The Adventures of Superwife

I know the words 'emergency' and 'cupcake' are two words rarely used in the same sentence. Hell, I'd venture to say that they're not often used in the same paragraph. What about these little cups of blissful cakey goodness could be urgent in nature?

One thing about being a superwife, is the desire to be just that. I get great joy and satisfaction by dolling up real cute and delivering a basket of baked goods to Ben and his work buddies (boy, that statement probably just set the feminist movement back 30 years or so). I just love hearing "Ben, you're a lucky guy" and "Gee, I wish my wife knew how to work the oven."

Anyway, last night I went to visit Ben at work, and decided to make the guys cookies. This decision came at about 2:00 am, as he works as a bouncer at a bar in the college district. On my way home, I realized he would be off work in under an hour… how would I make this work?

Cookies aren't the most expeditious baked good I can think of, so that idea got scrapped. I thumbed through the pages of my trusty America's Test Kitchen Cookbook looking for a quick alternative.

The first page boasted a recipe that seemed to fit this situation nicely. EMERGENCY CHOCOLATE CAKE. Hmmm… only six ingredients that I happen to have on hand, and if I turn it into cupcakes I can sever the baking time by at least half or more. A tasty baked treat from scratch in under 30 minutes? I began to think it could be done!

On to the recipe-

2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup Dutch processed cocoa
2 tsp baking soda
1 cup mayonnaise*
1 cup water
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

First off, preheat your oven to three-fiddy.

You'll need two bowls. Whisk all your dry ingredients in one, and all your wet ingredients in another. Then, just when you thought you were whisked out, whisk the wet one into the dry one. The mayo incorporated quite easily, and the batter came together very quickly- I didn't even need a mixer. I just needed the two bowls, a silicone spatula and the aforementioned whisk.

*For the record, yes, I was admittedly a little freaked out by using mayonnaise. I realize that all cakes and cookies need some sort of a fat as a binder, but I guess I've always been used to using eggs or vegetable oil. Skeptical as I was, I knew that America's Test Kitchen had never done me wrong, so I forged on with blind faith.

At this point, you can choose to go the cake road, or the cupcake road. Cupcakes definately saved baking time, taking it from 35-40 minutes for an 8 inch square pan, to about 14-18 minutes. I chose the cupcakes for baking time, plus, they're far easier to dole out to a crowd.

Into the oven they went, and they rose quickly and made the house smell incredible. I had some leftover cream cheese frosting from Ben's birthday cake, so I shmeared that on and snorgled one down.

OH. MY. GAWD.

These things could also be known as Emergency Cupcakes BECAUSE IT'S A FRIGGIN EMERGENCY IF I CAN'T EAT EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. I had never eaten a more tasty cupcake, and that actually got me thinking. I've heard people talk down about boxed cakes on more than one occasion, and I never thought too much about it. I realized after taking one warm, chewy, honest tasting homemade bite of that cupcake… I had never had anything but boxed cake. My mother was an amazing cook- she had dinner on the table every night, but she was far more of a Sandra Lee's Semi Homemade type cook. Not that there's anything wrong with that [/seinfeld] but now that I've tasted this, I'm never going back. In all honesty, this recipe was just as quick and easy as one from the box, and the result is worlds above.

I'm sure you can say the same for canned frosting as you can for boxed cake, but I was in a time crunch. Tonight, I'm making up some buttercream frosting and I'll keep you posted as to how it turns out. Here's the recipe if you want to beat me to it.