really super thick (it was also shoulder-length, but that's not because she was Chinese). We were all talking about politics or some such thing that was doing a good job of putting us in a crabby mood. We unanimously decided that we needed to change the subject. Here was my chance...

"We could talk about cupcakes!", I offered in my excited-to-talk-about-cupcakes way.

"I don't like cupcakes", said Carole, my boss's client.

"*GASP*! Carole! What is wrong with you?", I exclaimed. (Carole is a lovely lady who has been coming to the shop longer than I have, and knows I was joking.)

"Well," she said, "I just think they're too dry."

"That is terrible. I am telling your mother." (Carole's mother is one of those wonderful little old ladies that comes to the shop every Thursday to get her hair set for the week.)

The next day when Virginia came to the shop (yes, I was done with the perm by that time, thank you), I asked what was wrong with her daughter. She laughed and said "How much time have you got?"

So as of late I've acquired a new addiction. Cupcake blogs*.

It all started quite a while ago when I was on Surly Dave's site, looking through his blogroll of cooks. I found one that I absolutely love! Its Simply Recipes Food and Cooking Blog, run by a lady named Elise who posts wonderful, user-friendly recipes. If I'm feeling down, instead of turning to food consumption for comfort, I turn to food blogs, complete with pictures! Yay! I even got a notebook and started putting together my own little cookbook with the recipes I find there, and so far all of them have been delicious.

From that site I found another, of course. These things just tend to escalate, don't they? Anyway, the second site is Vanilla Garlic, run by one Garrett McCord, who has a thing for putting together interesting ingredient combinations and creating original cupcake recipes. So of course in his blogroll he has a category just for cupcake blogs, which of the eight listed I favorited, um.....seven. Actually, I would have favorited all of them, but one isn't running anymore.

Perusing these cupcake blogs has been so inspiring, but it took me a little while to try my first batch of cupcakes. I finally did on Monday, and the results were so wonderful!! I was so impressed with myself! The recipe comes from How To Eat a Cupcake, which is a super-fun site. Go check it out! I ended up buying a second notebook just for cupcakes. I think I shall post a new cupcake blog site every week! Bwa-ha-ha-haaaaa!

...Sorry.

So! Now you have something exciting to look forward to! Yay for you!

*Yes, there was reason behind the madness that was Benny's blog background yesterday.