It’s never too late to post something, right? It’s been really busy in the Marquis-Sow household. Fatima’s been swamped with work, going about 7 days a week straight, coming back at midnight, and I’ve been swamped with my accounting class. Figures, right? The semester where I’m taking accounting, Fatima is in the trenches of busy season. For throwback Thursday, I’m going to discuss our Super Bowl cupcakes.
For Super Bowl, I made some delicious Seahawks/Broncos themed cupcakes for my coworkers. How hard do you think it was to find blue-green and orange sprinkles? Pretty freaking hard! The baking stores were either closing at 5pm or the only sprinkles in stock were sugar sprinkles. So I caved in and got the sugar sprinkles.
Not only were these Super Bowl cupcakes themed, but they were gluten-free! The first time I baked a dessert without gluten. Usually when I make something for the office, I unintentionally leave out a few people. It either has chocolate, gluten, or I bring in something in the height of beach season and no one wants to touch any of my baked goods. With winter on my side, I thought I’d make something that could include everyone. Also, my g-free coworkers are my biggest cheerleaders, so I had to cater something to them.
I headed down to Key Food, where in my earlier adventures down the baking aisle I noticed a whole wall of gluten-free products. Betty Crocker’s gluten-free cake mix always stuck out on the rack – it was the only “name brand” product on the shelf. So I grabbed the box and looked at the back for the necessary ingredients. Did you know vanilla extract may contain gluten? Did you know McCormick’s vanilla extracts are and have been gluten-free? Did you know frosting was gluten-free? I was on a roll.
Following the directions, I made the batter. Tempted, I tried some of the batter. It was… interesting. It’s texture was very flour-y. Yes that’s contradicting, but it was like if you added extra flour to cake batter. Usually, cake batter is smooth and sweet. This caught me by surprise. Nervous, I continued on with the baking.
Once the cupcakes were baked, I let them sit out to cool. They smelled like cornbread. Hoping the butter cream frosting would help, I frosted them all and covered them in sugar. I mixed up some blue and green sprinkles for Seahawks, and blue and orange for Broncos. The rest of the cupcakes decorated with green sprinkles for the field. Did you know most, if not all Wilton products were gluten-free too? So much learning today!
Fatima got home, around 11:30pm (early night!) and wanted a cupcake. I had a few left over, so I let her have one, not telling her they were gluten-free. She scarfed it down. Fatima is a very picky person. If she doesn’t like something, she won’t eat it – even with preconceived feelings for something she won’t eat it – like guacamole. And don’t get me started with her thoughts on gluten-free. Smirking, I said these are gluten-free. She paused, and said, “Wow!” She said they tasted slightly different, but were good. Success.
I placed the cupcakes on a cookie sheet, lining the outside with the “fans” and set in the field. I made goal posts with leftover wooden dowels from our photo booth escapades. Hanging halfway out my bedroom window, I spray painted them yellow and hot glued them to the cookie sheet.
Voila, Super Bowl cupcakes! Next year, I am going to plan in advance, so I can gather proper sprinkles – not a fan of the sugar ones.
