a lemon's a terrible thing to waste

Yesterday, as it was our turn to bring dessert to book club – yes, that’s what I said, book club – and Erin was eager to use up the seventeen pounds of lemons she had been hording in her fridge for various reasons unknown to the universe, we decided to dust off the old hairnets and do us some baking.

Originally, we were ambitious. Erin found this Lemon Cheesecake with Shortbread Cookie Crust recipe and we could already hear the accolades pouring in.

Until we realized that cheesecake is kind of hard to make. Also, time consuming. And since I wasn’t sure how much leisurely baking I’d be able to squeeze in between BOTH of the errands I had to run yesterday afternoon, we decided to go with these delicious, if minorly-muffinesque Orange-Chocolate Chip Cupcakes with Chocolate Frosting.

Now, the first question you are surely asking yourselves is:

“Just what is the difference between a muffin and a cupcake, anyway?”

No? That’s not the first question you’re asking? Well, maybe that’s because you already know the answer, and maybe, instead of being so smug and keeping all of that crucial culinary expertise to yourself, you could share the answer with the rest of us.

Because after comparing and contrasting countless recipes of both the cupcake and muffin variety…we still have no idea.

The SECOND question you are surely asking yourselves is:

“But what of all those lemons?”

(I know this because I understand what close and careful readers you all are. Nothing but nothing gets by you.)

Fear not. Because in addition to the rich, scrumptious chocolate frosting we whipped up, we decided to add a batch of, you guessed it, lemon frosting to the mix.

I know. True pioneers.

Now, it’s true that we only ended up using one and a half of the ten thousand lemons at our disposable.

Also true is the possibility that, had we been better “planners,” or maybe a bit more “creative,” we might have thought to substitute the orange zest in the cupcakes for lemon zest, thereby keeping these cupcakes in a single-citrus situation.

But sometimes you’ve just gotta trust your instincts. And yesterday, our instincts said:

"When life gives you lemons, only use a few of them, because who likes lemons that much any way?”

And it’s hard to believe, since our instincts have failed us so cleverly in the past -- like the time we decided the easiest way to make a quesadilla was obviously to pile some raw chicken between two gigantic tortillas in a pan, fry ‘em up for a minute or two, shimmy a spatula under there and pray for partial-accuracy –

But this time, muffins and mixed citrus madness aside, this time we did okay.


**WARNING**

Consumption of these cupcakes in mass quantities might lead a person to behave in ways other than she normally does, perhaps doing foolish things like letting the dog out at midnight in the middle of snow storm, especially when said dog is a WANDERING LUNATIC and decides to spend ALL NIGHT LONG chasing poor, defenseless bunny rabbits from here to the mainland.

So you can imagine, after a night of not-sleeping on the couch, how relieved/FURIOUS I was to find this goon, sheepishly prancing along the side of the road at 6:45 this morning: