Yum, Cupcakes!

Monkey girl has her two year birthday coming up in April. Unfortunately, we're going to be on a road trip through Missouri and onto Maryland during that time so we're going to have a small celebration at her grandmother's. I'm planning on bringing some cupcakes with us and I hope they'll travel well. For the past couple of weeks I've been experimenting with different recipes and frosting techniques. I'll concede right now that though I love to bake, I'm not a terribly good artist with a pastry bag (see the post about lack of artistic talent). I found a really good lemon cupcake recipe and have learned semi-acceptable swirl, basketweave, and dot frostings. This weekend Dadda monkey gets to try my new chocolate cupcake recipe and take them into work. I like using his coworkers as guinea pigs. I'm not sure how they feel about being the guinea pigs though.

One of the things I bought a few months ago is going to be put to the test and come in really handy. If you haven't seen a Cupcake Courier, you're missing out on one of the most attractive baked goods transportation systems I've ever seen. The cupcakes fit nicely into the recesses and it has 3 trays that each lift out separately without any additional fuss. The cover latches right onto the bottom of the case near each of the 4 corners. I'd like to get another one and they had them at our local Costco (more about my Costco adoration in future posts), but I think they're gone now. They're available online, but I tend to refrain from purchasing items that don't offer free shipping. I'd be lying if I said my decision to bring cupcakes didn't have anything to do with getting to use the Cupcake Courier. Hey it's better than letting it sit in the pantry gathering dust, though my waistline probably doesn't agree.

For my parting words, I'd like to bring up Bro Bro monkey. It seems my posts are never about poor Bro Bro monkey. Although maybe it's because he's such a great, sweet, little baby boy that I don't have anything I need to discuss here (yet). I will mention that he's a big eater and is only 7 pounds lighter than his sister who is 17 months older. I'll leave it at that since it's time to feed the baby monkey (and he does get upset if he goes hungry for any length of time)!