Muppets Doing the Dance of Joy to Vince Guaraldi (and a cupcake recipe)

I was awakened this morning to a phone call from Fraser. I answered and heard, "AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!" and then the call dropped.

A minute later, as I sat up and basically blinked a lot, trying to figure out what the hell was going on, the phone rang again. Imagine trying to extract information from a Muppet, say Grover, on a massive caffeine high and you'll get a vague idea of the first minute of that call. The next minutes, after I realized that he was telling me that he'd heard from the embassy and his visa interview is next Monday, it was straight up Dance of Joy time!

It's so surreal that after all the months of delays and waiting and starting to lose hope, it's finally happening, and with one week's notice! In case you're just tuning in, we first applied for Fraser's fiancé visa last year, so he can emigrate. The interview is the final step in this extremely frustrating, redundant, and expensive process. By most accounts, this is practically a formality, as they tend to weed out the frauds, terrorists, and human traffickers before it gets to this stage. He will be told on the spot if the visa is granted, and then the actual paperwork will be couriered to him within a few days. As soon as those papers are in his hand, he can get on a plane! Once he's here, we have to get married within 90 days, but don't ask me for details about that just now. One thing at a time!

In homage to my Scottish boy being soon on his way, I made some Irn-Bru cupcakes to take to a gaming night tonight. If you're not familiar with Irn-Bru, it's an orange-colored soft drink that tastes something like Juicy Fruit gum. It's made in Scotland from a recipe that is allegedly so secret that the president of the company himself personally mixes every batch of concentrate and will only grant access to to the recipe to his successor when he retires. I've heard it hailed as the ultimate hangover cure and condemned as a danger to children because of its high sugar and caffeine content. It took me a while to acquire a taste for it, and now, while I couldn't drink it all the time, it's good for a treat now and then. I'm lucky enough to have a great British (yes, Britain includes Scotland) grocery shop in town, so I picked up some Irn-Bru. There IS one tiny difference between the Irn-Bru imported from Scotland, and the Irn-Bru made by the American distributor. One of the coloring agents used in the Scottish original is banned by the FDA. However, two points are worth noting: 1. I've had both and there is no noticeable difference in taste (unless you ask a Scot), and 2. at least at my local shop, you can buy both versions. Look on the label, and if the ingredients list includes "Ponceau 4R," it's the original. Here is a list of places you can buy Irn-Bru in the USA. If you decide to try it, let me know what you think! I'm always curious for reactions to this stuff, especially since it'll be appearing in some form at my wedding, possibly in these cupcakes.

Now, as promised, here's the recipe! These give just a hint of the Irn-Bru flavor, which is boosted by the citrus zest or extracts, and the vanilla.

You need:

1 cup Irn-Bru
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 TBSP corn starch
3/4 tsp baking POWDER
1/2 tsp baking SODA
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup vegetable oil (or 1/2 cup softened butter, but that'll mask the Irn-Bru flavor, and it's only a hint to begin with)
1 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1-2 tsp orange zest OR 1/2 tsp orange extract (real, not imitation)
1-2 tsp lemon zest OR 1/2 tsp lemon extract (again, seriously: real, not imitation)
12 cupcake wrappers

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F and line a muffin tin with the cupcake wrappers.
2. Combine oil & sugar. I used a stand mixer with paddle attachment, but a wooden spoon or hand mixer works just as well.
3. Add the egg and extracts. Beat until thoroughly combined and has a smooth consistency. 
4. Mix the dry ingredients in a separate bowl. No, it's not fine if you don't do this and just dump it in with the wet. Trust me.
5. This is where the stand mixer is really your friend: Add a little Irn-Bru to the wet mixture, then alternate adding dry mix with Irn-Bru until you've used it all and the consistency is mostly smooth. There will be a few lumps, and you might think the batter looks too runny, but it's okay. It's supposed to look like that.
6. Fill each cup of the prepared tin NO MORE THAN 3/4 FULL. Seriously, if you have batter left over, start a second pan (just fill any empty cups with water), do some individual cakes if you have freestanding cups, or something, but DO NOT OVERFILL THOSE CUPCAKES! If you do, it's not my fault when they overflow, run together, burn on the edges, and sink in the middle. 
7. In my oven, it took 22 minutes for them to bake perfectly, but check them at 20 minutes. If a toothpick inserted in the center of one of the middle ones comes out clean, they're done, even if they look a bit wet on top (they're just on the shiny side).
8. Let them cool completely before frosting. I topped mine with justJENN's whipped cream frosting (though I used regular granulated sugar instead of brown sugar).