A Haunting Question & A Challege Accepted

I have been contemplating a serious subject. It has plagued me deep into the night, kept me awake in the long hours of the early morning. I have pondered; I have searched for answers.
The question, it haunts me:
""Can there ever be too much chocolate?"
Please tell me someone has the answer. I need my beauty sleep after all. Who knows what kind of hideous creature I would become without it...*shudder*
Let's get back to the subject of chocolate, shall we? Or rather the lack of it.
Chocolate is the favorite flavor of cupcake in my house. It always wins. Hands down. Now, while I enjoy people loving my baked goods...sometimes I tend to view people's personal tastes as a challenge. In other words, I consider it my duty and responsibility to create a non-chocolate cupcake that is adored as much as the famous chocolate cupcake is. (Or even, dare we think it, even more adored? See why I'm up at night? It's radical thinking, my friends.)
Now. Here is attempt #1.

Ginger Honey Pear Cupcakes
Doesn't that sound nice? It sounds classy, a complex and promising mingle of delicate flavors. A light ginger cake filled with sweet caramelized pears topped with a lofty frosting hinting at the taste of honey. A guaranteed bulls-eye in the world of culinary joy.

*sigh* It wasn't. It was sticky. The tops were flat. The cake flavor was too strong, filling too bland and soft. The frosting wasn't lofty, but runny and adding more powdered sugar would have hurt your teeth it would be so sweet. Case in point: It wasn't as good as chocolate. Not even close.
But here's the thing, at the beginning of 2013 when I decided to make one cupcake recipe a week I knew there were going to be days like this. Recipes that didn't really work, failure cupcakes so to speak. And I told myself no matter what, I would blog about those days, I wouldn't get frustrated with myself, I would give up the next week, and most importantly...I would try to learn from it.
And I did! I learned about moisture content in cakes, working with fresh spices, all sorts of things.

And so -- here's to the first Cupcake Failure of the Year! Funnily enough...I'm even more excited to try non-chocolate recipes in the coming months. But maybe I'll stick with a nice cocoa based cupcake next, if only so I can get a good night's sleep for once. ;)

Downtrodden by Cupcakes.

My experimental recipes have been bringing me down lately. :(
Sunday I tried to make strawberry surprise cupcakes, but my frosting separated into a grainy sticky mess so I ended up frosting them with Cool Whip and pre packed colored sugar. Fail. The cupcake themselves were great though. I stuffed each one with a whole strawberry which everyone thought was pretty clever.
Today I tried out a Peaches and Cream cupcake repice I found but something went horribly wrong. They were all sticky and way too moist. The cake fell apart when you tried to take the wrapper off and they fell in the middle as they cooled. I tried to redeem them with spectacular homemade whipped cream but it wasn't enough I'm afraid. Another Fail.
I realize that when you are experimenting and trying new things that they aren't always going to be perfect and you have to take everything back to the drawing board. But twice in a row? I'm ready for a success to turn my luck around.
Tomorrow I am making three different things because of a Garden Party for Saturday. I'm hoping my bad mojo doesn't cross over. Crossing my fingers:
Savory Garden Cream Puffs (So fun to make! I could do it all day long. Puff pastry and cream cheese and they smell so great when baking.)
Mini Salmon and Spinach Quiches (Who doesn't love that brunch favorite? And in bite sizes!)
Fruit Topped Shortbread Rounds (Do you know those dessert pizzas with fruit on them? Like that, but cookie sized. Awesomeness.)
Wish me luck!