Cupcakes with Chloe

For her seventh birthday, I gave my granddaughter a set of Chloe gift cards with different activities we can do during the year, among them baking cupcakes out of a cookbook she loves.

 

 

When I gave her gifts on Friday, we picked a simple chocolate cupcake recipe for which I had ingredients on hand. They were supposed to be “mud” cupcakes with a gooey middle, but we stretched the recipe that was supposed to make 12 to make 18, and thus I had to guess at baking time, and they cooked a little drier. I thought they were delicious but they weren’t sweet enough for her, and what’s a cupcake without frosting? (The recipe had used up all the butter in the house anyway.) She got plenty of icing at her birthday party the next day.

 

 

Chocolate Mud Cupcakes

(adapted from 500 Cupcakes, by Fergal Connolly)
1 cup (7 oz.) semisweet chocolate chips
1 1/3 cups (2 ½ sticks) unsalted butter
5 eggs
2/3 cups superfine sugar (we used regular granulated)
¾ cup self-rising flour
2 tbsp. cocoa powder, for dusting

Preheat oven to 325° F (160° C). Place 12 paper baking cups in muffin pan(s).

In double boiler or medium bowl over a pan of gently simmering water, melt the chocolate chips and butter together, stirring well. Let cool a little.

Beat the eggs and sugar in a large bowl until pale and thick. Fold the flour into the egg mixture and then stir in the melted chocolate and butter until well blended.

Spoon into the cups and bake for 20 minutes. The cupcakes will be soft and gooey in texture and appearance. Cool and dust with cocoa powder.

 

She calls this the “graveyard spoon”

 

Poem (now I’m back online): Cupcake Lady

This would have been a “fortnight” poem posted Monday, but we were offline from Friday until yesterday.

Cupcake Lady

The year before, I had taken a cupcake to her regular corner after she told me it was her birthday. She gave me a sweaty hug through the car window. Another time she asked me if I had a spare broom to clean up her campsite, and I kept one in my car for months but didn’t see her again. Then she reappeared near a different corner.

On July 4, as we ride the bus home from the fireworks, I see her sitting opposite me, clean and nicely dressed. I hope she’s no longer homeless, but she sits quietly with her hand over her face, the picture of despair.

I wonder if it would be appropriate to give her something, but I’m holding my granddaughter in my lap and my purse is inaccessible until we reach our stop. As I join the crowd getting off, I hesitate a moment, take a couple of steps back and touch her shoulder. She looks up, surprised. I smile at her, then catch up with the others leaving the bus.

I wanted to say something, ask her how she’s been, where she’s staying. The moment is gone; the bus rolls on with her, and I walk home with my family.

Hey cupcake trailer