'Red Velvet' Cupcakes

'Red velvet' in quotation marks because they were neither red, nor were they velvety.
We purposely made the cupcakes a pretty pink hue, but we kind of got the wrong quantity for the baking powder... soooo they didn't rise much at all... and we got dense, kind of chewy cupcakes. We also ran out of spaces in the tin, so we poured the remainder into the silicone moulds and popped them into a loaf tin. We also tried to shove it all in the oven at once, which tilted the loaf tin and made 4 of them come out hilariously wonky. We became oddly endeared by our little misshapen cupcakes. 

I made these with my friend- a girl I met less than 3 months ago but with whom I have already become so close. 
You know when you just click? We presented ourselves in French HL class (factor #1: she's one of the two other people who took French HL) and I don't think I can count how many times we have said "OMG me too!" since then.
Among a couple dozen other things we have in common, we both love cooking. She even wants to become a chef. And she has a sweet tooth. 

We were so excited to bake... she brought food colouring, adorable polka-dotted cupcake liners and her prized silicone cupcake moulds.
Regardless of the result, we had an absolute blast making them: we were fascinated by the way the bold drops of food colouring, the way it swirled and gently turned the creamy bowl into what looked like a whole shop's worth of melted strawberry ice cream. We gushed over the adorable cupcake moulds, laughed a lot, talked even more, and generally acted weird in the way  you only do with a friend.
That's what cooking's about, anyway.
My dad's long-time friend was over, and we- out of politeness- gave them cupcakes. 
They- out of politeness- didn't mention the weird texture. Or the rather princessy look. 
Actually they didn't mention anything, and I think it's best left at that. 
Because they, understandably, probably didn't enjoy it in the same way we did. For them, and for most people, it's a rubbery pink glob that's sweet.
For us, the taste wasn't all too bad because we had mixed and licked the batter, and we were just thrilled with the effort and how they looked. Plus, how couldn't we be charmed by pink + white + polka dots? 
We sat in my room, lazing about and chatting, with powdered sugar flying all over our faces as we bit into the cakes.
While we're busy gossiping,  cribbing about work and thinking about grown-up futures among other things, we're still little kids engrossed in making something, making funny faces, and revelling in our creations together. 

Yes, we took a lot of photos. But that's half the fun.

Cupcakes
This recipe is from my friend, Sanjana, who got it from Lambert, the son in one of her host families during her year in France (yup, she spent a year as an exchange student in France. How cool is that?) 

1 cup plain yoghurt
3 cups flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
5 eggs
1 packet of yeast (11g) 
125g softened butter (

Mix all the ingredients.
Grease and flour a cupcake/muffin tin (adding cupcake liners is optional, but grease those too if you're using them) or use silicone cupcake moulds.  
Pour the batter into the moulds, filling them up 3/4 of the way.
Bake at 165ºC for 18 t0 20 minutes.