King Cake Cupcake Catalyst
When you don’t feel well, you can only dream about food
The past two weeks have been challenging. While I was still thinking about food, eating was not a priority. We’ve been sick. John came down with Covid, and the next day, I moved over to Rose’s house, two miles away, to help care for Kirk and Iris while Stephen worked in SoCal. John could then have the run of our house and not be sequestered upstairs watching the snow fall and the small jets zoom onto the tarmac at the Air Park that separates our two abodes.
The first few days were fun. Iris had fun dressing up in her birthday princess outfit, and Kirk and I enjoyed an ice cream lunch in Victor, Idaho, when we went on a mission to pick up a hard drive for Rose, who was chained to her desk with a deadline.
Then things went downhill on the homefront. I started making chicken rice soup the first day I heard Kirk coughing, but that didn’t help. He went to school on Monday, but Tuesday and Wednesday, he deteriorated and was home with us all day, sharing whatever culprit germs he harbored deep in his chest. Iris that she started coughing on Thursday, as Kirk was improving. I was coughing myself by Friday, but Rose did a proactive “cure” of 5 cloves of garlic pressed into a tablespoon of honey with a dusting of cayenne pepper. She seems to have made it through unscathed. John tested negative for Covid by the end of the week and was ready to rejoin the team.
So that’s why there hasn’t been a post in a while. But I am looking forward to next week, with the illnesses gone and Mardi Gras—and le bonne temps—rolling in.
My sister Mary in California, Maryland made some King Cake cupcakes that interested me in the theme, though I need no encouragement to cook the foods of Louisiana—I love them all. But Mary’s photo of the cupcakes for her book club meeting got my juices flowing, and I will try her recipe—though it is too late to order the babies to hide in the cake. I can substitute gummy bears.
Mary used this recipe from a site called The Columbian, an online newspaper from Washington state, based on this recipe from the King Arthur website. She ordered her little plastic babies from Amazon, and got just three and not four score.
Note about the recipe from The Columbian: there is no powdered sugar listed in the frosting ingredients but it takes about 2 cups to make the frosting—at least, that was what was listed in the King Arthur recipe.
I brought my Jambalaya book back from PA when I was home in January, anticipating the holiday. This book lost its cover long ago, some pages are falling out, and there are multiple tabs on favorite recipes—like this one I will make next week (or a version thereof).
We just all have to get well enough to eat again!
Especially this one.
