A Birthday and a Cupcake / Un Anniversaire et un Cupcake

No, I haven’t forgotten about my blog nor about you, my friends. My duties of a mother had me spending more time with my little girl than in front of my lap top screen. Wednesday was my daughter’s first birthday. I still can’t believe that she is already a year old. I was getting used to telling her age by the months.
“How old is she?” “She is 10 months old”
My little girl is getting bigger.
All this week I was trying to picture how her birthday would be like. I knew I would make some sort of a cupcake. I spent days looking for the perfect cupcake recipe. A zucchini chocolate cupcake sounded like a “baby friendly” cupcake. Everything had to be perfect for my little angel. I smiled thinking about how she would try to blow off her first candle. How she would look cute in her first princess dress. How she would destroy her cupcake. How she would pinch the cream cheese frosting between her thumb and index and then slowly bringing it into her mouth. Her father and I would be laughing at how she would make a big mess of her self while keeping the camera rolling. I would struggle the following day scrubbing the cream off of my carpet. But it was all worth it, I would tell my self. It was my little sunshine first birthday.
The D-day came. My little girl was so pretty in her yellow princess dress. She barely allowed me to comb her hair, but still it was fine. I like it when it’s curly and messy anyway. She was excited when she saw the balloons, the ribbons and the garland on the walls. She set in her high chair and waited for mommy to bring the dessert. What she didn’t know is that it was a special dessert. Mommy is going to allow her to eat her cupcake and make a big mess as much as she wants to. By the time I brought the cupcake and lighted the candle, She was starting to get a bit sleepy, scratching her eyes and her hair. We sang Happy birthday in three languages to wake her up. She wanted to grab the candle, still lighted, between her hands but my husbands blew it off before she can hurt her self. We tried to make her, at least, have a bite of her birthday cupcake, but all she wanted to do was sleeping. We managed to take some pictures. She finally took a bite of the cream cheese frosting. She laughed every time she would pinch some frosting and bringing it into her mouth. Obviously, she was very excited about it. We tried to keep her awake as much as we could but she was too tired. A quick run to the bedroom to bring her presents before she goes to bed, I told my husband. The next thing you know, this little girl was not sleepy anymore. She stayed an hour playing with her new favorite toys, talking and laughing and tossing them to her father.
Although her birthday didn’t turn out as planned: There were no cupcake battles and no sticky carpet, it was one memorable birthday. It was our little girl first birthday. We will remember it as being the birthday she started wearing a beautiful dress and yawning the whole time and ended playing with her toys and wearing only diapers.
The cupcakes were so good; I ate two of them before the birthday had even started. But it was just to make sure that it was right enough for her.

My favorite Chocolate Zucchini Cupcakes

Recipe: adapted from here
- 1/2 cups brown sugar
1/4 cup melted butter
3/4 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 cups grated zucchini
1 cup chocolate chips
2 cups unbleached flour
1 cup cocoa, sifted
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp allspice
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon (I used only ¾ of a tsp)

Sift the dry ingredients into a bowl and set aside.
In a bowl, mix the sugar with oil and butter. Add the eggs one at a time and mix until well incorporated. Stir in vanilla, buttermilk, the grated zucchini and chocolate chips.
Slowly add the ingredient to the wet ingredients and mix until well combined.
Spoon the batter into muffin pan, lined with muffin cups. Bake in a preheated 350F for about 35, or until it looks almost done in the oven. Do not overbake them; otherwise they will turn out dry. Cool on a wire rack. The chocolate chips inside will stay soft for the whole day (at least it did for me. It might be the weather)

Mes Cupcakes préférés aux Chocolat et Courgettes

In francais please: Adaptee d’ici
- 360ml de sucre brun
- 60ml de beurre fondu
- 180ml d’huile vegetale
- 3 oeufs
- 1 c.c d’extrait de vanille
- 120 ml de babeurre
- 480ml de courgettes rapees
- 240ml de pepites de chocolat noir
- 480ml de farine
- 240 de cacao, non sucre
- ½ c.c de sel
- 2 c.c de bicarbonate de soude
- 1 c.c de mélange d’epice pour pain d’epice (kubeb)
- 1 ½ c.c de canelle (j’ai utilize seulement ¾ d’une cuil a café)

Dans un bol, faites passer les ingredients secs a la passoire et mettre de cote.
Melanger le sucre avec l’huile et le beurre. Ajouter les oeufs un a un et bien melanger a chaque fois. Ajouter babeurre, courgettes, chocolat et vanille. Bien melanger. Verser doucement les ingredients secs sur les mélange chocolat et bien melanger jusqu’a ce que tout soit bien incorpore. Verser dans un moule a muffin ligné de godets de muffins. Faites cuire dans un four prechauffe a 180C pendant 35min ou jusqu’a ce que les cupcakes semblent presuqe cuits. Ne les faites pas trop cuire au risqué d’avoir des cupcakes secs. Laisser refroidir sur une grille a patisserie.