Sweet and something else

I like the way great discoveries are often made in small, accidental ways. Like how you can set out to bake cupcakes, partly because there are a couple of birthdays falling around the same time and partly because it feels good to work the ol' arm muscles beating cake batter.

And then, a few days later, the housemate might also set out to bake cupcakes for reasons really known only to her.

And there follow a few days of no baking, and then one day you both think, well now -- what would happen if we whipped up a mixture each, and put a little of the sweet-salty peanut butter mixture and a little of the hedonistically rich chocolate mixture into each cup?



And the result, well, is best tasted but since licking the screen will do you no good, I'll just say it's the perfect balance of sweet and crumbly and surprisingly crunchy, when the peanut butter comes through.



And they are an exercise in precise planning because you keep on trying to take a bite that is exactly half chocolate and half peanut butter, so that you can roll them around on your tongue and let the contrast turn to cohesion.



In a life that has given me quite a few peanuts when I'd asked for chocolate chips (and the Freudians among you may make of that phrase whatever you wish), it's good to pull up a chair and enjoy the spoils of a small kitchen victory.