My washing machine had been broken for over a week, and I desperately needed to do laundry before going out of town for the weekend. Bryan had met the appliance repair guy earlier in the day, so I thought I was all set to go. After I got home from work, I threw a load of laundry in the washer and turned it on. Later, I noticed that it was being awfully quiet - in fact it wasn't spinning at all! Not only that, but it wouldn't drain either! I tried every combination of settings and cycles that I could, and nothing would get rid of the water in my washing machine. I was left with a load of wet, soggy clothes and nothing to wear for my weekend in the mountains.
In the midst of all this frustration, I was also attempting to make cupcakes for my mom's birthday. I now realize that baking while frustrated and in a bad mood is not such a good idea, but I really didn't have any other time to make the cupcakes. There were only going to be 6 of us there over the weekend, so I didn't want to use a boxed mix and end up with 2 dozen cupcakes - we'd never be able to eat them all. So I found a recipe in one of my cookbooks to make 12 white cupcakes from scratch.
I mixed the batter and filled the cups 2/3 full, as always. I noticed that I had a good bit of batter left over, but I didn't want to take my chances on overflowing cupcakes, so I made a few extras to taste and rinsed the remaining batter down the drain. Big mistake!! About 20 minutes later, I noticed that my cupcakes hadn't risen, like at all! (It was about this moment that I tried yet one more setting on the washer, it also didn't work, and I broke down in tears...)
One thing that did work well - I used my silicone cupcake liners. One, because I have 12 liners and was making 12 cupcakes and two, because they were the only pastel liners I had on hand.
Because there was a good bit of space between the cupcakes and the tops of the liners, I ended up needing a lot more icing than normal to fill them up. This led me to run out of icing when piping the designs on top, and the last 2 didn't get flowers, just some improvised polka-dots.
My mood had rapidly deteriorated by the time I got to piping, and I think it showed. I thought the flowers were just so-so, and overall I was just okay with how the project turned out. I even procrastinated posting the picture here because I wasn't thrilled with them. They did taste good though! The homemade cake batter did seem to dry out quicker than the mix, so they didn't keep quite as well, but I was very pleased with the taste when they were freshly baked.
Overall, I'd say that I learned my lesson. My treats look happier and more cheerful when I am as well. I'll try to avoid baking when I'm frustrated and crabby, if I can.
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