Penguin Cupcakes

"What's ready-to-roll icing? Is that like frosting?" Shireen asked, studying the list of ingredients.

"No, it's not. It's fondant, actually," replied Selyse.

"Ohhhh … fondant, I know what that is. I saw it on Cake Boss."

Selyse raised her eyebrows. Cake Boss? What kind of shows had Stannis been letting their daughter watch while Selyse was away researching a story for her magazine? "Why were you watching Cake Boss?"

"Dad was watching it, and I thought it looked fun."

Stannis? Stannis was watching a show about cakes? It didn't seem possible, and yet, Shireen would never lie about it.

Shireen noticed her mother's raised eyebrows and exclaimed, "I know! I didn't believe it too, at first. Dad said he was watching it for the 'family dynamics' buuuut –"

"But we both know he actually means family drama."

Shireen laughed. "Exactly!"

Selyse did not remember any bickering brothers on Cake Boss. The star of the show has four sisters, she recalled, and no brother at all. Although, Buddy the Cake Boss sometimes bickered with his two brothers-in-law who also worked at the bakery, so perhaps that was the attraction of the show for Stannis.

"Dad said the cakes were just background noise to him, but … I don't know … he seemed very interested when they were making a dragon cake for a fantasy convention. Dad even said he could do it better, that he could have made a more realistic dragon cake."

"What else did your father say?"

"He said no self-respecting grown man should allow himself to be called Buddy. It would be like if Dad introduced himself to people as Stanny, which he would never ever do, of course. I told him that's really, really mean, Dad. It's not Mr. Valastro's fault his parents named him Buddy."

"His real name is Bartolo," said Selyse. "Buddy is a nickname."

Shireen stared at her mother in amazement. "So you watch Cake Boss too!"

Selyse cleared her throat. "Well, sometimes … when I'm travelling for my job, when I'm alone in a hotel room, missing you and your father, I … yes, I watch … certain shows that … that I don't normally watch at home."

Shireen laughed. "You don't have to sound so guilty, Mom. We should watch Cake Boss together one night, all three of us."

Selyse nodded. "We should try to find an episode where they make a penguin-themed cake."

"It would be a huge cake though, not like the cupcakes we're making. It probably wouldn't be as cute as ours. Mom, can we add extra vanilla to the cake mix?"

"We're not using a cake mix this time."

"Why not?"

"We're going to make cupcakes from scratch."

Shireen was silent for a long while, before asking her mother, "Is this because of what your aunt Melara said when she came to visit us last time? Because she said a good mother will bake a cake from scratch for her family, not from a box?"

Selyse flushed. She looked away to avoid her daughter's gaze as she replied, "No, I just thought we should try something different this time."

All this talk about the supposed "feud" between stay-at-home moms and working moms was bullshit anyway, Selyse had retorted to Melara at the time. Many women had to work outside the home, regardless of their preference, Selyse's mother among them. After her father died in a car accident when Selyse was still in elementary school, her mother worked two jobs – as a waitress at a diner and as a cashier at a grocery store – to support Selyse and her two brothers.

"That's different," Aunt Melara had countered. "Your mother had no other choice. Your father died suddenly, and he didn't leave any savings or life insurance money. Your husband makes a good living, and the kind of man that he is, I bet he has plenty of life insurance policies. You don't have to work. You don't have to leave your daughter at a daycare or with a sitter."

"What if my marriage fails? Or what if Stannis falls ill, couldn't work anymore, and we all lose our health insurance because I don't have a job with benefits? We're comfortable, but we're not rich like you and Uncle Alester," Selyse had said, pointedly.

Aunt Melara had shrugged that aside. "You and your gloomy predictions, Selyse. Your mother should have named you Cassandra."

Selyse's economic arguments were firmly sound, but the truth was, even if she was married to someone as rich as Uncle Alester, she still would want to be an investigative journalist. Her career was not just a source of salary and benefits. It was a vocation. It brought meaning to her life. She loved it.

You love it more than you love your daughter?

It's a different kind of love. But where is it written that if a mother works outside the home, then she is definitely a bad mother who does not love her children? No one would ever assume that about a father. No one would ever dream of prejudging a father in that way.

Her argument was sound, no, more than sound, it was impeccable. But there were still times when she struggled with the feeling of guilt.

Like feeling guilty about being away from home and missing Shireen's first soccer game of the year because she was researching a story, for example. It was a significant and time-sensitive story, about a Congressman who mouthed his support for the #MeToo movement in public, while in private, he had a predilection for sticking his hand up the skirts of his female staffers.

Or feeling guilty about baking cupcakes from a box.

Shireen took out the cupcake mix from the cabinet. "It tastes good from the box too. And you always add extra ingredients, and make the frosting yourself. Let's add extra vanilla, and some lemon juice. Can we, Mom?"

Selyse kissed her daughter. "Of course we can."

While the cupcakes were baking in the oven, they started on the frosting.

"Do you want buttercream frosting, or cream cheese frosting?" Selyse asked.

"Cream cheese!" Shireen shouted.

"We can't smother the cupcakes with too much frosting this time," Selyse said.

"Why not?" Shireen asked, looking disappointed.

"Because the fondant needs to go on top of the frosting, so we can make the penguin design. Let's make the cream cheese frosting first."

"Where's the piping bag, Mom?" asked Shireen, her voice muffled by the frosting-smeared finger she had stuck in her mouth.

"We don't have to pipe the frosting. We just have to spread it over the cupcakes. You know why?"

"Because the frosting will be covered by the fondant?"

Selyse nodded.

"They're ready for the frosting," Shireen said, after checking the cupcakes cooling on the rack.

Two different layers of fondant were required, black and white. "Can you find the cookie cutters in the drawer?"

"Which shapes?"

"The round one. And the heart-shaped one."

Shireen stared at her mother skeptically. "Heart-shaped? Are you sure, Mom? We're not making cupcakes for Valentine's Day."

"Trust me, it will work. I'll cut the black fondant, with the round cookie cutter. And you can cut the white fondant, with the heart-shaped cookie cutter."

Selyse placed the round black fondant on top of an already frosted cupcake. "Now you can put the white heart over the black fondant," she told Shireen.

"Doesn't it need some kind of glue or something?"

"Just a little water would work."

Shireen stared at the cupcake with the two layers of fondant. "Hmm. It doesn't really look like a penguin."

"We're not done yet. The penguin needs eyes, and beak, and what else?"

"Feet! Happy feet!"

The penguin's eyes were made of tiny balls of black fondant. "Let's not use black fondant for the beak and feet," Shireen suggested.

"What color do you want to use?"

"Different colors for different penguins?"

"We only have orange, pink and blue fondant left."

"Some of the penguins can have orange beaks and feet, some of them can have pink beaks and feet, and some can have blue beaks and feet."

"What about the extra decorations? Which color fondant should we use?"

"Extra decorations?"

"You don't want just a plain penguin, do you? They could wear a hat, or a scarf, or a bow."

"Or antlers," Shireen said.

"Antlers? Why antlers?"

"Remember when I convinced Dad to build a snow penguin with me before Christmas?"

Selyse nodded.

"I wanted to put antlers on the snow penguin, to make it look more festive, buuuut …"

"Let me guess, he said it's not realistic for a penguin to have antlers?"

Shireen nodded. "He said it's a snow penguin, not Santa's reindeer. Dad agreed to put a Merry Christmas scarf on the snow penguin to make up for it, even though he can't stand that red-and-green color combo usually."

"We should decorate his cupcake with a scarf that says NITPICKER."