Red Velvet Cupcakes

"This one, Mom!"

For days, Preschooler D had been dragging out a cupcake cookbook and pointing eagerly toward a picture of a cupcake with white frosting and sprinkles on the top. "Pink ones!"

Jeepers. He's just so cute.

I've always wanted to make a red velvet cake like our southern sisters enjoy and I thought this would be perfect for Valentine's Day. Red velvet cupcakes with white frosting and sprinkles. Everybody's happy. I made a special stop after Bible study on Tuesday night and got cupcake liners, sprinkles and the requisite bottle of red food coloring. And so, D and I started our project yesterday.

Now, yesterday was one of those days where it does not pay to get out of bed. You know when the dog eats the wooden toggles off your new snow boots and then pees in Colin's room. The kind of day where you spill an entire container of soy milk left over from s'son's visit this weekend in the refrigerator. A day when Chief Babysitter "Andy" calls at 8 a.m. "I need a letter of recommendation by two o'clock!"

It was just the kind of day I like to bake. When you don't seem to have control of anything, you take a little flour, a little sugar and a few chocolate chips and it's all good.

D put the papers in the cupcake pan. I started mixing. D thought he would break the eggs. I wrestled them from him. Then I dropped the mostly empty bottle of food coloring down the side of my cupboard and onto the floor. There is now a decorative stripe of red on my cupboard. We got it all mixed up and I said to D, "Would you like to lick the beaters?!"

"No. That looks yucky," and he turned on his little heel and left.

But we made these for you.

I got them in the oven. I don't think my oven is heating right and so towards the end of their baking time I wanted to turn the pans around.

And that's when I hit the top heating element with my hand . . . which started to smoke. My hand. My hand started to smoke, not the heating element.

After some Girl Scout first aid on myself, I managed to get the cupcakes frosted with peppermint cream cheese frosting. Colin came in. "Do you want a cupcake?" I asked my beloved first born.

"Is that peppermint? I don't like peppermint."

And that is how I got a second degree burn on my hand making beautiful red velvet cupcakes with mini chocolate chips, white frosting and sprinkles . . . which my children won't eat.