Feline Intervention

The Great Cupcake Search -- Brandy the Vet Tech's Vanilla Cupcakes with Maple Buttercream.

Well it's been a long time since I've written any blog at all, much less a cupcake review...not because I haven't been EATING cupcakes you understand but because with school starting, doggy surgery and subsequent confinement, not to mention a health issue or two of my own, I just haven't had the time.

But that was before a little thing I like to call Feline Intervention.

As some of you know, Princeton P. Kitty has heart trouble and his cardiologist is in Stillwater, OK. Which means that every few months I get to wrestle an angry cat into his carrier, strap the carrier in the car and listen to him howl with rage for almost the entire ride....until he gets himself so worked up that he vomits (or worse).

Why not let him out of the crate? Because then he spends the entire drive earnestly attempting to balance on my head in the manner of a kitty gymnast.

Which is distracting on the highway.

In any case, this is why last time I went to the cardiologist, I made the insane decision to throw caution to the winds, ignore the rather carefully plotted directions Opie had given me, and take a route that my GPS assured me would get me to Stillwater in record time.

And it should have worked beautifully, there I was zipping down the turnpike, headphones firmly shoved in my ears (yes I know that's illegal but I double dog dare any cop anywhere to give me a ticket after getting a good earful of enraged cat screams!) and  randomly shouting "it's ok, we're almost there!" In Prince's general direction.

Except I zipped right past the exit.

"It's ok!" I shouted encouragingly to Prince, "We'll just turn around at the next exit!"

Except this was a turnpike so the next exit was about five and a half miles away....a situation made infinitely worse by the fact that it was only after I found that exit, exited, turned around and headed back that I realized the original exit I'd missed only exited on the other side of the stupid turnpike. So I had to drive another 11 miles to turn around again and then drive 6 miles back to the original exit.

I will not share the amount of cursing and screaming that accompanied these revelations but I assure you it was prolific.

And, oddly, did nothing to calm an already enraged cat.

So I got to the cardiologists very late, very frustrated, and very tired of listening to the loudest cat in the known universe.

Then the receptionist ushered us into an exam room immediately (possibly because she couldn't hear the phone, the intercom, or nuclear war above Prince's howling) and our favorite technician came in to tell me that they'd let the ridiculous animal roam around the exam room for ten or fifteen minutes so he could calm down before they tried to check his blood pressure.

"Hey," she said then. "Do you want a cupcake while you wait?"

Seriously, I almost kissed her right on the mouth.

And maybe it was just the stress, but that cupcake was AMAZING.

The cake was moist and delicious but the best part was the homemade buttercream frosting drizzled with maple syrup. I could have eaten a bucket of it. I'm not a fan of the little bacon embellishment on top but that is easily forgiven with the appropriate amount of delicious frosting.

So, final verdict:

Size: Average

Price: Free -- unless you figure in the cost of a kitty EKG

 in which case it's pretty exorbitant.

Cake: Moist and delicious

Icing: Fabulous!

The kind of cupcake that almost makes you forget that you still have another hour and a half in the car with a crying cat.