…and summer days like these are boooring…

New England’s had a rough summer. I came home from college after graduating and all I wanted was a nice, hot couple of months. I mean, let’s be honest here, this is probably the last “free” summer I’ll ever have. But instead of sun, humidity, and 90+ degree days, I got rain and cold and clouds, at least until a few weeks ago. Then summer began. It still didn’t feel like the summers of my youth – all sun and Del’s frozen lemonade and playing in the pool for hours – but I wasn’t going to complain. Girl’s gotta know when to take what she can get, sometimes.

But now it’s raining again and that’s just not cool. So instead of puttering around the yard, walking the doggies, or lounging by the pool with a book, I’m cleaning my room and spending too much time on the internet. Bleh.

But instead of wallowing in weathery despair, I can remember sunny days of yore and let them give me hope for tomorrow! Like last Saturday, the 11th. VeggaSis just graduated from high school, so we had a combined graduation party with all our family and some family friends, and the weather was perfect. I vetoed a cake and decided to make four batches of cupcakes instead. I made a dozen each of the plain chocolate and golden vanilla cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. Then I let VeggaSis choose another kind – she chose S’mores – and decided on Mucho Margarita as the final dozen.

Man alive, but these came out FANTASTIC. I couldn’t find the huge multicolored large sugar crystals the gals recommend for the Mucho Margarita cupcakes’ “rims,” so I just used pink instead. I loved these – the flavor was delicate yet delightfully lime-y, and the icing had just a hint of tequila. I didn’t add as much liquid as the icing recipe suggests, because it was already pretty runny by that point. I think they came out just dandy.

Yeah? Yeah. And the S’mores cupcakes looked even cuter. I know the rest of you churn out gorgeously decorated cupcakes like the OctoMom pops out babies, but this was my first time using anything other than a butter knife to frost my cupcakes and I was proud. I should give credit to VeggaSis for the graham cracker crumbs and Hershey piece decorations, since she did that at my request. The cupcakes themselves had phenomenal flavor, rich and malty and delicious. I’ll definitely make these again on their own.

Scrumptious, yeah? The compliments I received on these made all the little squabbles VeggaSis and I had during the baking process totally worth it.

But don’t worry – the plain ol’ vanilla and chocolate cuppies weren’t neglected! VeggaMom and VeggaDad were in charge of the decorations for these suckers, and since VeggaMom was foiled in her plan to get cakes with VeggaSis’s and my photos on them (no joke!), they decided to personalize the plain cupcakes in their own way. Here’s the whole spread.

Cute or crazy? You decide! :P

And, last but not least (unless you like cupcakes better than people, which would be totally fair!), here’s a photo of VeggaSis and me at the big par-tay. We don’t look particularly alike in this photo, but for some reason people always confuse us/think we’re twins/think she’s older than me (GRRR), so we made shirts to clarify things. ;) Oh, I’m the one on the right, with the blue shirt – and yes, I know that my little sister is taller than I am!

Right – off to do some yoga. Ciao!