"Santana, I made cupcakes for you," Brittany told her. She held a wrapped box in her hands. Technically, they were baking cupcakes for the Glee fundraiser, but she had wanted to make some for Santana first, as long as she was making cupcakes.
"Oh... thanks." She was a little worried as she took the box; she wasn't sure how confident she should be in Brittany's cooking skills. Had Brittany ever baked before?
"They're a little burned, but I hope they're okay." She looked at Santana hopefully.
Santana knew she was waiting for her to eat one. 'Well, here goes nothing...' She opened the box. The cupcakes were piled on top of each other like one might do with a tin of cookies, and they had massive amounts of frosting on top. She knew Brittany had a sweet tooth, but admittedly Santana could have stood a little bit less. She picked on up, getting frosting on her hands from the bottom, caused by it being right on top of another cupcake with tons of frosting. Cautiously, she pulled back a little bit of the paper wrapper and took a bite.
It was terrible. She wanted to spit it out. But Brittany was looking at her hopefully, and she just couldn't do it. She forced herself to smile.
"How is it?" Brittany asked excitedly.
"It's... great, Brit," she lied. She knew Brittany had tried her best. "In fact, they're so good, I think I should save them for later... so I don't eat them all at once."
Brittany seemed to believe it, seeming proud. She giggled.
"What recipe did you use?" she asked, hoping to figure out what exactly she had just eaten. It was probably too much to hope that Brittany would have just bought a box of cake mix...
"The home ec. lady gave me a recipe for chocolate cupcakes."
She decided to be grateful Brittany hadn't tried to find a recipe on the internet and ended up making something that wasn't supposed to be cupcakes at all.
"The recipe was a little bit confusing, but I figured it out," she said with pride.
"How was it confusing?" she prompted, still trying to get to the bottom of the contents of the 'cupcakes.'
"Well..." She began to tell the story of how she made the cupcakes.
-flashback-
Brittany stood in the kitchen, a recipe and a bowl in front of her. She read the list of ingredients and, without first reading the instructions (which were listed below the ingredients list), put them into the bowl.
The first was 2 cups of all-purpose flour. She was aware of the difference between flour and flowers, thankfully. She took two cups from the cabinet and filled them with flour. She then sat them in the bowl.
Next was 2 cups of sugar. She was able to do that, although once again filling two regular cups and sitting the cups full of sugar in the bowl. However, she had used confectioner's sugar instead of granulated.
1/2 a teaspoon of baking powder. What was baking powder? She looked through the cabinet. Fortunately, there was a tin labeled 'baking powder.' She wasn't sure what a teaspoon was, so she used a normal spoon, trying to get half of the spoon. She sat the spoon in the bowl alongside the cups. This process was repeated with salt, but with a whole spoonful as the recipe called for 1 teaspoon of salt.
1 teaspoon of baking soda was the next ingredient. She looked in the refrigerator, but could not find any of this 'baking soda.' She decided normal soda should probably be fine, too, and chose Dr. Pepper - that way it'd be good for Santana's teeth, too! She filled the spoon with it and carefully sat it in the bowl, trying her best not to spill any of it.
'1/2 a cup of shortening...?' She had no idea what that was. She took a short cup and tried to figure out how she could get half of it. She hit it once lightly on the counter, hoping for it to break like an egg. It didn't, and fortunately she gave up on the idea. Instead, she decided to half fill it with water, since water wasn't tall, and you could hardly see it so it was like it wasn't even there, in her opinion.
The next ingredient, however, was water. She decided it already had enough water and lemonade tasted much better, and added a cup 3/4 of the way filled with lemonade instead.
Two large eggs followed on the list. She opened the carton of eggs in the refrigerator. They all looked the same to her, so she went to the store, leaving her cups and spoons in the bowl on the counter.
She went to the store and tried to find large eggs. She saw marshmallow-filled chocolate eggs, which were larger than the regular chicken eggs. When she returned home with them, she tried to crack them, but they didn't break. She put them in the bowl as was anyway.
Next was 3/4 a cup of milk. She was able to manage that.
1 teaspoon of vanilla. She opened the freezer to see if they had any - vanilla ice cream, that is. They only had chocolate. She knew, however, where they did have some vanilla! She opened the drawer where they kept the candles and retrieved a vanilla scented candle. She dug at it with the spoon until she got what she decided was close enough to a spoonful. She put the candle back into the drawer and the spoon into the bowl.
The last ingredient was 4 ounces of melted unsweetened baking chocolate. Unsurprisingly, she didn't really know what that meant, so instead she got four Hershey's bars. She unwrapped them and put them in the bowl, forgetting to melt it. She only then began to read the instructions.
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line cupcake pans with paper liners.
That much she could do.
2. Combine all ingredients into large mixing bowl. Mix at low speed for 30 seconds, and scrape bowl. Mix at high speed for 3 minutes.
She had already put them into the bowl, so she started to try to mix it. But how was Santana supposed to eat those cups and spoons? She could get hurt on the glass! So she took everything out of the cups. She mixed it slowly as she counted to thirty (albeit with some... inventive counting). She scraped the side of the bowl on the side of the counter. Then, she suddenly realized she hadn't melted the chocolate, so she put the entire bowl into the microwave. The chocolate, as well as the candle wax and the marshmallow, all melted. She then stirred it quickly, watching the microwave's clock to know when three minutes had gone by.
3. Fill liners 1/2 to 2/3 full of batter. Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
She put the 'batter' into the cupcake liners in the cupcake pan. Then, she put them into the oven. About five minutes later, however, she began to feel bored of waiting for them to finish baking. She took them out and held a toothpick in the middle of the oven. It came out clean, of course, since there was nothing there. Still, even she could tell they weren't ready yet - they had to be solid so you could bite into them. She turned the heat all the way up and checked them five minutes later. They still didn't seem to be done. She wandered off to talk to Lord Tubbington for a while. About ten minutes later, she returned.
They looked done, she decided... in fact, were they supposed to look like that? She decided she must have left them too long, and they must have burned.
4. Cool 10 minutes in pans then remove from pan, and place on wire racks to cool completely.
5. Frost when cupcakes are completely cool.
Well, her cupcakes were always super cool, she decided, because she was just that cool. Besides, she was a Cheerio. That automatically made her, and therefore her cupcakes, super cool, she decided. She took the cupcakes in their paper liners out and put them on the counter. She then took the chocolate frosting and piled it on the cupcakes. She had always seen cupcakes at a certain height, and she presumed that must be because of the frosting. Hers had not risen due to her unusual substitutions.
When Brittany had finished her story, Santana almost regretted the one bite she had eaten. What if there had been wax in that bite? There was no way that was safe to eat! "Hey, Brit, why don't we bake our cupcakes for Glee club together? I know a faster way to make them."
She seemed impressed. "Really?"
"Yeah. Let's go to the store and get the stuff - I'll show you." She took Brittany to the store, where she got some boxes of cake mix.