You Will Be Hungry After This Post

Hair is not the only thing I experiment on. Cooking is another thing. For my brother's birthday on a snowy afternoon last week I made cupcakes, snicker-doodle with maple frosting at his request. 

Aren't snowy cold days the best for baking?

I took the chance to practice my photography. I have never photographed through the cupcake process before, but so many bloggers have done it  so it cannot be that hard, can it?

The flowers were so pretty. I could not resist.

My first rule when I bake is to start out with a clean kitchen. 

Second rule, turn on  music. 

Third rule, taste your batter.

It is an eggfie. Egg + selfie! Get it? Ok...maybe not...

I know, I know, some say raw egg is dangerous to eat. If so, baking is perilous, but true bakers must take the risk and taste their batter. How else are they going to catch their mistakes before it is too late? 

I am always inspired to bake after watching Food network. The night before, we watched the kid's baking championship. How do those little kids know all about baking when I still make mistakes? They have true talent. 

Talent is a fascinating subject, something I have been pondering lately. I remember Tim Hawkins once telling his audience during one of his shows, "Really the only difference between you and I is I've got the talent." The crowd roared with laughter. 

You don't have to know how many pictures of the cinnamon I actually took...

At a knitting group I went to the other night, we were sitting around laughing and chatting while we worked and one of the little girls stops us. 

"I want to say something!" She announces.

So we pause to listen. 

"Here I am surrounded by talented people," she motions to us all. "Knitters, artists, crocheters."

"You have talent too," we tell her. 

"You give hugs," someone puts in. 

This set me thinking, and as usual I spilled my thoughts out in my book. I wrote this fragment of After Ever After with talent in mind.

"I painted that," adds Gadella without a trace of pride in her voice. 

"What? How in the world? That is unbelievable. I wish I was talented like that!"

"Everyone has talent," she murmurs. "Some people's talent is just louder than others."

"I don't have any," I mumble back.

"You do, it is just soft. Soft but beautiful," Gadella tells me.

Soft talent. I think we forget the soft talents, but if we stopped and saw them we could recognize the beauty in them. The talents of giving, of smiling, of loving. They all go overlooked next to art and dancing and baking. Loud talent blows are minds but do we ever even notice the soft talents?

Well, so many blogs take pictures of those spotless kitchens. Let's be honest here. Baking means dirty dishes. I am just being real. 

What if we recognized for once the talent of the girl who shares hope everywhere she goes, or the talent of the boy who creates laughter in the world? Isn't that the neatest talent of all? 

So my challenge to you, yes you readers, is for you to recognize the soft talent in others this week? God gave us all gifts. Do not be blind to the softer ones. If you look close, you will find those are the most beautiful. 

It was way worse than it looks. Pretend you never heard that.

As far as baking goes, recognize my soft talent for spraying crumbs over the entire kitchen with the handheld mixer. Just kidding. 

Actually these cupcakes turned out crumbly, sugary, mouthwatering.  At least I liked them. Two people have already requested this recipe. Click here for the recipe where you can see even better pictures of these tasty goodies. Find the recipe for the sweet, addicting maple icing I used here. (My pictures of the iced cupcakes turned out bad due to bad lighting so they are not included) 

<3 storyteller

Ooops. One is missing. :)

Comment your favorite soft talent below?