Heartbreak Muffins

Cherries to purge, vanilla to look back sweetly, and friends to rejig your mental playlist.

The ache doesn’t leave. In your head, a boombox replays your fights, your quiet miseries, and your last words to each other. And your heart breaks all over again, every single time.

He only broke your heart once, but you, and the jingle of discords clanging in your mind, have broken it countless times since.

You have only one heart. How much more will you put it through? Take care of it; pour into it; fill it up with even more love every time it breaks.

Humming a song quietens your mind. Sing!

The electric hum of the oven has a similar effect. Bake!

Another sound to rejig your current mental playlist – the loving, sympathetic, chatter of caring friends. Invite them over!

Bake them muffins!

Meeting people and eating cupcakes is a daunting prospect for anyone who has subsisted on instant noodles and reruns of Friends. Yet, remember that this sadness you have been pointlessly and unfairly pushed into is not a life sentence. All the joys in the world are still on their way to you.

But you have to meet them halfway.

The thing about happiness is that you have to first create it yourself. Lean into the wonders of a farmers' market, the baking supplies in your kitchen cabinets, and your steadfast friends, and you have gathered all the ingredients for happiness.

Start with a bowl. Crack two eggs - two bright yellow eyes admiring you as you try. Snow them over with some sugar. Pour over the melted, bubbling butter, spoon out the blobs of Greek yoghurt, and add a teaspoon of vanilla essence to mask it all. Trust that in time the hurt of all the fights and indignities will soften with a hint of vanilla, and you’ll even smile at the most painful parts–the hollows of happy memories–your borrowed spreadsheet of books read and the two songs you like by Radiohead. Like Vanilla, time has a sweet smell, masking the past in a nostalgic, romantic fragrance.

Whisk it all together and watch the individual ingredients merge into a fragrant, soft, yellow batter. The components just so visible but completely lost now. Here it was the whisk and your muscle strength, but in life, memory and time will blur and dull this pain.

Bury this mixture in flour, and sprinkle in baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Mix it bit by bit. Don’t try to do it all at once. Fold the floury mix into itself and watch the flour recede into the sweet butter yellow. Add little splashes of milk, but not all at once, to loosen the batter. Know that your grief will loosen not with this one batch of cupcakes with friends, but over many splashes, and that is okay.

Wash your cherries, seething dark red and plum. Pluck their stems off, and slice them bloody open. Goad at the seed centred firmly in the sanguine flesh, and recount what you didn’t like about him. And with that thought, push the pit out. Excise the bad as you remove the stony heart of the fruit. Keep only the good. Saturday runs followed by big brunches, lying in the park reading, and all the times he made you laugh.

Many cherries 320 grams make, so be kind to yourself as you purge. If you must, pop some of the sweet, tart cherries into your mouth.

Take all the cherry-halves, with their open red mouths, and fold them into the batter.

Chop some pistachios. It is harder to cut through the nuts when they are larger, but once they break into smaller pieces, it is easier to make them smaller still. There is a lesson here.

Mix the chopped nuts with salt and sugar.

Line the muffin tray and scoop the batter out. The cherries blanketed in the sweet, pale-yellow batter, piling on top of each other in the little muffin hollow. Sprinkle the pistachio salt sugar on top.

Bake in the oven at 190°C for 20-25 minutes.

When it is time, the tops of the muffins will stop bubbling, and that’s when you’ll know. They say love is a special ingredient, but today you folded in your grief. The kitchen is clouded in its sweetness, the muffin tops crunchy and golden, and your heart lighter. And was that a smile? Cooking isn’t always a service in love to another; sometimes it is a means of overcoming how you feel.

Have a muffin as you wait for your friends to come along. Why you? Because you are your friend too.

This essay is inspired by Justine Doiron’s brilliant recipe - Cherry Muffins with Salty Pistachio Sugar.