Over the weekend I decided to dabble in the art of Pinterest recipes. Since it’s October, I wanted to do something Halloween themed and I stumbled across the perfect dessert while scrolling around. They were called “Spicy Little Devil’s Food Cupcakes”. The cupcakes looked cute and pretty easy to make so I made a run to the grocery store with my mom and got to work. Little did I know what would happen as the day went on.

The recipe contained quite a few ingredients and even though I already had some of it at home, all the supplies still cost me about $38. By the time I got home and set everything up it was 4:30. I started with the batter and for the most part it went smoothly. I had some trouble getting containers open and my arm started to burn after mixing for 20 minutes, but otherwise I was pretty happy with how it was going. The recipe made a lot of batter. About 25 cupcakes. I had to use multiple trays to get it in the oven.

Once the cupcakes were in the oven I got started on the spicy ganache (geh-Nash). It involved a pound of dark chocolate so I was excited. The only problem was, the dark chocolate didn’t melt. I employed the handy-dandy microwave to assist me in my quest. It melted the chocolate enough in about 2 minutes so that it would combine with the heavy whipping cream and we were back on track.

When the spicy ganache was finished I began working on the chocolate fudge frosting. Upon opening the fridge I discovered a great tragedy. We had no more heavy whipping cream. I turned to my father and demanded that we go back to the grocery store. Together we embarked on a great 5 minute trip to the nearest H.E.B.

I went inside alone, 7 dollars in my pocket. I sped past all of the oblivious shoppers to the milk section. I easily located the heavy whipping cream, tucked it under my arm and practically ran to the register. The woman at the register scanned my heavy whipping cream and the mints I had decided to purchase in a moment of weakness. I paid for the items and left, ready to continue my baking adventure.

The icing was easy, but it was the only time something would be easy for the rest of the night. I took the ganache out of the fridge to begin filing my cupcakes and much to my surprise, it was solid. It was not supposed to be solid. My mother and I worked to find a solution to my new ganache issues. We filled a pan with hot water and put the bowl holding the ganache over it. At this point it was 7:30.  My stomach was growling so I took a little break to eat dinner.

At 8 o’clock the ganache was thawed enough and ready to go into the cupcakes. I filled a frosting bag a go to work. I cut holes in the cupcakes and filled them with ganache. By the end my hands were covered in chocolate and the cupcakes were filled with ganache. I frosted them and was finally ready to tackle the decorations.

I took the store bought fondant out of the fridge along with the “red” food dye. I was excited to be so close to finishing. I was already mentally prepared to sit down and do nothing for the rest of the night. Sadly, it wasn’t meant to be. Everything went downhill very quickly.

The first thing that went wrong was the dye. It turned the fondant a lovely shade of pink instead of the red color I was going for. At the time I ignored the issue, telling myself it would turn red eventually, and continued folding the dye into the fondant.

The second issue was the fondant itself. While I was folding in the dye, it began to get sticky. It stuck to my fingers and the counter. Confused, I set it in the fridge thinking that it would fix the problem. It didn’t. Every time I took the fondant out of the fridge it seemed to get stickier even faster than before. I was getting nowhere. I cut another piece of fondant and found a different bottle of dye to use instead of the pink one. I folded in the dye and just like before, it got stuck everywhere.

Distressed and confused, I turned to google. It wasn’t helpful, though google did tell me the fondant isn’t supposed to go in the fridge. I sped over to the fridge, snatched out the fondant and set it on the counter. My genius solution to keeping the fondant hard but not sticky was… ice packs! I surrounded the fondant in the frozen bags and spent the next however many hours making little horns and tails.

I wasn’t able to finish before the day ended. I called it quits around midnight. I wrapped up my unfinished decorations and went to bed. The next morning I woke up at 9 to begin again, much to my family’s surprise. I was determined to finish these cupcakes, even if it killed me.

I got straight to work on the rest of the decorations. I set them carefully onto the cupcakes and took a step back to admire my work. It was 10:16 in the morning. They looked alright to me, and that’s all I wanted at that point. I just wanted them to be edible. Upon offering them to people, I was told they were pretty good.  

I got a few things out of this baking adventure; 1. Always get more heavy whipping cream, even if you think you won’t need it. 2. Fondant. Sucks. 3. Bakers are amazing people with so much patience and skill. 4. I am not a baker. Although, I spent 8 hours and 46 minutes baking these cupcakes I still had a lot of fun.

“I came. I saw. I got my butt kicked by cupcakes”