St. Patrick’s Day Cupcake Fail

When a potluck sign-up sheet goes around at work I love to bring cupcakes.  They have all been such good sports about my efforts and even the ones that don’t turn out perfect are ok with coffee at work.  Because really there’s not much that a cup of coffee and a sweet bit of cake with a mound of frosting on top can’t help.

I’ve been dreaming up a new recipe to try and was actually looking forward to a culinary experience last night.  I was set to make a white cupcake – with green food color of course – with white buttercream frosting.  BUT…my ingenious plan was to bake Junior Mints inside the cupcake and also use on the top as a decoration!

Each pan of cupcakes had a slight difference in the way they were baked, all the while I took copious notes.  The frosting went on beautifully, with an almost perfect swirl on each cupcake.  I did notice that the warmth from my hand started causing the frosting to melt a bit, so I put every cake on a platter to set inside the refrigerator a bit before decorating.

And then…….disaster struck:

I tilted the platter just right and they all came tumbling down!  Poor Keith was in the kitchen with me when it happened and I think time froze as he waited for my tears to start.  But I just looked at it and said “Huh.”  And then I laughed.  And he joined in.  And all was right.

And this is my little buddy Joe, who is always right next to me regardless of what I’m doing.  Fortunately he is a very well trained dog and I had him “down” and “stay” while we took pictures and then cleaned up.  I did let him take two licks of frosting, but he grabbed a cupcake to carry around (after all, he IS a retriever!).  I made him “drop” and he did obey, though he looked disappointed.

I was able to stop at a grocery store on the way to work and buy some cupcakes to fulfill my part of the potluck.  And I showed the Joe picture to everybody and we all got good laughs.

I’m thinking I might try these cupcakes again next week, because I really think I’m on to something with the flavor combination.