Mint Chocolate Cupcakes

Believe it or not, this cupcake, for me, was a lesson in self acceptance. It sounds ridiculous, but bear with me. For the past month I’ve been taking a digital photography seminar. I’ve always loved photography, but never had any clue what the heck I was doing. If I got a good photograph it seemed the result of luck or exceptionally good timing or the ability to weed through hundreds of bad shots to find the one that bothered me the least. So to find myself not just learning about, but understanding things like depth of field, ISO, and aperture makes me deliriously happy. If you should run into me on the streets of Boston and wonder why I seem so cheery, this class is why.

Of course, not everything about this class makes me happy. One part of it makes me down right nauseous: assignments. The rational side of me knows I need to do them to get better, that I’ll get valuable feedback that will improve my skills. The emotional side of me feels unbearably exposed. I’m a perfectionist. A horrible self critic. Sometimes I think it’s a wonder I post anything here at all. I didn’t submit anything for the first two assignments of the class because though I’d taken hundreds of photos, none seemed good enough.

Assignment three came and I was traveling down the same path. I hated my photos. All of them. But I didn’t want to be that girl who took the class and never submitted an assignment, so I took a deep breath and submitted the photo above and a couple of others. And I sat in class, panicking, as the instructor went through a slide show of the class’s photos. He was a thoughtful and fair critic, but still I felt uneasy. My cupcake flashed onto the screen, mammoth-sized. I braced myself for the criticism. Only, he liked it, he actually liked it. Sure there were things I could work on, there always are, but mostly he liked it. I realized it had been better to put this imperfect representation of me out there, vulnerable and inviting criticism, than to share nothing at all. Sure I’m no Lou Manna, but I write a blog, not a magazine, so imperfections come with the package. It’s a reminder that I as much as I try, I still have to work at accepting who I am and where I’m at for this juncture in time. I’d like to think with this cupcake, I got a little bit closer.

And should you be here for my food, not my pontifications, I should add that this is a fantastic cupcake. Without the frosting you might even be able to convince yourself it’s breakfast. It’s subtle and cocoa-y with the nice surprise bits of Andes Mints. I topped mine with cream cheese icing, purely because I liked the contrast, but I wouldn’t fault you for choosing chocolate buttercream.

Tagged as: Chocolate, Dessert, Random Musings