Bless you Martha Stewart

Tonight I started baking for the big Valentine's Day sugar-shock event that will take place all week. I mean really, what other holiday gives us permission to shower our loved ones with chocolate, buttercream, sprinkles and oooey, gooey sweetness like Valentine's Day...you are hard pressed to think of one, aren't you?

I pulled out my very best chocolate cake recipe from an old Food and Wine magazine I was smart enough to save and this is, by far, the best chocolate cake recipe ever. I baked 24 delicious chocolate cupcakes and had those babies cooling on the rack well before Mr. Man came home from the office.



Tomorrow I will decorate them with frosting made from bittersweet chocolate, butter and confectioner's sugar, but in the meantime I needed to store them. Enter Ms. Stewart.

Right after Christmas, Mr. Man and I were at Macy's where I gravitated toward the home goods department and found this incredible cupcake carrying case crafted by the one and only Domestic Goddess, Ms. Stewart. It is amazing.

Look how nicely 24 cupcakes fit into the two layered plastic device, complete with built in handle. I get all goosebumpy thinking of it.



No more sides of cupcakes smashing into one another, no more cupcakes falling over as we round a turn....no, my cupcakes will remain upright during transportation and they will arrive at their destination whole and complete. I am a happy woman!

Isn't that just lovely?

Last week my friend Chef K and I catered a dinner and we took with us 10 chocolate raspberry tarts. I was all nervous at the thought of those little delights shifting back and forth in a box, their delicate pastry shells smashing into one another as we dodged the Dallas traffic in route to our final destination. I was saved by Ms. Stewart's cupcake carrier! My tarts were not going to suffer during the journey...I just opened the case, flipped over the insert and voilia! A smooth side to the case that held the tarts perfectly.

What a relief.

Yes; we may all feel more than a little inept when measuring ourselves against the Goddess Stewart, but deep down we all have a litle Martha in us. She's there, possibly hidden at times, but there, nonetheless.

To you, Martha...thank you for encouraging me to be the best I can be and to take risks and bake fearlessly!

I raise a cupcake in your name!!