Holy Big Top Cupcake!

During the Christmas season when the commercials were pushing the enormous cupcake pan, Gage wanted one sooo badly. When I watched the commercials I just saw a cupcake that was big enough, therefore somewhat gross enough, to make me not want to eat cake anymore. But... as Grandma Bailey knew of her grandson's wants and wishes, she pulled through for him and bought him one of these things. She, of course, found one for $10 in some magazine, versus the $20 TV version. In her mind, how can she refuse such a deal?

Yesterday, Gage and I decided to make our first Big Top Cupcake for Valentine's Day. I'm suspecting that maybe the $20 model came with some sort of instruction guide as the $10 model did not. But, as with most of my cooking (especially because of Gage's allergies), I knew I could wing it-- who needs directions to bake a Betty Crocker cake?? The immediate answer to that is me.

For starters, this thing is as big as your two biggest mixing bowls; I don't know why I thought I could get away with mixing up just one cake mix. But like a lot of things in life, I thought I could just make up my own rules and it would all work out in the end. (By the way, this has not been the winter for starting a diet-- between all the holidays, all the birthdays, and all the snow, I've done nothing but upset myself at my shortcomings.) Anyway, I filled up each side evenly with the cake batter that we had. I put a cup of pudding in the batter as the box suggested to create "a more moist cake." Later, I realized I didn't know if they meant a cup of made pudding, or a cup of powdered pudding. But anyway, we used made-pudding that we whipped up the night before because I wanted to stuff the innards of this thing with JoAd's pudding. (Our $10 model didn't come equipped with the gizmo that leaves room for pudding or other filling, which I didn't know until the last minute.)

The end result-- a cake so moist it fell right apart (not necessarily a bad thing for eating, not necessarily a good thing for creating a true Big Top Cupcake), two halves that by no shape or form matched up in any way to create a Big Top, and a boy who became disinterested after he got to lick the beaters and eat the cake half that fell apart. We'll try again for St. Patrick's Day---and another lesson to teach us that sometimes it's best to buy the Cadillac even if the Festiva will get you to Point A to Point B, too.