Vegan lemon blueberry zucchini muffins with pecan streusel

In a perfect world, Baby June wouldn’t have to slave for hours over her laptop struggling to overcome creative constipation and googling how to write fight scenes because to be honest, she has not been in a fistfight in her life and she’s not really sure how she feels about that since it is now such a crucial thing to know for this goddamn story.

Vegan chocolate coconut zucchini cupcakes

Do you listen to pop radio? I certainly do. I’m no music connoisseur (aside from the heaps of classical pieces I’ve learned over the years), and while I do think that I have excellent taste (like every other person in the world) I am not above the Top 40 and such things.

Lately, I’ve been struck by more than a few songs playing on the “kids these days” stations. For example:

Vegan olive oil zucchini bread pancakes

I imagine you are mighty sick of seeing zucchini-infused baked goods by now. I know I am. My mother won’t let me make anything unless it has zucchini in it, which is quite inconvenient as I’ve never heard of zucchini macarons, or zucchini chiffon cake, or whatever?

Wait. Not trying give you any ideas. If you care about the children, you’ll not make either of those things.

Vegan fudgy zucchini brownie cupcakes with lavender buttercream

Whipping up these cupcakes has caused me to wonder: why haven’t I made anything with lavender before?

No idea.

Because it is mind-blowing. World-changing. Palate-arousing. “Ugh, can’t even”-inspiring.

And you can expect me to incorporate lavender into as many recipes as possible in the coming months, for better or for worse.

Zucchini peanut butter chocolate chip mini cakes with vanilla glaze

For this post, I considered writing a long, highly emotional screed about all of the baking failures I’ve experienced in the past month.

But then I thought, screw that, and so you have been spared. It would have been mostly the product of my own depressive delusions anyway.  

Basically, I just want you to know I don’t know what I’m doing.

Cook's Illustrated zucchini bread, veganized

People these days have no restraint, it seems, when it comes to naming things as “Ze Best”.

That’s it for today’s lesson, folks. For your homework, head over to Google.com and type “best ever chocolate chip cookies” in the search bar. Use a graduated befuddle-o-meter to measure the general trends of your frustration / confusion / anger levels as you delve deeper and deeper into the black hole that is finding a decent chocolate chip cookie recipe.