People, I have a confession to make.  Being a responsible grown-up is way harder than it looks!  I know this is old news to you amazing folks that have been pulling it off flawlessly for years, but for a newbie to the Grown Up World, I’m still a bit in shock.  Between working a full-time, crazy stressful job, grocery shopping, planning and making relatively nutritious meals, exercising, laundry, ironing and keeping an apartment in semi-presentable shape, how do you find time to do anything else (ahem, keeping up with a blog)?  This specific blog post has been interrupted by at least three of the above mentioned items on five separate occasions.

And I don’t even have kids!  I don’t know how all you Mommies out there do it.  Consider me amazed.  Now, don’t misunderstand me, I’m not complaining … merely explaining my too-long-to-mention absence from your email inbox and feed readers.  Let me make it up to you, please?  Will these adorable summery cupcakes do?  These lemon bottomed cupcakes topped with creamy raspberry cheesecake are the summer version of the popular Black Bottom Cupcakes.  Tangy, light and with a perfectly moist crumb these pink and yellow lovelies are a party in your mouth.

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What makes a cupcake a cupcake?  Is it merely a muffin with frosting?  Or it is a small cake topped with an oppressive amount of sugary buttercream frosting?  To each, his own definition, I suppose.  Your opinion of these cupcakes will depend entirely on your personal definition of what the essence of a cupcake should be.

These cupcakes fall closer to the frosted muffin end of the spectrum.  They are mildly sweet, flavored with toasted sesame seeds, dense and crumbly.  Where you would normally find mountains of powdered sugar-laced buttercream, there is a zippy white chocolate cream cheese frosting.  With no added sugar, the frosting is tangy, mildly sweet and a pleasant companion to, what I’ve determined is the Perfect Breakfast Cupcake.

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Pretend that your favorite boutique cupcake bakery is located halfway across the country.  Pretend that despite this geographic divide you are a loyal subscriber of their email list which constantly updates you of their new seasonal cupcake offerings.  This, of course, leaves your mouth watering for key-lime pie or Irish cream cupcakes that you simply can’t get your grubby little hands on without boarding a plane.

Then they send out the announcement for their limited edition cherry cupcakes.  Gasp!  Oh good lord!  The craving overtakes you.  Rational thinking ceases to exist.  Suddenly you must find a way to make cherry cupcakes.  You know that they will likely pale in comparison, but you simply must have something cherry-flavored in the form of a cupcake.  Immediately.

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When I see chocolate and peanut butter paired together I immediately start humming “We Go Together” from the classic movie/musical Grease.  Aren’t they simply the most perfect flavor duo?  They would clearly be voted the Prom King and Queen of the dessert world.  We go to-ge-ther like shoo bop shoo wadda wadda yipitty boom de boom … !

Oh lovely friends, how I’ve missed you!  I am happy to report that I took The Exam and came out alive.  I can now return to my regularly scheduled life.  I’m sure you are all relieved.  I imagine you were all just waiting at your keyboards with bated breath for my triumphant return.  Wait … you weren’t?  Aw shucks, well … a girl can dream, right?  Anyway, to make up for my absence, I give you this moist, tender tribute to the eternal Cool Kids of the sugar kingdom … Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes.

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When it comes to strawberry cake, there are a shocking lack of recipes that are truly made from scratch. Most recipes call for white cake mix, strawberry gelatin packages or mounds of strawberry preserves. Delicious as they may be, I was not willing to give in to the Sandra Lee mentality (though I know there are times when it is an absolute necessity), and I decided to experiment with some truly, from-scratch recipes to see if I could make a strawberry cake that was homemade (and delicious) without resorting to any strange gelatin packages or overly processed preserves.

I saw a suggestion on some web discussion board (probably Chowhound) to use another dense fruit cake recipe and substitute strawberries for the original fruit. With that in mind, I dove head first into a classic Paula Deen recipe for Hummingbird Cake, which is traditionally made with mashed bananas and pineapple. I switched the bananas and the pineapple for pureed strawberries, left out the chopped nuts completely, and substituted lemon zest for the cinnamon. I’m convinced that it would have been an outstanding success on the first try if I hadn’t first suffered through the Great Flour Debacle.

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