A cupcake, if it's the right cupcake, tastes like heaven. Cupcakes have a delicate sweetness that is hard to replicate in anything else. The cupcake's alternative name, "fairy cake", is undeniably appropriate: only a fairy's magical powers could produce such a wonder. If you're holding a cupcake within a 5 metre radius from me...beware.
Wikipedia tells me that cupcakes, "designed to serve one person" (of course), are commonly covered in frosting and other cake decorations. And let me tell you this: no cupcake is a cupcake without frosting. Do you actually think a cupcake would taste any good without frosting? No. It wouldn't.
So assuming that frosting is the principal factor in the angelic taste of a cupcake, what makes this taste so divine? Let's begin with the most basic recipe for frosting:
- butter/margarine
- icing sugar (or powdered sugar if you're from the US)
Butter/margarine consists of solely carbon, oxygen and hydrogen atoms bonded together (at least before it is processed and salted etc.). Sugar also seems to contain only carbon, oxygen and hydrogen. So after all, (the most basic) frosting is made up of 3 basic elements. I find this a bit weird. How can such simple molecules taste so good? It's funny how random elements can just bond together and transform into completely different products. The elemental composition of the human body shows that the three elements that make up most of our bodies' mass are, would you guess, oxygen, carbon and hydrogen. Am I a cupcake yet? (I wish.)
After learning that cupcake-goodness is just boring old carbon, oxygen and hydrogen, I am even more in awe of them. "Oh Cupcake, you make hydrogen taste so good."
Next time it's your friend's birthday, send them some carbon, oxygen and hydrogen, okay?
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