One of Iris’s favorite books of the year was Cupcakes by Elinor Klivans. There are many books about cupcakes, but most of them seem to be more about making frosting roses or providing a souvenir than about making great-tasting desserts.

I’m all for hitting up Magnolia to mack on some cupcakes, but cupcakes are easy to make at home, and Klivans’s book has some great ideas. It also has pictures, which Iris has been identifying (“nutty,” “crumb,” “chocly”) since before she was one-and-a-half. There’s nothing in it that wouldn’t be appealing to kids, but nothing looks like a Baskin-Robbins clown cone, either–not even the cupcakes served in ice cream cones.

Iris selected the White Mountain Chocolate Cupcakes (aka “creamy”), which are supremely tender cakes topped with seven-minute frosting, something I’d never heard of before Laurie made these cupcakes. It’s called seven-minute frosting because you beat it for seven minutes. It’s basically a meringue, and it tastes like marshmallows.

People often say that cupcakes are just a vehicle for frosting, but in Iris’s case, the cupcake and frosting together are vehicles for sprinkles. There was much discussion over which kind of sprinkles Iris would have, and she ended up with colorful sanding sugar. Later she ate some polka-dot sprinkles, just plain.

I often cut up food for Iris even though she doesn’t really need the help anymore. We let her attack the cupcake whole. She got so much frosting on her face that it looked like she’d been on fire and we had to unload the extinguisher on her.

Next year I’m hoping Iris will request the Chocolate Mousse Cupcakes, because for me, a cupcake is just a vehicle for chocolate mousse.