Hello my friendsssss,

It’s been quite an eventful week this week. My 19th birthday was on Thursday and that called for a rather messy night at the bar and a lazy Friday. Another party on Saturday and I must say, I am pooped! I did find some time to make some cupcakes. One of my birthday gifts was Martha Stewart’s newest book Martha Stewart Cupcakes. Since Canada Day is on Wednesday and I’ll be working, I decided to make some Canadian-inspired cupcakes a bit early! These are Martha’s “Maple Sweetened Carrot Cupcakes with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting”. These were good but they were definately not my favourite cupcakes ever. In the blurb before the recipe, Martha calls these cupcakes a healthier option for kids parties and occasions. By my standards, replacing white sugar with a massive amount of maple syrup and molasses does not shout HEALTH to me, but I think it is important to indulge every once in awhile. The icing was composed of maple syrup and cream cheese but I took the liberty of adding maple sugar and powdered sugar to decrease the cream cheese flavour. I used marzipan to cut out the maple leaves. I much prefer the taste of marzipan to fondant. All in all, these were fun to bake and it was great to try out my new book (this month’s Cookbook of the Month)! I can’t wait to try out some of the other intriguing flavours!