It seemed so simple.  I just needed to frost a batch of  chocolate cupcakes.  I marched into the kitchen early one morning to frost cupcakes I’d made the night before.

In fact I was very excited to do so as I’ve chosen recently to give the Chocolate Cake Diet another try.

This time though, I’ve decided that cupcakes are easier and more portable….so I’m going with Cupcake Diet….though the title doesn’t preclude me from changing it up with a cinnamon roll or ice cream if I want it.  But I digress.

So I assembled the ingredients to frost my already made cuppies.  (Which I’d made using the Chocolate Cake for Breakfast Recipe. (Makes 18 cupcakes, bake at 350 degrees for 11-14 minutes.)

And as you can see, I began dumping things into the bowl per my own instructions.  It said to beat the softened butter and powdered sugar together before adding the Marshmallow cream and the vanilla.  So I set my electric beater in the bowl and revved it up…

You know what what happened next.  Yup.  I was enveloped in a mushroom cloud of powdered sugar.  Everywhere.  When it settled, I took my apron off and shook it out on the back lawn, and cleaned off my slaps.   When I returned to the kitchen I took a moment to pout and doodled in the powdered sugar on the counter.

After that I turned up the music and tidied up.  In musing about what had happened, I recalled that I’d used my mixer when making this before, not the beaters.  The bowl was too shallow too.

I added the marshmallow creme and vanilla all at once, as written and started to beat again.   I then experienced something I’ve never seen before; the marshmallow creme defied gravity.  It went  UP the beaters.  Remember Flubber?

 The stuff refused to mix into the butter and powdered sugar. I had to tip the bowl this way and that to tempt the foamy stuff to combine with the other ingredients.  Crazy.

When It finally did begin to mix in, it came off the beaters so quickly that it sprayed all over. Ugh.  I promised myself I’d wipe up the floor and counter and wash my apron later.

With shaky confidence, I spooned the now subdued frosting in a bag with a filling tip to fill my cupcakes.   It was a no-go.  It was like trying to fill fudge.  I had not taken into account the dense, brownie-like quality of these cuppies.

You need cupcakes to be light and airy to fill them, duh.   UMMM.  Now what?   Well the clock was still ticking so I simply used a big star tip and  frosted them.

I’d wanted to glaze the filled cupcakes using the Chocolate Ganache recipe.  I decided to dip them instead.  By now, I was in a big hurry.

Honey was at the kitchen door gently wondering if the promised breakfast was ever forthcoming.  So I rushed it and  let slip a step, which never pays off.   So of course when I dipped the first cake in the warm chocolate the frosting fell off into the ganache.

 (I hadn’t put the frosted cakes in the fridge or freezer to firm up before dipping.)  I then knocked over the vanilla bottle and bathed my feet.  Not as bad as other recent moments, but still, not good.

I pulled myself together and finally began to have some success.

I whipped up breakfast  (ahem, brunch) and we sat down and had a cupcake for dessert.  Tracy chuckled when he heard my sad tale.  He then noted that I was ‘up to my elbows in frosting’ and took this picture:

It was nice to laugh about it with someone.  The morning and the cupcakes turned out differently than I’d  planned.   But that’s O.K.  The end result was both lovely to look at and scrumptious.

I you’d like the recipe for the cupcakes and the chocolate ganache, click here.

If you’d like to try making (at your own risk) the Marshmallow Frosting, click here.

Need to get started Baking Outside the Box with the Goody Mix recipe? Click here.