Cupcake Wars and Paladar

When we heard the results of the class cupcake war, I was surprised to hear that our cupcakes received second place. My assumption was that we’d wind up pretty low in the standings. The presentation was good, but when I tried them, I was not as pleased with the results as I thought I would be. We made two cupcakes that were delicious in theory and while they both ended up tasting pretty good, I had higher expectations. Our recipes were a brownie cupcake with peanut butter frosting, and the recipe we created was a chocolate and vanilla swirl cupcake with a chocolate cupcake. Our brownie-peanut butter cupcakes were my favorite of the two. I thought everything was done right and that they came out well. The only thing I would change was that the brownie was a little too hard. It was a little tough to bite into and despite being told that the brownie would be denser than the regular cake batter, I think the entire group thought they would be a little softer to bite into. In our other brownies, I take full credit as to why they weren’t as great. I completely messed up the frosting. Instead of using the confectioner’s sugar as I should have, I went and got granulated sugar. As a result, the frosting turned out a little gritty. Without a doubt I will have this memory in mind to learn from it the next time I go to make frosting. However, even though I had a lot of doubts about our finished product, I was relieved and surprised to hear that they placed second for the class. While I normally bring my own lunch to school, I couldn’t pass up on a chance to join Paladar. As I expected, on my first day eating from it, the food was delicious. The menu had so many delicious-sounding choices, but I could only pick one and went with the buffalo chicken mac ‘n cheese. I have never had anything like it before and it was fantastic. The cheese sauce of the macaroni was mixed with the spicy buffalo sauce giving everything a delicious taste. As I ate, I was disappointed to see the cup’s contents slowly lower. It was a great lunch and a delightful change of pace from my usual bag lunch. Now, I can’t wait until the next chance I get to purchase another great meal from Paladar. Wesley M.