Food: Not Pistachio Cupcakes

About four years ago I ripped out this luscious picture of a fluffy green cupcake from an issue of Bon Appetit. (I was in a real magazine photo phase, and I still occasionally rip out and save particularly good glossy pictures.) I have had this picture on a cork board, where I see it every day, for those past four years. I even went so far as to move this cupcake picture to new cork boards that I purchased when I redecorated my apartment. For four years this verdant masterpiece has been staring me in the face, and finally, a few days ago, I got the undeniable urge to make a batch of those cupcakes. There was just one issue.

For four years I’ve thought that sweet in the photo was a pistachio cupcake. I have a thing for pistachio flavored items- you don’t run across them very often, but when you do they are usually a fun neon green (think pistachio ice cream) and have an interesting balance of sweet and salty- as do actual pistachio nuts.  Plus, its fun to say. Pistachio.

But when I finally took down that cupcake photo to check out the recipe, my world was all but shattered. My beloved, luscious, fluffy cupcake was actually key lime flavored, not pistachio at all. Much like my issues with paying attention while baking, it appears I have little patience for reading picture captions as well, and I guess I forgot that the other flavor generally accompanied by neon green color, is lime. But who the hell wants a key lime cupcake?

However, I’m no quitter, so I put together the ingredients for Buttersweet Bakery’s Key Lime Cupcake, finding everything except for self-rising flour and thinking, eh, I probably don’t really need that.

Unfortunately the key to this recipe appears to have been self -rising flour.

The cupcakes I made were more like flatcakes. Very dense and short, and while nice when they were warm, hardened to a pretty inedible mass once cooled. However, the lime-cream cheese frosting from the recipe was really delicious, and I’ll be eating those leftovers by the spoonful until I find a recipe for pistachio cupcakes that does not require self- rising flour.

Pistachio.