Birthday Cupcakes Made Special

You could always buy Sprinkles cupcakes if they don’t turn out, but that would cost a fortune. So follow the directions carefully. Do realize, however, that two boxes of non-GMO cake mix, organic butter, powdered sugar and unbleached cupcake wrappers are also not cheap. Then there’s your time. But if you haven’t learned to devalue that in favor of trying to make your kid feel loved, you have already stopped reading and are making your way through the line at Sprinkles. 

The other point of not doing store-bought, besides the love and the quality ingredients, is upping the ante with personalization. So add fair trade chocolate chips to the list and dig around in the back of the corner cabinet to find the silicone LEGO brick mold you bought at the LEGOLAND gift shop nine months ago, envisioning little chocolate bricks as the perfect topper for these cupcakes. 

If you tweak your back crouching and reaching at the same time to grab the mold, one of those lavender hot/cold packs will help, after 60 seconds in the microwave. Wrap in a towel and apply to injured area for half an hour.

You will have done this plus melted the chocolate the day before, because after you pour the molds, they need to be frozen for 30 minutes before you remove them. You have one mold that makes six bricks. There are 31 students.

Be sure to prepare a proper travel container for your treats. If you think ahead, send an email to the neighborhood group list, to see whether you can borrow that cupcake holder that is going around. If not, or you don’t get a response, you can cut a couple of wine boxes down low and line them with tinfoil. Be sure to cut away from yourself while using the box cutter, as the recipe does not allow time for a trip to the ER.

At LEGOLAND, the birthday boy, who is now seven, but was then six, rode the Coastersaurus with you and said, “That was funner than the big kids’ slide at the park!” and smiled making his cheeks bunch so tight that it gave you a light punch in the stomach, a rare sign that your parenting was not all bad, as you often feared. 

Follow the directions on the box (this recipe forgot to mention the milk earlier, but surely you have some in the fridge, or else you can borrow some from the nice neighbor). The directions for frosting should be on the bag of powdered sugar, or else you can Google them. Just don’t get distracted on Google, because time might be getting tight. Use your time while the cupcakes cool to gather your chocolate bricks and prepare the containers. 

Once the cupcakes are frosted (it’s fine to use the frosting to glue any broken bricks in place on top—the chocolate will taste the same), put the most attractive ones in the container first, and take a photo for Insta. You won’t get to see your kid’s smile as the cupcakes are passed out, since you have to leave them with the receptionist. 

Later, after he comes home from school, he will report simply that they were “fine.” But the teacher emailed you a photo of him with those bunched cheeks biting into the cupcake, so when you do go to Sprinkles next year, you have proof that you did this.