Cupcake in a jar. The only way to fly.

Even if they won’t let you on a plane with one.  Thanks to Rebecca Hains who tried to take a Wicked Good cupcake (from Wicked Good Cupcakes, a Boston area cupcake bakery) on a plane and was stopped by the TSA, I am now a part of the this cupcake-in-a-jar craze.  I never knew.

Being the good former newshound, I saw “Cupcakegate” on my Google page and was intrigued.  Didn’t care so much about the TSA’s stand or the ensuing argument, but boy, was I interested in cupcake in a jar.  What was this all about?

It’s all over the internet.  There were ideas and recipes and pictures and blogs and more ideas.  I had to jump in.  So I started to amass materials.  Turns out there’s the Mason jar debate.  What size?  Quilted or plain?  Did I need a dozen?  Who has the best price and do I want to brave the craziness there.  I went to my mother’s cupboard and found several jars of varying sizes.  Perfect since I could try them out and who needs 12 anyway?

My daughter Shannon and I dedicated Sunday afternoon to cupcaking.  (She has this crazy idea that I can make something worth looking at and we should start a cupcake bakery ourselves.)  Anyway, I got cake mix, two kinds of frosting – one for filling and another for frosting.  I wasn’t going for the fully homemade rigmarole until we decided this is a go.   We got out bags, tips, made labels, cut fabric to tie the spoon on.  The whole shebang!  We made cupcakes, red velvet.  We were advised not to use the cupcake papers because they left lines on the sides.  After considering scraping the cupcakes out of the pans, we decided lines add character. 

We made cupcakes, peeled off the papers, sliced them in half.  Dropped one in the smaller jar.  Fit perfectly.  Hooray.  Dropped one in the bigger jar.  Jar too big.  Cupcake rattled around.  Hmm.  Manning the icing bag, Shannon piped in the cream cheese frosting we were using for filling.  I put in another cupcake bottom.  More filling.  A cupcake top.  A buttercream frosting swirl.  We repeated the process until we filled the six jars I had scrounged.  Four were precious.  Two, not so much.  We did the only thing good bakers would do…ate the evidence. 

And was it delicious!  And neat, too.  No cupcake paper to dispose of.  By the way, you eat a cupcake in a jar with a spoon.  And it has a top in case you can’t eat it all.  (No danger of that!)

We’re now fans of cupcakes-in-a-jar.  They’re cute, they’re tidy, they’re fun.  And the only way to go.  Just not on a plane.

Look out! It's me in the red Mustang!

WARNING:  I’m going to rant.  I know.  I’m an English teacher and writing should be cohesive, circular, coherent.  But I’m going to rant.

Some people think they’re all that.  OK.  They can.  But then, some of them think they are all that in a motor vehicle.  That is not so OK.  And they all drive big, white SUVs.  No, not everyone who drives a white SUV falls into this category.  But in my experience the aforementioned “people who think they’re all that” (colloquially referred to as PWTTAT) do.  The big ones…Excursion, Expedition, Suburban, Denali, Tahoe, Yukon, Armada…the list is extensive.

I drive a little red convertible Mustang.  We don’t threaten anybody, except maybe a VW bug.  Even so, I can keep out of the way of these mammoth machines.  But when it comes to one of my grandchildren, all bets are off.  When the driver, invariably in a hat, zooms in and around us in the little cars to get the prime spot, in the parking lot or on the interstate, it starts me off on a tirade.  People who know me fear the tirade.  It doesn’t stop.

My son is a cop.  He was previously a paramedic.  He is used to driving emergency vehicles in the way that such vehicles are driven, aggressively.  He also drives his truck that way.  He knows how.  I used to have a truck.  A big, green Nissan Titan.  I loved it, but I couldn’t back it up worth a darn and had trouble parking it.  This Mustang isn’t great at toting stuff, but it turns on a dime.  I digress.

PWTTAT zooms in the school zone at more than the recommended 20 mph.  PWTTAT backs up like it was the red Mustang.  (There is a black Hummer that also fits this description).  What are these people thinking????  Children are here.  Children dart in and out of cars.  Children are small and sometimes not easily seen.  Children escape from the parent’s grip.  Children are precious, even when they are not my grandchildren.  And what are you doing here, PWTTAT?  You’re picking up your children.   They are precious too. 

So slow down and quit driving your big, white faux cop car/ambulance.  You’re a parent.  You might have places to be, but they are not as important as your children or my grandchild.

And a red Mustang is way cooler anyway.