Cupcakes

     I love to cook. I love the freedom and flexibility in throwing tasty things together to make a delicious dish. I always try to follow a recipe precisely the first time I make something. But after that, there is a lot of tweaking that happens. If I could manage to go to culinary school and still home educate my children, I totally would. In the meantime, I will make do with cooking for my family and the occasional guest.             
    Baking, on the other hand, kills me. I can handle baking sweet breads every once in a while. I make awesome No Bake cookies. But my patience for baking ends at anything more complicated than that. I don't know why. Well, maybe I do. It's the precision of baking. Over mix and you end up with a bad result. Under mixing is the same. If the oven is too hot or too cold, you end up with chicken food instead of a tasty cake. I have a lot of distractions in my day to day life that make baking a very stressful situation. However, I also have a very persistent daughter. Maycee is always wanting to bake something. She loves the measuring and mixing and especially the sweet end result. So today, I relented and we made devil's food cake from scratch. We also made caramel icing. And I have to say, it really wasn't so bad. Even with the extra "help" from Thane and also needing to stop in the middle to nurse Iris. Maybe I am becoming a patient person in my old age. Maybe baking isn't as bad as I have built it up in my head to be. Who knows? But one thing is certain, chocolate cupcakes with caramel icing and a shake of sea salt on top makes it all worth while.

Baking and waiting.

Stirring the caramel icing. She was much happier than she looks.