Food Porn: I am the worst person to smell your milk

Today I attempted to make a single cupcake, (loosely) based on a recipe I found here. This is a great option if you’re addicted to sugar, like me, or you have limited self-control when it comes to dessert, also like me.

The beer isn’t a listed ingredient, but it’s “my little helper”. Also, it was brewed by my boyfriend, The BrewMeister!

It was a vanilla cupcake, so I probably should have made sure I had vanilla extract BEFORE I started (I did not.) Because I learned to cook and bake from my über-creative mother who rarely follows a recipe, substitutions ran rampant in this experiment.

- I didn’t read the recipe beforehand to get a head start
on softening the butter, so I did that in a bowl on top of the toaster oven while it heated up

- Yes—I cooked it in a toaster oven (to save energy)

- Didn’t have almond milk, so I used regular milk. I had my boyfriend smell it because I don’t drink milk, so I’m horrible at deciding whether or not it has spoiled. Don’t ask me to smell your milk.

- Didn’t have vanilla extract, so I used vanilla…yogurt

- I second-guessed my measurements on the baking powder, so I may (or may not) have over-corrected.

In spite of all these "choices", the cupcake turned out deliciously, and the perfect portion size for someone trying to curb their sugar addiction. The yogurt made it dense, like this wonderful yogurt cake one of our French exchange students made for us in high school, [drool]. The batter made slightly more than 1 cupcake (maybe 2 if you fill each one 2/3 of the way), so it spread out on the top and made this delightfully lumpy shape.