Addiction

Dear Joanna Gaines,

I love your Magnolia cupcakes, but I live fifteen hours away from your hometown. Once every other year I make the thousand-mile pilgrimage just to eat a Silos bakery cupcake. This year when I arrived and stood in line, waiting for my favorite like a two-year-old about to ride her first pony, there was no chocolate cupcake with white buttercream icing on the menu card. The Silos’ Classic Cupcake was MIA.

The girl at the counter smiled and told me the bad news. “We’ve retired that one.”

Retired? How does one retire a cupcake? Not the iconic cupcake of The Silos Baking Co. The one which, with its simple coloring alone, defines the Magnolia style of home renovation - white on black. 

Say it isn’t so, Joanna Gaines.

“We have a Shiplap cupcake,” the attendant offered. Not even close. I’m sure it’s delicious to those with one note taste—vanilla on vanilla, or chocolate on chocolate. But I like mixing it up. Chocolate with a heavy dose of white buttercream. There’s a reason it was named The Classic.

“We offer a chocolate cupcake with Oreo cookie icing,” she went on, pointing the choice out on the tear-stained card in my hand. I wiped my nose. Sorry about that.

A brilliant idea popped into my head, much like the one you had when you decided to convert a flower shop into a beloved bakery. Since you still make a chocolate cupcake and you also make white buttercream icing, perhaps someone in the back room could simply swap one icing for the other?

“I’m sorry. We don’t do that,” she said.

So I did it. I paid double and bought two cupcakes so I could swap out the white buttercream from a Shiplap cupcake onto a de-iced chocolate cupcake and, when I closed my eyes and didn’t look at the mess I’d made out of two cupcakes, it tasted the way it was supposed to.

Look at the desperation to which I’ve been driven.

Oh, Joanna Gaines. A chocolate cupcake with white icing is the quintessential Modern Farmhouse Cupcake, right down to its dark foundation and cheerful topper which, if we were getting picky here, is kind of the opposite of your renovations with their dark roofs and light exterior, but you get my drift. Tomato, tomahtoe. You don’t want to retire what is the iconic Silos cupcake! You’d be retiring Magnolia Market itself. Magnolia Real Estate. Possibly even the entire Magnolia Network. The chocolate cupcake with white buttercream icing stands on its own without the need for peanut butter. It's richer than lemon or mango or strawberry (don’t tell my sister—that one’s her favorite.) And peach pie. Okay. That one sounds awesome.

I don’t know why The Classic isn’t a big seller anymore, if that’s the reason it no longer makes the cut. But if I can drive all the way to Waco, Texas, from Phoenix, Arizona, for a cupcake, can’t you pretty please keep it on the menu?

I don’t beg for many things. But when my birthday rolls around each May, all I ever want is a chocolate cake with white buttercream icing. And when Jesus’ birthday rolls around each December, I have it on good authority that His favorite flavor combo is the same as mine. Ironic. Listen, I’m not begging for me. I’m asking for Him.

You don’t want to disappoint Jesus, do you?

Very very very sincerely,

Eula McLeod

p.s. My sister thinks His favorite is strawberry, but she’s wrong. 

Object seen in the photo may look more chocolate than intended. I'd already eaten the Classic.