Cupcakes for Dinner and Burgers for Dessert
Each week throughout the school year, I pickup my grandkids, Sophie and Aidan after school. On the way to my house, I ask them about their day and then I attempt to get them excited about their visit to my house.
On one such day in March, I told them there was a surprise for them, which prompted the , "What is it?", from each of them. I told them they were in for a treat for dinner, and then "What is it?", began again.
Suggesting they both guess, began a list of all their favorite foods. After their ideas had been exhausted, I told them we were having cupcakes for dinner. They were in disbelief. What? No, they didn't believe it. By the time we arrived home, they weren't sure if I was pulling their leg or serious. Sophie, having a sweet tooth, I am quite sure, was hoping for the latter.
While they played and kept an eye on what I was doing, a recipe for meatloaf cupcakes was combined and put into muffin tins. While that was baking, potatoes were boiled. I usually cut potatoes about 1/2" thick and after coming to a boil, adding a lid, and turning down to simmer, they are done in 12 minutes on my stove. Then they were drained and mashed with a little milk, butter, sour cream and salt. They had to be a consistency loose enough to pipe with a cake decorating tip and bag.
The kids continued to watch as they figured out what I was doing. They seemed to enjoy the mystery immensely. When the 'meatloaf cupcakes' came out of the oven, the mashed potatoes were piped onto the tops and chopped chives were sprinkled over the potatoes.
Their salad was made of baby greens, strawberries and dried cranberries and topped with a raspberry vinaigrette. We also had French bread and butter.
Having made the cupcakes and brownies earlier in the day, it was a simple task to cut the brownies into 'hamburgers' and slice the cupcake 'buns' in half. Earlier in the day, green food coloring was added to the coconut to resemble lettuce. Red food coloring was added to white buttercream frosting to make our ketchup and yellow food coloring for the mustard. A purchased frozen pound cake was sliced into 'french fries' and they were toasted in the oven at 350º. And of course the 'ketchup' and 'mustard' were applied using a small plastic ketchup squeeze bottle.
We have had some interesting and fun times here at Grammy and Papa's. We do so enjoy our grandkids. With smiles and giggles, they really seemed to get a kick out of the 'interesting' meal we had and they are once again asking for those delicious meatloaf cupcakes!
