I insist on baking a cake for each of the birthdays in our household. I usually make something in the banana bread genre for Zoey, something ridiculously chocolate for myself, and carrot cake for Chris. With Chris’s birthday coming up, I was all set to try out a new carrot cake recipe when I realized we would be spending his special day camping and it would be quite a feat to get his usual multi-tiered, cream cheese frosted birthday confection from our house to the campsite in one piece. I suppose I could have taken the easy way out and served his birthday cake the night before his actual birthday, but that’s just not my style (i.e., I like to make things more difficult than they need to be). Instead, I drew some inspiration from birthdays past (way past) for the most easily portable and shareable birthday cake of all – the cupcake! (more…)