I made an assortment of fruity cupcakes for Charlotte Rose's birthday party. As much as I love earl gray with lemon, or coffee infused desserts, I wasn't sure small children would.
They were kind of a hit. Cherry, peach, lemonade, apple, blue raspberry, and grape frosting were definitely kid favorites. I have since been asked a few times for the recipe. At first, I was a touch embarrassed because, guys, it's crazy simple. But hey! Simple is good. Simple is great. So I'm gonna shout that simple secret from the rooftops.
It's Kool-Aid. The .13 cent, teeny tiny packet of Kool-aid. And you don't even need the whole packet. I added a little bit at a time until it tasted right. I also added a bit of additional color to get my rainbow to look how I wanted, but you definitely don't have to.
It makes your frosting so sweet and fruity and tangy and tart.
My personal favorite is the Cherry.
Give this frosting "hack" a try, and let me know what you think!
I Should Find A Healthier Hobby
This weekend, Charlotte Rose and I made 48 mini cupcakes that tasted (yes, past tense, they are gone) like frappuchinos.
They were super duper good.
If you want to make them too, simply follow the original cupcake recipe. Swap out the sparkling water with 4 oz. of "coffee". To "brew", heat up 5 oz. of water and throw in 2 tbs. of coffee grounds and "steep" them for 5 minutes. Let the water cool, and pour the contents over two coffee filters into another cup. Pour 4 oz. of the cool coffee into the batter and bake.
Frosting is the same.
When Things are Certainly Bad and Doing Things Anyway
I get that everyone's lives are uncertain. You just never know if today, or tomorrow, or 90 years from now will be all the life you get. With a diagnosis like Charlotte's there is a lot more certainty that her life will be short, and she will have far fewer abilities and opportunities than her peers. A typical person is advised to live life to the fullest because who knows when life will be taken away. But what do you do when you know? What do you do when you know better than most people when? And you know better than most people how?
This information has, of course, changed our lives. We didn't know anything was wrong. This was a huge surprise. Most parents of children with MD have suspicions that something is wrong. Many children with MD are late walkers, if they learn to walk at all. Charlotte wasn't. Many children with MD are cognitively delayed. Charlotte isn't. Most people are searching for something to explain why their child isn't meeting milestones. We wanted to know why her stomach hurt, immediately, and all of a sudden, and so severely she was shrieking in pain. This didn't, and still doesn't make any sense.We have had to think about her future in ways we didn't plan. Sure, this is something all parents do. They make adjustments; our kids are never exactly who we expect them to be (probably to spite us). This was different. This felt like her whole future, any future, was off limits. Will she ever reach adulthood? Will she be able to go to college? Follow her dreams? Or will her dreams need to be re-evaluated to reflect how little she will be able to do on her own.
Because right now, she is "big". She fills a room. She does for herself. She accomplishes. She is normal. She can do normal things. Until she can't. And then her life will be more "can't" than "can", and loss than gain. And our perspective will have to shift from "can't" to "can still do some things". And I hate that. I hate that to survive this, I will have to celebrate things we haven't lost yet.
So, yesterday. I signed her up for ballet. She is just barely old enough, and I am biting at the bit to get her enrolled because I want her to have as many days of "can" that she can. I want her to experience normal just a little bit. However, I know that soon, too soon, it's going to go away. We aren't living in the moment, trying to pack as much life into each day as we can. We are trying to pack a whole life into a few years, because we don't have uncertainty, we have knowledge.
They say "it's better to have loved and lost, than to never have loved at all". I hope she sees it that way too. I hope that she's happy she got to dance, and knows that I was trying to give her something before she couldn't have it anymore. But I don't know. Is it cruel to dangle normalcy in front of her? To give her something that I know she can't keep?
I don't know. But I guess we have to try. I guess we have to believe that losing something is better than never having it. And that she's so excited about it right now that she refuses to take off those adorable little slippers. I wonder if it's irresponsible to do it. Especially since we know it won't last forever.
Daisylions
Toddler idioms are really freaking cute. While taking family pictures on Saturday, Charlotte ran up to me with a fistful of yellow weeds and told me she "picked flowers for you, they're daisylions!"
Cue melting. She says it with such earnest. She's earnest most of the time, even in excitement. You can tell that whatever she says, she says it so honestly and so organically, that shes convinced of it. And I am too.
The things she names and the things she says are all coming from this place of pure observation and innocent misinterpretation. Why wouldn't the pretty little yellow weeds have a name similar to the pretty white flowers? They are almost the same; they are only not flowers because we call them weeds. Makes sense to me.
Some day, she will see them as everyone else does. Annoying, proliferating, weeds. But not yet. So instead of correcting her, we will just call them daisylions until she grows up and sees them as weeds too.
Earl Gray and Lemon Buttercream Cupcakes
Remember this cupcake recipe? Well, it turns out, it is super easy to make minor adjustments to it to get some pretty fun and tasty results. Over the weekend, I experimented a bit, and came up with this SUPER YUMMY and SUPER EASY way to transform a pretty basic recipe into something just a little bit fancier. Give these a try for your next garden party (I don't have these), or soiree (or these), or afternoon on the couch (This is more my speed)
Because the changes to this recipe are really minor, I have just copied and pasted the recipe from a few weeks ago, and edited in the changes. I've also made the changes bold.
Earl Gray Cupcake Recipe
Cupcake Ingredients
1 1/2 cups GF flour mix. (I like Bob's Red Mill in the blue bag)
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 cup granulated sugar
Pinch of salt
1/2 cup butter (room temperature, sliced into half inch sections)
2 eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup seltzer (I actually used sparkling apple juice, the carbonation is what matters)
5 Earl Gray tea bags
Cupcake Process
Set oven to 325 F. Line your cupcake pan with cupcake liners. This recipe makes about 12 cupcakes.
Mix your dry ingredients (flour, baking soda and powder, sugar, and salt) in the bowl of your stand mixer. You can sift them, but I find a whisk works just fine. Add the butter and set your mixer to low. Mix until the ingredients are well combined; it should look like coarse sand.
Pour the buttermilk into a glass and microwave for 30 seconds. Add the tea bags and let sit for 15 mins. Squeeze the buttermilk that has been absorbed by the tea bags into the butter, sugar, and flour mixture. Tear open one tea bag and add the contents to the mixture (this part is optional, but I like the way it looks). Add the rest of the buttermilk. Add the seltzer and eggs.
Mix on medium until well combined. Pour into the cupcake liners; fill to about 2/3 full.
Bake for 25 minutes or until you can pull a toothpick out clean. Let cool.
Simple Fluffy Buttercream
Frosting Ingredients
1/2 cup butter, softened
7 oz Marshmallow Fluff
1/4 - 1/2 cup powdered sugar
Lemon extract
Food coloring (if you want)
Frosting Process
Mix butter and marshmallow fluff with stand mixer until fluffy and well combined. Add powdered sugar until it reaches desired consistency. Add Lemon extract a few drops at a time until you get the desired flavor. I like a light lemon flavor so you can really taste the tea in the cakes.
Apply to cupcakes however you prefer. I like a piping bag, but a spatula or knife works just as well.
These are pretty seriously yummy. Give them a try and tell me what you think!