In an attempt to save money on groceries, I have been baking snacks for my daughter’s school lunches. And what better place to find delicious, healthy and equally cool looking snack ideas than Pinterest, the social media site where 12 million visitors spend on average 1 hour and 17 minutes of their life pinning, liking and creating boards of stuff1. Oh Pinterest, you seductive mistress you. By simply seeing the “pin it” button, you gave me the ill-fated notion that I, torontomama, could be a Domestic Goddess. For shame!
I consider myself to be a capable cook. That said I lack the necessary skill when it comes to baking. Only the pull of Pinterest could have brought this idea of baking school snacks to fruition. My first 3 recipes went off without a hitch. With those recipes under my belt, it came time to make Strawberry Cupcakes with Fresh Strawberry Icing, courtesy of Spendwithpennies.com. Doesn’t the name alone make you salivate? Well if the name doesn’t, the picture will. I wanted to surprise my daughter with these delicious gems after school and have a tea party in her room. What fun.
First came the icing. It needed to be chilled overnight and it turned out perfect. I would make the cupcakes themselves the next day so they would be fresh for the party. The original recipe called for boxed cake mix, but being the Domestic Goddess I thought myself to be, I made the cake from scratch. I purchased cake flour instead of using all-purpose flour like the recipe called for and did no research on its differences. According to Pinterest, this is what they were supposed to look like.
Image from http://www.saveswithpennies.com
And this is how it turned out. EPIC FAIL.
I pulled my cupcakes out of the oven, dry and sunken in the middle. Upon further research online, I came to find out that my cupcakes were both overcooked and over leavened and nasty as hell. My daughter eats with her eyes and seeing that they were bright pink, in her mind they were just fine and the tea party would have to go on as planned. I told her outright that I had made a mistake and I didn’t think they were that tasty. She was having none of it. We sat down at her Lego table, disguised as a banquet table at a ball and ate my Pinterest Fail cupcakes while sipping hot chocolate. Despite her saying they were ‘ok’; she ate less than half of one.
Hubby came home after work and bluntly asked “What happened?” Pinterest happened. With their pretty pictures and step by step instructions, I was lulled into the assumption that I could be magically transformed into a baking aficionado. They lied. Out of 15 cupcakes, 1 was eaten and I have approximately 8 cups of delicious strawberry icing sitting in my fridge with no cupcakes to ice with it. Cue the spoon and kiss the diet goodbye.
Tried, Tested, and True Mommy 