Pictures Can Be Deceiving... VERY Deceiving

i suppose we all make mistakes once in a while, and this just seemed to be "one of those days." i decided i really wanted to make mini vanilla cupcakes, and i really wanted to make use of those strawberries and raspberries i had sitting in the fridge. for the cupcakes i decided to use this recipe, mainly because it was the simplest one i could find and... sigh... let's just call it a disaster. the cupcakes came out of the oven really dry, with basically the texture and taste of a flour-y sugar cookie. i took one of these cupcakes and hit it against the table, and it actually made a kind of "knocking" noise.

not that that wasn't enough of a message telling me to just stop, i thought that maybe i could make up for it with some good icing and a nice presentation. i mean, the cupcakes didn't taste too bad. i desperately tried to save these little babies from the humiliation they would have suffered if i had just left them alone for my family to find when they got home. so, being the "innovative" cook that i told myself i was, i tried to make a strawberry buttercream icing for the top by adding finely chopped strawberry bits to the icing instead of the milk. no. NO NO NO. big mistake. i forgot how much water berries retain, which left my icing very juicy, to the point where it had a syrupy consistency.

but i didn't stop there. oh no. now i had to save both the cupcakes and the icing, because it is forbidden to waste any kind of food in this house, and also because that "icing" took up all the confectioner's sugar i had left, and i refused to throw it out. i decided i would just use the icing as a kind of creme filling to the cupcake. i mean, it's taste was acceptable to pass as some sort of strawberry creme, kind of like those strawberry creme frappuccinos they have at Starbuck's. so i filled each cupcake and topped it with a strawberry slice and a raspberry.

a closer look at the lies these pictures tell.

a shot of the "creme filling."


so what did we learn? well, for one thing, pictures can make almost anything look delicious. i mean, damn. that cupcake there looks really good. another thing (re)learned is that things that you love can still let you down. i love love love strawberries, and i really thought i could save these things with them. it didn't even stand a chance. another lesson: taking the easy way out usually leads to trouble, or in this case, a really dry cupcake. also, substitutions in recipes should only be used if they have been proven to work.

now the only thing i have to worry about is how to get rid of those things without actually having to eat them.