The “why”

So, firstly, I am just super excited that I am doing this. I am sure this would be fun! I wanted to start off with something sweet and basic. As I started thinking about desserts, after cakes (which I have baked a couple of times), I landed on the idea of baking cupcakes. Specifically, red velvet cupcakes.

Thanks to youtube for giving me the right recommendations! It is amazing how you can find almost anything on youtube. From solutions to leetcode questions (which is supremely helpful) to recipes for every god damn thing you can think of. It is definitely a blessing when you have been provided with food on your table for your whole life and then, one day, you take a flight and you have to do all of this by yourself.

Okay, so now about how this went, well that is a different story. First of all, everyone who knows me, knows that I hate cooking. Okay, maybe hate is a strong word. But I definitely don’t enjoy it. So, taking up baking, even though it is as simple and basic as cupcakes, it could be challenging for me. Something that takes effort for me to do.

So, it was an extremely chill Sunday afternoon when I decided to do this. I did not have most of the materials needed and so I needed to take a short trip to a nearby grocery store. The recipe I followed : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sseKno2_zw

Just a disclaimer, there were several epic fails in the process and this story does not have a good ending.

Let’s prepare the batter!

So firstly, you make the batter right? It was really good. The right thickness, the right consistency, everything cool, but just not really any close to the color that I wanted. I guess I put in a lot of the cocoa powder, and then no amount of red food coloring gel helped. I also stopped putting that in after a point, considering it might be really unhealthy.

Now that I think of it, let me see how unhealthy it is. Oh my god. I could have never imagined. I am never letting my future kids have these. There is a ted talk on this : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQzOHAwCfXs

Okay, but well, I did decide to make it. So, apart from the color being horribly wrong, the quantity was also absurd. Imagine how the picture to the left would have been a little better (yeah I know it is a horrible picture, but that’s the best I could do amidst the messiness of baking) if it had like one more cupcake.

Once the cupcakes were in the oven, it was time to figure out the frosting. But the frosting was a total disaster. It did not seem anything like the video for sure.

What about the frosting?

Firstly, I got this frosting mix from the grocery store, and owing to my supreme intelligence, I never read the description and how to actually make the frosting. I assumed it would be easy.

But it needed butter, which I did not have at home. It also needed the electric beater (probably something like this) thing, for the frosting texture, which (obvious at this point) I also do not have at my home. Turns out I do not have a lot of things at my phone. I also got a whipped frosting mix, but too sweet I guess. I ended up just eating the cupcakes standalone.

But for a silver lining, the cupcakes were pretty good. Tasty and fun to eat. I kept two of the cupcakes in the refrigerator to avoid gaining 1 kg in a single day (it would not be nice). I might try to do the frosting again, when I eventually do eat them. I’ll post a picture here if I do. Hoping the frosting is better the second time around.

Phew!

So yeah, that was my first post here. Yay! If it was not for this post, I would have never tried baking cupcakes. Sunday afternoon would have been just about lazing around scrolling through instagram stories. But thanks to this blog, it was not. It was a bit unhealthy but I mean, I have bigger gains here. Also, while writing this post, I got to know about the effects of artificial food dyes, which I had no idea about. So that is pretty cool.

I guess that’s all about the new experience I had for the week. I hope to continue on this journey. If you did like reading this post, send me an email dolifewithme1@gmail.com. You might me the first one sending me an email. You cannot even imagine how big a smile that email would put on my face. Also, mention your cool ideas and you never know, I might try them?