Stress baking and quarantining: A sweet wedding anniversary

My husband and I celebrated our anniversary during this weird spring of shelter in place and stores sold out of flour. It wasn’t that much different for us — we picked up our traditional dinner curbside and brought it home rather than eating at the restaurant. That was fine. And because our favorite bakery sold a few years ago and the new one is always swamped (and honestly not as good) I made his and hers cupcakes to suit our different tastes.

I’ve been indulging in a lot of stress baking, honestly, and probably should quit. I’ll be posting the hamburger buns (that make six and a loaf of wonderful bread) and the butter cookies in the near future on my blog High Desert Bakery (which I update once a millennium). In the meantime, these recipes for Mint Brownie Cupcakes (his) and Lemon Cupcakes (mine!) with their corresponding luxury cream cheese frostings are both below and on my blog.

I truly believe we’re going to get through Quarantine Spring and reject the idea of a “new normal.” Every crisis seems to engender a fear that life will never be the same. To me, things haven’t changed that much since the Great Recession came and went, though I know for some people life was completely changed.

While we work our way through quarantine, social distancing, and a weird lack of flour for baking…