I Made Cupcakes from a Box. It Was Really Hard.

In general, I like to think of myself as a somewhat experienced home baker. My baking repertoire over the years includes, among other things: croissants, macarons, competition-winning cookies, and office-famous banana muffins (Nice muffins, Megan #iykyk).

Turns out, there’s a caveat to that title. I learned this week that I am a somewhat experienced American home baker. Plop me anywhere else in the world and I instantly become a complete novice. How do I know this, you ask?

The Task

I set out the other day to make possibly the easiest home baked good of all time, barring maybe slice and bake cookies. It was Handyman’s birthday and I was throwing a small party, so I thought I would whip up some cupcakes to celebrate. Now, I just moved to Ireland less than a week ago so I was not equipped to do anything fancy – just classic Funfetti boxed cake mix and canned frosting. Yes dear readers, canned frosting, not even homemade. As a Somewhat Experienced Home Baker, I thought this was going to be a piece of cake (pun 100% intended).

My fatal flaw, my Achilles’ heel one may say, was underestimating literally every part of the European baking process. It started with the oven. This year I am living in the cutest little converted horse stable on the grounds of a castle in the Irish countryside. Aesthetically it’s a travel blogger’s dream. Functionally, it’s about what you would expect from a converted horse stable in the Irish countryside.

The Oven

The oven had three unmarked buttons paired with two unmarked knobs and a little screen with what I could only assume was a clock. Cool.

Upon closer inspection it looked like at one time there were markings on the knobs, but they had worn off over time. After lots of clicking, I deduced the only function of the buttons was to set the time on the little clock. I moved to the knobs.

One looked faintly like it could be a temperature gauge, so I turned it up to see what would happen. After about 15 minutes it was determined that absolutely nothing happened. Then I moved to the next knob. Still nothing. I don’t know what I did from there, but after a combination of turning both the knobs to various positions I got a light on in the oven, a fan going, and heat!

Despite the fact that I had no clue what temperature I was setting the oven to, I was pumped. I moved on to making the batter.

The Batter

I soon realized some quick maths were going to be involved in this process as all the measurements were in metric volumes. I, and engineer, put my thinking cap on for about 5 seconds and then promptly pulled out my phone and googled the conversions. All of this would have been fine and dandy except I realized I did not have a liquid measuring cup. I then had to convert the mL to cups and estimate how far to fill up a dry measuring cup to reach the equivalent of 0.38 cups. All very scientific stuff.

This, while not ideal, was manageable until I got to adding the vegetable oil. I had just bought a brand-new bottle from Tesco and I kid you not, I stared at that thing for a good 5 minutes before even attempting to open it. Then I spent another 5 minutes trying (and failing) to actually open it.

At this point I needed to take my jacket off because my kitchen was sweltering from the oven I probably accidentally turned up to at least 450 degrees (F).

Humbled (and sweaty), I once again pulled out my handy dandy phone and googled “how to open a Tesco vegetable oil bottle.” My ego was slightly comforted by the fact that I was not the only one to have this question, and I finally got the little stinker open and into my mix.

The Oven (again)

At long last, my cupcakes were ready to go in the oven. Having no idea how hot the oven was other than that it had converted my kitchen into the Sahara desert, I had no concept of how long to bake them. There I sat for the next 15 minutes, watching my little babies rise in their tins, perspiration dotting my eyebrows.

The cupcakes may have been a little golden brown when they were finally pulled from the oven (like how I pretend to be after a day in the sun), but the important thing is that they were not burned (like how I actually am after a day in the sun).

The Final Product

After waiting to cool I had to spread, not pipe, my (*sigh*) canned frosting on my slightly overdone cupcakes. Finally, at long last, I had a finished product.

I like to think that you can walk away from every challenge you face in life with a lesson learned. My lesson learned tonight is that I will not be on the Great British Baking Show any time soon.

The End.