What Did You Eat?

Cupcake Overload

I love cupcakes, but sometimes there is too much of a good thing.  I made 40 cupcakes on Friday, for Lizzie's birthday.  Lizzie, my friend Nancy's daughter, was all about cupcakes for her party this year. Fortunately, a recent article in Food & Wine magazine detailed how to make the perfect cupcake.  Mine weren't perfect, but they were pretty good.  I made a big vat of buttercream, and used it to make strawberry, peanut butter, and Oreo cookies and cream frosting.  And of course, I made chocolate frosting too.   I worried that I'd be gobbling all of Lizzie's cupcakes, but hours of inhaling the buttery, sugary fumes made me sick to my stomach.  I never thought I'd say this, but it will be a long time before I crave another cupcake.

Butterscotch Sauce

I've always loved butterscotch, will take it over chocolate anytime.  Brach's butterscotch disks still delight me whenever I see them.  Thank God doctors love to put them out for their patients.  The amber color of them, the way the candy crackles between my teeth as I bite into it, leaving a residue gradually melting in my mouth.  I also love butterscotch sauce, but haven't had it in years.  I can't stand the stuff sold in the stores, which seems like caramels melted into a sludge.  It's too sweet and too thick for my taste.  So, I kind of forgot about my butterscotch lust until I read Callipygia's ode to the sauce.   Lucky for me, my cousins Charmayne and Keith coming for dinner provided the perfect excuse to make it.  And it meant that I'd have to share it, saving me from myself.  Nutella and butterscotch sauce won't last long around me.  Give me a spoon and let me dive in. But, I wanted to give the appearance of being civilized, so I served it with ice cream.

As the picture shows, this sauce isn't some sort of heavy, caramel paste. You can barely see it on the ice cream, but it was certainly there in all its glory.  It was all that I longed for, and then some.  The butterscotch flavor was lovely, but not too sweet.  And it had a tiny bit of brandy in it, which made a huge difference in the taste, for me, that is.