Homage to Peanut
As you may or may not know, we (M. LaBee and Lucky Lady) are the godparents (well, we may have decided we were the godparents, not told anyone, and had him baptized on our own time, but who’s counting?) of a little dog called Peanut (you may know him as Chester Arthur Miller). It also turns out we are a guest-bl*gging superteam heretofore known as “Zucchini on Top.” Being that we are superbl*ggers and Peanut’s godparents, we decided to do a guest post in the little man’s honor. We looked high and low and found this charming book,
which had the perfect recipe for our homage to Peanut. So the two of us trotted on down to the farmers market to shop. Most of the ingredients we needed for the PupCakes have a very short growing season, but we managed to find everything we needed:
We started by making the bodies of the PupCakes with a special cake recipe called Betty Crocker Super M@%#t (for those of you who don’t know, for M. Labee and Lucky Lady the word moist is a lot like the word bl*g for our bl*g mistress—disgusting) to which we added eggs, oil, and water. Then, being the hard workers that we are, we mixed the batter by hand instead of using the beaters.
Next we filled the PupCake pan with batter:
Once the PupCakes were safely nestled in the oven, M.LaBee decided he needed to eat the batter that was left in the bowl. “What are you crazy? Have you ever heard of a little thing called Salmonella?" Lucky Lady asked. Apparently the answer was no, because here is what happened next:
Halfway through the baking of the cupcakes, the professional baker on the team (M. LaBee) decided the PupCakes needed to be rotated (who does this?):
The PupCakes came out of the oven in a blaze of glory not unlike the blaze that the Down East Dilletante’s car went up in, except that they weren’t on fire at all, we just wanted to give DED a shout-out and let him know we were thinking of him and his burned-up car.
While the PupCakes were cooling we went about the business of coloring the dough for Peanut’s appendages. This was a long and arduous process that involved lots of Lucky Lady yelling at M. LaBee things like “Hold her down!” and “More! Faster, goddamn it!” and “You are going to have to shake it harder if you want anything to come out.” All of a sudden it seemed like we were making a weird porn instead of dough, but we are a team that really likes to give it all we’ve got:
Then there was the rolling and cutting of said dough:
The end result of the cut-out dough pieces was weird and even a little gross looking, but we promise, it all comes together:
Halfway through the baking of the appendage dough we realized we were out of peanut butter, which we needed for the frosting (Peanut’s coat). So, much to M. LaBee’s delight and Lucky Lady’s horror we had to make a trip to Mac’s Market. It should be said that the village where Lucky Lady lives was without a grocery store for a number of years. Shortly after LL and her mister moved to the village, Mac’s Market opened with the promise of providing groceries. It didn’t, they lied. Lucky Lady thinks it is basically an overgrown convenience store but M. LaBee disagrees and describes this horrible store as “Nirvana” and the “Lady Gaga of grocery stores.”
This is a picture of M.Labee driving Lucky Lady’s car and laughing maniacally about his Mac’s trip windfall:
A hardhat Lucky Lady forced M. Labee to wear in this photo as punishment for being so gleeful about said trip:
Once home again, we focused on the frosting: We had to mix peanut butter with vanilla frosting in order to get the proper shade for Peanut’s coat:
Then we frosted those bitches:
Now, I bet you’re wondering how that is going to become a PupCake. Well, frankly, so were we. A bit of panic ensued, there was some yelling and running around, followed by a dog escaping the house. Once we had the dog safely stowed we put the PupCakes on some white paper to get a clean slate to look at:
Then magically, this happened:
PupCakes! We love you, Peanut!
