Cupcake vs. Muffin

At the beginning of each year, friends of ours choose a food that their whole family agrees they will all abstain from for the entire year. This is admirable, as long as it is not us doing it. If it were us, we would no doubt choose things like cabbage or rutabaga. We are real sacrificers, as you can tell.

But this is not what our friends do. They choose foods like cake. Soda. Candy. Chips. Fast food. Foods that are vital to one's well-being.

A whole year.

The trouble begins with defining the particular food. This year, for example, the shunned food is cake. So chocolate cake is out, of course. But what about brownies? Brownies are different, they decided. They're not cake, so they're allowed. But most box mixes give options for fudgy brownies and cake-like brownies. So is a cake-like brownie a cake? Little harder, but...still not cake, they decided.

Which brings us to muffins.

I took several desserts to a function at the house of these friends recently, among them cupcakes. Totally forgetting about their cake ban, I told the Hero that he was not to make any  moves on the cupcakes before we went to our friends' house, as I wanted to make sure there were enough for everyone. The morning of, I remembered the Cake Vow. There were too many cupcakes for us to keep at home—though the Hero strenuously objected to this reasoning—and so off we went with our taboo dessert, along with others that were allowed.

"You're gonna have plenty of cupcakes," I told him. He was delighted saddened to hear that the family would not be able to partake.

At our friends' house the rest of us all endeavored to find a loophole that would allow the family to eat the cupcakes without violating their decision. A lively discussion ensued as to whether the cupcakes were actually cupcakes, or whether we could assign them to a more healthy, non-banned category of food, such as muffins.

"It's got butternut squash in it," someone pointed out.

Clearly, the involvement of a vegetable meant it was not cupcake-ish.

Perhaps the frosting was a clear demarcation between muffin and cupcake. "Scrape off the frosting and it'll be a muffin," I suggested.

This seemed to give the mother pause, but after considering the example she was setting for her four kids if she crossed into a cupcake gray area, she contented herself with cookies and brownies.

I admired this. Not enough to institute such a ban myself, but enough to keep all the cupcakes at home next time. So as not to tempt anyone, of course.