The beginning of an adventure

Let me start off by saying that I'm anything but a professional baker. I'm a 21 year old stay at home mom with nothing better to do. While my 4 month old baby naps, I vacuum floors, do laundry, clean the kitchen...and bake.

My mom was always the baker in the family. Whenever someone's birthday rolled around, or a special occasion, she was the go to gal for baked goods. I never really showed an interest in it growing up, though she always tried to get me in the kitchen. I don't know why I didn't want to learn, I just didn't. Maybe because I was too lazy? Or perhaps because growing up I was busy doing other things, like ballet or tap. I regret not learning all the tricks of the trade until recently.

After having my first child and staying home with him all day long while my husband went to work, I couldn't imagine going back out in the work force and have someone else watch my baby. I also quickly got cabin fever and was going slowly insane! So, walking through the aisles of Target with my husband and the baby one night, I saw a cupcake book. I snagged it up and threw it in the basket. A few days later, I went out and got all the basics I needed for a few recipes and tried one out.

My first attempt was chocolate chip cupcakes with a vanilla buttercream frosting. It went...alright. I wanted to make the frosting look pretty, but instead of waiting to add the chocolate chips until after using a frosting bag and tip didn't occur to me until the chips plugged up the bag. But the cupcakes tasted pretty good!

My next attempt was brown sugar pound cupcakes with brown sugar cream cheese frosting. They came out delicious! I've decided those will be my signature cupcakes! My son is a beautiful brown skinned boy, and I call him my brown sugar baby. So I've started calling these cupcakes "Sterling-cakes" after my son.

Next was my horribly dry chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting. They tasted like someone left a reese's cup out in the sun for 100 years. I obviously need to work on that recipe.

When family came in town, I was requested to make my Sterling-cakes, so I made them over at my mom's house to save time. Plus she had more baking utensils than, and I had burnt out the motor of my hand mixer. I was able to follow the suggestions better, such as sifting the flour and such, and my cupcakes came out even better than before! For Easter I made vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream topped with coconut, and carrot cupcakes. These were a huge hit with my family.

My dad commented to me last week "You're becoming quite the little baker!" ...I am? I was just baking because my family asked me too and I had fallen in love with baking cupcakes! But I suppose that I have become a baker! Even my husband (who isn't a fan of sweets) says my cupcakes are great.

After searching for something to do with my life for so long, I lost confidence in myself. Now that I'm actually good at something, I don't believe it when people tell me. So instead of feeling sorry for myself, or beating myself to a bloody pulp over if I'm any good, I'm just going to do it. I love baking cupcakes and I'm going to keep trying new recipes. Who knows where this will go?

So stick around for my Cupcake Adventures! Encouragement is my friend.