I consider myself a vanilla kind of girl (I'm still resistant to calling myself a woman) in more ways than one. Vanilla in the sense that I'm mostly boring, don't enjoy taking risks, am scared of most things that are even remotely scary, and live in the suburbs with my husband and my dog. There are many of my type in the world. And I'm also a vanilla type of girl in the sense that I strongly prefer vanilla over chocolate because... I don't like chocolate. Yes, I have ovaries. And no, I don't like chocolate.
So vanilla was the logical place to begin my adventures in cupcakery, not only because it was a cupcake I would actually eat but because it was safe. And I LIKE SAFE. And so it began...
... in Winchester, Virginia in October of 2009 when I bit into a Georgetown Cupcakes key lime cupcake. OMG. I was hooked on the idea that a single-serving cupcake could be such an experience. I kept that thought in the back of my mind for a few months with full intentions of dabbling in cupcakery when I felt motivated enough to do it. At the time, I worked in child welfare. I don't think I need to explain the kind of stress I felt from working 40+ hours per week in hell... on top of that, I was trying my hardest to do yoga as often as possible and I was taking online classes at the local community college. So, yea. I didn't really have the time to even think about putting on my Betty Crocker pants and whipping up some batter and frosting. And on top of all of that, I was dealing with the agony of endometriosis. I'll let you google/wikipedia it if you so choose. In a nutshell, it's an incurable and somewhat mysterious disease in which rogue girly tissue grows where it's not supposed to, and every "that time of the month," that tissue wreaks havoc on your insides. It's kind of like having hot knives stabbing you in the baby maker. I'm sorry to poke fun at something so serious, but I feel like I'm entitled to do so after living with the hell and coping with it in my own ways. Anyways, I planned to take a few days off of work so I could suffer at home (thank God for birth control, I at least knew when I was going to feel like dying), but for some reason felt like I still needed to be productive. So I looked up a recipe, and birthed my first from-scratch cupcakes... vanilla cake. Vanilla frosting. My babies.
I didn't think my cupcake baking would go anywhere, so I didn't take pictures. And I thought they were pretty tasty, but maybe I was biased. The husband said they were good, but he's not that into vanilla and is a die-hard chocolate fan. He likes living life on the edge, I guess... as evidenced by his profession of running into burning buildings. So I snuck the rest of the cuppies into work and left them anonymously on the conference room table. That way, if they sucked, I could pretend I didn't know who brought them in. I heard a few people say they liked them, and it made me feel better. It was like someone saying they thought your baby looked cute.
In baking my safe cupcakes, I realized that the process was very therapeutic to me. It was productive, creative, time-consuming (and MY GOD I needed a hobby), stress-relieving, and something to take my mind off of the 981287689734 responsibilities I had at work. And so my hobby was born.
I'll post recipes, pictures, etc. as I go along. I'll also try to slowly chronicle my baking adventures to date. I don't know where this blog will go, but I'm hoping it's step two in my quest to avoid sitting in a therapist's office trying to figure out how to cope with life's curveballs. Between yoga, acupuncture, baking, blogging, and having a supportive husband, I hope I end up being balanced and sane on the other end of this crazy chapter of my life.
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