26 Cupcackes later

I have a few observations after 26 cupcakes, nothing earth shattering, but things I've noticed

• Cupcakes make people happy. Free food in an office always pleases, seeing cupcakes in action is nice. More than a few people have told me they look forward to Mondays because of cupcakes. One person even admitted to working a day off around cupcakes.

• On a good day, I know a lot about my co-workers quirks. Bring foodstuff into the picture and it opens a whole new can of worms. Maybe teetering on TMI.

• I like and dislike every cupcake I make. Most cupcakes have at least one "new to me" ingredient or combination of ingredients. I'm curious to see how they react and taste together. I'm a very harsh critic, perfection does not come easily. I'd like to revisit most recipes, tweak them a little, but I also want to keep trying new cupcakes. I've got a huge growing list and have only gotten to a few. Maybe in fall I'll come back to some of my favorites.

• I miss baking other things, especially cookies and brownies. My day job gets in the way during the week, weekends turn into cupcake centric gigs.

• Vanilla is more popular than chocolate, a very sad surprise for me.

• Every holiday is easily tied to food, drink or both. Its incredibly easy to tie in a cupcake too. Not all of them work.

• Flavors evoke strong memories, things I have not thought about in years.

• I'm tracking butter, sugar and flour prices like a stock broker tracks the Dow Jones.

• I don't usually eat a whole cupcake. For me its the creative process, I taste every cupcake, just a bite and I'm done. Same with cooking, I could spend the day making an elaborate meal, happily walk away and go out to dinner.

• A batch of 24 cupcakes from start to finish takes 3 hours. This does not include recipe research, ingredient gathering and changing my mind several times.

• Because I'm baking regularly and I'm messy I have to mop the kitchen floor every week. In my defense my floor is black old school linoleum and shows every speck of flour. I'm also trying to stay on top of the fine mist of powdered sugar which settles on pretty much everything in the kitchen.