Cupcake Challenge

While working on a recent "art challenge" posted on a website for aspiring artists, I contemplated the use of the word cupcake. The challenge was to paint, in any medium, the row of cupcakes in a photograph. Each one was slightly different and would in real life application be the test of willpower for all children and anyone on a diet.

Mouth watering, eye teasing morsels of sweetness calling out....come on take a bite.

And so I pondered the the word it's self. Cupcake. I looked it up in the dictionary and all it said was, "small cake". Hum. Now I just recently used the word to refer to my car. "She a real cupcake", I said. My grandfather used it as a term of endearment. "You little cupcake", he'd say.

So........if a "cupcake" is just a small cake, I decided to look up CAKE and there I found a surprise or two.

cake (kak) n. 1. a small, flat mass of baked or fried dough, batter or hashed food.
NOT A PLEASING DESCRIPTION

2. a baked mixture of flour, eggs, sugar etc, often covered in icing.
AT LEAST I GOT A PLEASANT VISUAL ON THAT AS I CONTEMPLATED YUMMY ICING

3. a shaped solid mass, as of soap
OH NO NOT THE IMAGE I WAS LOOKING FOR

4. a hard crust or deposit
CRUSTY OLD DEVIL CAME TO MIND AND THAT IS CERTAINLY NOt MY IDEA OF SOMETHING TO RELISH.

5. (SLANG) to win a prize
FINALLY, A TERM TO GET ONES TEETH INTO. A SHOW OF VALUE THAT EQUATES THE LOVE FOR A CAR OR A CHILD.

So while not defined as such by Webster, I count CUPCAKE as a delightful morsel, just the right size. A deliciously decorated and pleasing compliment. A perfectly proportions object of desire or delight appropriate for holding with loving hands. An affection confection. Life it's self with sprinkles on top.

Sounds so much better than........SMALL CAKE.
If life is a piece of CAKE....let's grab it with both hands.