It all started...

Last year I ran my first full marathon. My very first, and I swore it would be my one and only... until they put that medal around my neck and I felt that amazing feeling of accomplishment. Then I decided to do the same marathon this year. It's really almost like having another part-time job, training 3-4 days a week for a couple hours at a time plus cross-training. It honestly gets very tiring and I wonder all the time why I'm doing it again and if I can even make it. And then I remember another reason I run. Cupcakes. When I started training last year, I cut processed sugar out of my diet completely. I wanted to do everything I could to get my body in peak condition for the race, but I found I missed cupcakes dearly. I wanted them all the time. I would bake them occasionally and found that helped with my craving, crazy enough. I never ate them, I even refrained from licking the delicious batter covered beaters. I gave them away to family and friends and, in a cruel twist, I would take the left overs to a friend at the gym who worked in the protein shop. In a deep cupcake discussion with said friend, we came up with a few flavors I should bake just to see how they would turn out. During this discussion I made a decision. When I crossed the finish line of the marathon I would allow myself to have one. One cupcake. But it couldn't be just any cupcake. It had to be the most amazing cupcake ever. This sparked the idea for my cupcake experiment.

I would bake one new flavor of cupcakes every week, give them to friends and family and protein shop friend, and have them vote for the best cupcake. I would then make this flavor the day before the marathon and partake as soon as I had that finisher's medal. We came up with flavors such as


cherry turnover












key lime pie













hot chocolate...

I baked and baked and baked, every Friday night. Baking cupcakes actually helped me when I wanted to eat one! Key lime pie was the flavor I wanted after the race. The flavor just sounded so good and the frosting smelled incredible. When I made them, I froze one and saved it for race day. I actually made the hot chocolate cupcakes the day before and had one of those, too.


Oh, how I loved those cupcakes. So much, in fact, that I decided to do the experiment again this time around. New flavors, new combinations, and new techniques of cupcake baking.

Cupcake obsession explained... cupcake experiment numero dos comin' at ya!