Friday, August 17, 2007

A Birthday and a Cupcake / Un Anniversaire et un Cupcake

Chocolate Zucchini 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.

Her First Birthday


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)

Chocolate Zucchini cupcake


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.

23 comments:

Deborah said...

Happy birthday to your little one!! And what a special birthday treat!

Mingoumango (La Mangue) said...

Joyeux anniversaire à ta petite fille !
Je pense qu'elle sera touchée, plus tard, de lire le récit de ce premier anniversaire...

Haalo said...

Beautiful cupcakes and a most happy birthday to your daughter!

Nora B. said...

Happy Birthday to the little one! I love her pretty yellow dress. Sounds like a wonderful 1st Birthday. The cupcake looks delicious - so moist and luscious, I would've have had to "test" them out before serving them, too. :-)

Aimée said...

What a darling little write up of the birthday. Sounded like a sweet day. My little Noah will be two next month yet I remember his first birthday with his carrot cupcake very well. They DO grow up so fast.

Anh said...

Oh Rose, happy belated birthday to your little angel! I enjoy your writing so much, :)

And the cupcakes look wonderful!

Claude-Olivier Marti said...

joyeux anniversaire en retard à la petite et bravo pour ces merveilles....j'en reste bouche-bée !

Anonymous said...

Joyeux anniversaire à ta fille et je veux bien ce cupcake moi aussi!

Anonymous said...

tr�s joyeux anniversaire!!et quel gateau extraordinaire tout autant que le r�cit de cette m�morable journ�e;un premier anniversaire c'est toujours �mouvant surtout pour les parents ; sa petite robe est adorable;� d'autres moments tr�s heureux!!biz pleines de tendresse � la princesse .

Anonymous said...

What a sweet memory. :) I am so looking forward to my little girls 1st birthday. :D

Jerry said...

The yellow dress is so cute! And the cupcakes look yummy!

Anonymous said...

Happy first birthday to your sweet precious girl. They grow up too fast, don't they?

MyKitchenInHalfCups said...

Happy One Birthday! Yes I think it was a perfect birthday party even if not what you'd imagined. With two grown boys I can pretty much tell you as wonderful as they were and are now, I don't think I saw any of it coming.
Love the chocolate and zucchini!

Warda said...

-Thank you very much Deborah
- Merci beaucoup mingoumango. Je pense qu'elle sera aussi tres amusee de voir la video. Elle n'arretait pas de baillir.
- Thank you very much Haalo fo your wishes.
- Nora, as I said, it was my duty of a mother to make sure that the cupcakes were good enough for her.Thank you my dear for your nice words.
- Anh, you are so sweet. Thanks a lot.
- Je te remercie Claude pour tes voeux.
- Samania, merci beacoup pour ton gentil message.
- Mima, on s'est tres bien amuse. Surtout elle, avec ses cadeaux! Merci pour tous ma tendre mima.
- Parker, not long much before the little angel comes out to the world. I wish you all the best to both you and your daughter.
- Jerry, thanks a lot.
- Kristen, they do. Thank you for your sweet wishes.
- Tana, thank you very much. Sometimes, I wish I could stop her from growing too fast.

Patricia Scarpin said...

Rose, this is such a beautiful post! And what about the photo of your baby girl? The sweetest little thing!
She's lucky to have you as her mom.

And before I forget, the cupcakes look perfect.

Dolores said...

Belated birthday wishes from California for your little one. I agree with Patricia... the photograph is absolutely precious. Enjoy this special time together!

Kelly-Jane said...

Happy Birthday to your little sweetie!

Gorgeous cupcakes, and beautiful yellow dress too :)

Warda said...

- Patricia, thank you my dear. I consider my self very lucky as well to have such a sweet little girl.
- Oh Dolores, you are so sweet. Thank you very much from both my daughter and I.
- Thank you very much Kelly-Jane.

LILIBOX said...

très jolie photo de ta petite fille .
Bel anniversaire à elle et plein de bonheur à venir .

Warda said...

- Merci beaucoup Lili pour ton gentil mot.

Helene said...

Super photo de ta petite biche!
Joueux anniversaire en retard!

Warda said...

- Merci ma chere Helene.

Anonymous said...

je découvre cette magnifique photo lors de la publication du concours So girly...
Quelle merveilleuse photo, quelle tendresse dans ce cliché..pour moi, il n'y a pas plus girly que ça......
C'est trop adorable !!!!