Parking Lot Cupcakes

Ah, Parking Lot Cupcakes…my poor husband. He hates Parking Lot Cupcakes. Apparently they’re a fan favorite around here, though I’m not 100% sure if it’s because of the story or because people actually like them.

It all happened one night in January. I was driving home from work at Verizon on a Thursday, humming away to whatever was on my radio, turning over my evening in my head when I had the oh shit moments of all oh shit moments. The following day we were supposed to attend a birthday party for one of our friends. Not just any one of our friends, but one of our friends in the group that has become accustomed to a certain way of birthdays and events involving homemade cupcakes.

If I failed to bring cupcakes there would be rioting.

So there I was, almost 8 pm at night when I like to go to bed by 8:30, nine at the latest…facing cupcake-astrophe. The horror.

So I stayed up late baking stupid white cake cupcakes with blackberry frosting. I had cupcake batter for dinner, frosting for dessert and was up in the middle of the night reliving it because apparently that much sugar on an empty stomach is not what you want in life.

The next night, I rush home, having texted my husband an hour prior with an urgent “Don’t forget!” that he failed to respond to. When I got home, the house was dark, we were supposed to have been at the party 30 minutes prior and my husband was fast asleep.

“We have to be at Kiana’s birthday ten minutes ago!” I shouted, shucking off my work clothes and rushing into jeans and a top.

“No we don’t!” he hollered muzzily back as he has a tendency to do when I rudely awaken him from his nap du jour. The man never agrees with me when he’s being woken up. He is always stubbornly 100% sure that I am wrong and am waking him up because I am an evil, evil woman who does not want her husband to sleep.

I finally haul his ass out of bed, get him dressed, shove the container of cupcakes in his hands and herd him to the car where we rush off to the birthday party.

So I’m already grumpy and pissed off.

We pull into the parking lot and he’s still only half-responsive and argumentative. He opens the door and steps a foot out the door, swinging the container of cupcakes with him, and the entire bottom of the container comes undone sending two dozen angsty cupcakes tumbling to the parking lot.

Are you seeing where the name comes from now?

He sat there, half in and half out of the car, frosting and cupcake carnage everywhere just stuttering. I of course, being pissed off already, start yelling at him to freaking catch the ones that haven’t fallen and rescue them.

We saved six. Two from the floorboards of the car (“They can eat a couple rocks and some hair, whatever, they’re fine,” I growled.) and one that had stuck to the lid on the inside and three that had fortuitously not hit the ground quite yet. I snatched the recovered cupcakes from my husband’s hands and stormed into the restaurant.

My friend Amy’s husband, Cory, saw my face and that Tyler was trailing behind me (by a good five minutes…the adorable man tried to clean up the carcasses), and instantly started cracking jokes. And then I told the story and the room hushed in horror. Poor husband came in looking like he was a puppy I had just beaten with a newspaper. Luckily, now we can laugh about it…sort of. It still hurts a little bit.

Weirdly enough, these cupcakes seem to be everyone’s favorites.

Parking Lot Cupcakes

Ingredients

3 c all-purpose flour

2 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

2/3 c unsalted butter, softened

1 3/4 c sugar

2 eggs

1 1/4 c milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt together in a medium bowl.
2. In a separate, larger bowl, cream the butter. Gradually add the sugar, creaming until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, and beat well after each addition.
3. In a small bowl, combine the milk and vanilla.
4. To the butter mixture, add about 1/4 of the flour mixture and mix well. Add about one quarter of the milk mixture and mix well. Continue alternating the flour mixture and milk mitxture, beating after each addition until smooth.
5. Pour batter into cupcake tins, bake for 15 to 20 minutes until cake springs back when touched. Remove from oven and let cool for about 10 minutes, then turn the cupcakes out of the tins and onto a rack to finish cooling completely.

For the frosting
I used the recipe from Annie's Eats found here: 

http://www.annies-eats.com/2012/07/30/cupcake-basics-whipped-vanilla-buttercream/?cook_view=7469

Before adding sugar, add 3 tbsp jam flavor of your choice and the vanilla. Blend until smooth and then proceed with recipe.

Ciao,

kc