It was the strangest thing she had ever seen.
Pinkie Pie had been walking along the dirt road, minding her own business and thinking about whether she should have more balloons or more cake or both at her parties to make them even more fun, when she came across a rather odd treat just sitting in the middle of the street.
It was a small, dark brown, sweet smelling confectionary item about the size of her hoof. It looked like a chocolate cupcake, but with much less icing on top. It was topped by some sort of dark fudge with a white icing curly-Q squiggle across the middle. It smelled strongly of sugar.
Pinkie was flabbergasted. She’d never seen anything like it. Was it a cupcake? It was much more monotonous in color, and had a bigger difference in cake-to-icing ratio than a normal cupcake.
The pink earth pony tentatively nudged it. It was moist to the touch, and left a smudge of chocolate on the tip of her hoof. She licked her hoof, wondering what it would taste like.
A sweet, sugary sensation stimulated her taste buds, causing her to salivate. It was definitely made of chocolate, but the pure richness of the treat had been so sweet, her molars began to form cavities.
Pinkie smacked her lips. It tasted so good! The maybe-cupcake had given her a slight sugar rush, just from the taste! It must’ve been at least ninety percent sugar, ten percent chocolate!
The pure sweet taste of the treat had left her throat dry and suddenly begging for a refreshing beverage.
Milk! She needed milk to wash down the pure taste of chocolate from the treat!
Pinkie sped towards a nearby meadow. She came up to the nearest cow.
“Miss Cow, can I please have some milk? Pretty please? With a cupcake on top?” Her thirst heightened as she mentioned the bakery item.
The cow Pinkie was pleading to looked at the pony with amusement. “Why of course, Dearie!” she mooed. “And my name is Bessie.”
Pinkie beamed. “ThankyouthankyouthankyouTHANKYOU!” She whipped out a glass from nowhere in particular, and in an afterthought said, “And my name is Pinkie Pie!”
Gulping down the generously given milk, the pink earth pony felt her burning thirst being relieved. She threw away her used cup and grinned at Bessie. “Thanks again!” she sang, and sped off back towards the mystery treat, leaving the cow to continue her grazing.
Back with the weird cupcake-thing, Pinkie sat down and began to wonder what it was, where it came from, and why it was sitting in the middle of the street. The only cupcakes she had ever worked with were covered in icing and certainly not as sugary sweet as whatever she had just tasted. It usually took her at least five cupcakes to get this kind of sugar daze.
Whatever it was, it was not anything she knew of. This was shocking, because she thought she knew EVERY confectionary item imaginable!
Pinkie needed answers, and she knew exactly where to get them.
************
Pinkie knocked excitedly on Twilight Sparkle’s door. She had brought the maybe-not-but-maybe-so-cupcake from where she first found it. Lacking magic or any other means of carrying it, the pink earth pony picked it up gently with the edge of her teeth, discovering a sweet-as-sugar-everything cream filling as the delicate surface broke partially along the bottom.
When Twilight opened the door, a befuddled expression on her face, Pinkie spoke muffled words, the treat still in her jaw. “Do ya’ ha’e a’y ‘ilk?”
The lavender unicorn translated this as a request for milk and replied, “Sure. Come on in.”
Once the two had sat down inside, Pinkie having put down the item she was carrying and gratefully chugging down her beverage, Twilight asked the question that had been buzzing through her mind since she opened the door. “So, Pinkie. Why did you come over? You know, other than for milk.”
The pink earth pony gulped the rest of her drink and looked the unicorn straight in the eyes. “I want to know what this is.” She pointed to the sugary cupcake-like-thing.
Twilight stared at the treat. “What do you know about it?” she questioned.
“Well…” Pinkie began. “I found it in the middle of the street. You know the one over by the Everfree Forest? I was over there because I was asking Zecora if she had any cool recipes from her homeland that I could try out at Sugarcube Corner and I thought that she would maybe have some cool potion that would make my taffy extra chewy or some seeds that would make my brownies taste like cotton candy or something, but she didn’t really have anything so I figured I could go ask Dash if I could use rainbow juice in one of my recipes for spicy stuff or something.”
As Pinkie took a breath, Twilight interrupted. “Pinkie, focus. You need to tell me about this…” She motioned towards the object. “…thing.”
The earth pony shook her head. “Right. So I found it on the ground and I thought it looked a lot like a cupcake, except with less icing and less colors. It was so weird! I mean, what kind of cupcake doesn’t have pastel icing? Anyway, I touched it. Some of it came off on my hoof so I tasted it. It was the most delicious yummy-nummy sugary sweet treat I have ever tasted in my whole entire LIFE! But then I got really thirsty and drank some milk. I decided that I wanted to know what kind of treat was so sweet so I carried it over here.”
Twilight, who was scribbling down the earth pony’s rambling, prompted, “Anything else?”
Pinkie thought for a moment. “Ooh! It also has the creamiest cream filling in the center!”
Looking over her notes, Twilight concluded, “Well, it seems like this… whatever it is, is either a strange version of a cupcake or a completely new recipe. It might’ve been invented by somepony, but since you found it on the street, we have no way of knowing for sure.” She frowned apologetically at Pinkie. “Sorry.”
The pink party pony didn’t respond. She furrowed her brow, deep in thought, and slowly walked out the door, leaving Twilight with the mystery cupcake.
Twilight stared after her friend. For what seemed to be the millionth time, she wondered what the enthusiastic pony was thinking. She looked at the confectionary treat. Was it really as sweet as Pinkie made it out to be?
Overcome with curiosity, Twilight took the tiniest bite from the cupcake. Her left eye twitched as she gulped down the small bite of the treat. She wasn’t used to eating a lot of sweets, and she got a major sugar rush from the rich chocolate.
“S-SW-SW-SWEEEET!”
Pinkie Pie pondered over this particular perplexing pastry puzzle persistently.
Where had it come from? Who made it? Why did they make it? Why was it on the ground?
These questions buzzed around Pinkie's head as she walked through town, paying no attention to the citizens she bumped into.
"Hey! Watch it you clumsy- Oh. Hey, Pinkie. What's up?" This statement brought Pinkie back from her unresponsive stupor. She widened her eyes in surprise at the cyan pegasus in front of her, down on her knees in a mud puddle. The pegasus grinned, her eyes lit up with relief.
"Dashie?" Pinkie's voice raised in shock.
"Sorry I yelled, Pinks." Rainbow Dash stood and shook out her feathers. "It's just that I'm really stressed out about the Wonderbolts tryouts tomorrow. I have to rest my wings until then and you have no idea how many ponies bump into you on the ground." She thought back on that statement. "Well, maybe you do, being an earth pony and all. But there's almost nopony to bump into in the sky. Usually you can just fly right over them." Rainbow looked closer at the pink mare. "Are you okay, Pinkie Pie?"
"Yeah, why?"
"You've got applesauce in your mane."
Pinkie raised her eyebrows. She did? She struggled to look at her mane and after some effort (and some contortion) she saw the chunks of fruit stuck in her tangled hair. "Oh yeah! That must've been from when I crashed into the apple stand!" She shook her head vigorously and the apple chunks flew off, leaving her mane spotless.
Rainbow Dash was still confused. "Why did you crash into an apple stand? They're not very hard to avoid."
Pinkie eyes avoided the pegasus's gaze. "Well, I guess I was just the tiniest bit distracted..."
"By what?" Rainbow Dash was curious about what could've distracted the pink party pony so much that she comepletely ignored her surroundings.
"Well," Pinkie began, dragging out the word. "It all started when I was walking down the street..." She repeated the same story she told to Twilight, except with various tangents that Rainbow interrupted, trying to get to the point. "...And so now I have no idea what it is, where it came from, or who made it." After she finished her story she took in a deep breath, realizing that she had been talking so fast that she had forgotten to breath.
"Super-sweet cupcake, eh?" Rainbow Dash asked, mostly to herself.
"Well, I don't really know if it's a cupcake..." Pinkie corrected.
"Whatever," the pegasus dismissed. "Where is this thing? I wanna see how sweet it really is."
"Are you sure? I mean, even I thought it was too sweet, and I work at a bakery..."
"Don't care. Where is it?"
Pinkie thought that her friend could probably work on her manners, but didn't object. "Okay. If you insist," she said warily. "I left it at Twilight's."
"Well then let's go." Rainbow flew off in the direction of the library. Pinkie shrugged and bounced alongside her, prompting the pegasus to wonder how she managed to keep up with her. Her! The fastest young flyer in Equestria!
"Hey, Dashie!" Pinkie shouted up to her friend. "I thought you were supposed to rest your wings!"
"Oh, horsefeathers!" Rainbow cussed. She folded her wings in midair and fell to the ground. In her anticipation, she had forgotten that she wasn't supposed to fly. She felt grateful that she hadn't flown very far, or very high above the ground. She sighed. "C'mon, Pinkie," she called. "Let's walk to the library."
************
A short walk later, the two mares had arrived at the giant hollow tree that contained the town library. Pinkie Pie knocked on the door, calling her unicorn friend's name. After a few attempts and several minutes showing no promising results, Rainbow thrust out her strong back legs at the door, nearly ripping it off its hinges, shouting, "TWILIGHT SPARKLE, I KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE! PINKIE TOLD ME ABOUT THE CUPCAKE AND I WANT IN!"
Pinkie felt that Dashie could've been more polite and less dramatic about it, but decided not to mention it. Who was she, the element of laughter, to dampen somepony's fun?
The two mares trotted inside the large, hollow tree only to find their friend sitting in the kitchen and pouring the contents of a gallon of milk down her throat. Twilight turned towards the door, her cheeks still full of the beverage, and quickly swallowed. "Oh, hey guys," she chirped, somewhat shocked by the rainbow-maned pegasus's outburst. "Sorry I didn't come to the door. I was... preoccupied." The unicorn blushed sheepishly.
A gaping Rainbow Dash spoke first of the two visitors. "Why were you chugging milk?"
The blush on Twilight's cheeks reddened. "Oh, well, I took a small bite of the cupcake and it was very sweet." She motioned towards the refrigerator. "I was almost out of milk after the taste was refreshed and I bought in bulk in case I wanted to experiment..." She finished, chuckling. "Good thing, too. Turns out there's an aftertaste..."
Rainbow rolled her eyes. "Oh, please," she chided. "It can't possibly be that sweet." She trotted over to the cupcake on the counter and chomped off about a fourth of the rich desert.
Both Twilight and Pinkie widened their eyes and exclaimed simultaneously, "Rainbow! Don't!"
The warning too late, the pegasus gulped down the bite and smacked her lips. A moment later she pressed her tongue against the roof of her mouth, relieving it to shout, "MILK! I NEED MILK!" She then dashed to the kitchen, and sounds of several gulps reached the ears of the pink earth pony and the purple unicorn.
Twilight sighed. "I tried to warn her..." she muttered to herself, half amused by the stubborn pegasus.
Pinkie was a bit more forlorn, and looked at her half-eaten cupcake with worried eyes. "Twilight?" she called to the unicorn. "Can you make some replicas of the cupcake? For testing, I mean." Her tone let on more than she was telling, but Twilight didn't question it.
"Well, I can't use magic to create a perfect replica, if that's what you mean," she replied. "However, I may have a book that can help recreate it the old fashion way." She trotted over to one of the shelves in the library, until she pulled out a good-sized textbook with a green cover and navy blue letters spelling out Reverse Engineering: How to Engineer the Mysterious by Reversing the Process. The unicorn flipped some pages before getting to her desired chapter. "Ah, here we go!" she exclaimed with enthusiasm. "Good Eats, But How Are They Made? This chapter details how to reverse engineer a recipe." After a short look-through she said, "It looks fairly simple. First, we taste the product while seeing which ingredients could be used. Then we just organize the ingredients into feasible recipes, trying out various amounts and orders of the ingredients until we get our desired result."
Pinkie Pie lit up. "Ooh! We can use Sugarcube Corner to collect ingredients and bake recipes!"
"Are you sure the Cakes won't mind?" Twilight asked.
"They're out of town for a few days. They decided to take Pound and Pumpkin to Ocean Land. They also closed the bakery till they return and told me I could still use it if I liked!"
The trip was convenient, considering the circumstances, and it appealed to Twilight. "Okay, then. Let's do it!"
As they made for the bakery, Rainbow Dash hopped up. "I'll bring milk!"
************
After arriving at Sugarcube Corner, the three mares set up shop. Twilight put down the book and cupcake, which were previously being levitated along by her magic. Pinkie hopped around, preheating the ovens and opening cabinets filled with ingredients and cooking utensils. Rainbow put the several gallons of milk she dragged along into the refrigerator, getting the feeling that they would need it.
Twilight used her duplication spell to split the cupcake into two, then four, then eight, and on and on until they had a good sized pile of cupcakes on a large platter. "All right, Pinkie," she announced. "Let's start tasting!"
The unicorn levitated two cupcakes to Pinkie and herself and they both took a long, savoring bite. A moment later they began shouting out ingredients.
"Chocolate!"
"Sugar!"
"Milk!"
"Flour!"
"Oil!"
"Oil?"
"Yeah! Veggie oil!"
"Okay then. Oil."
This went on for a while, with ingredients being shouted out and occasionally vetoed, while Rainbow Dash poured glasses of milk for her friends and wrote down the accepted guesses in a notebook. Soon, the three mares felt they had the correct ingredients (as far as they could tell) and decided to formulate recipes. The amount of ingredients, order of adding the ingredients, and methods of preparing the ingredients all varied, which meant that Twilight and Pinkie had quite a few cupcakes to make.
The baking and tasting of the cupcakes was often disastrous. Most of the recipes were inedible, causing Twilight and Pinkie to take several trips to the little filly's room to evacuate their stomachs. Several cupcakes weren't even tasted. They were so obviously not edible that they went directly to the oven to the trash. Rainbow sat on the sidelines, watching with barely restrained laughter.
"Oh sweet Celestia!" she exclaimed at one point. "These are worse than the 'baked bads' incident!"
Pinkie cringed. The memory still nauseated her.
After a few hours, the group had gone through all of the recipes and were choosing the ones most like the original. "Okay," Twilight reviewed. "It seems as though number forty-two was the best so far, but it still seems to be missing something..."
Deep in thought, the mares sat silently. Suddenly, Pinkie Pie sprang up, gasping, and sped off to the nearest cabinet shouting, "Chemicals!"
Twilight was shocked. "Chemicals? What do you mean?"
Pinkie explained as she rooted through the cupboard. "Mr. and Mrs. Cake always use chemicals in their more popular snacks. Something about tasting better... or lasting longer... or color... Anyway, they keep it all in here!"
Twilight wasn't convinced. "Are you absolutely sure? I work with chemicals all the time and they can be dangerous..."
"It's okay, Twilight! These must be edible chemicals." Pinkie carried bottle after bottle over to her friends. "Let's test 'em out!"
This process was less nauseating than the last one. Most of the chemicals were tasteless, affecting only the color, or made little difference.
Pinkie started adding chemicals at random after a while, convinced that they would come across the correct recipe sooner or later. "Red dye number forty! Titanium Dioxide! High fructose corn syrup! Agar! Xanthan gum! Lactic acid!" On and on she went, often accompanied with twitches and vibrations from parts of her body.
Eventually, by some amount of severe luck (and some Pinkie senses) they finally had the perfect replication of the mysterious cupcake.
"Girls," Rainbow Dash announced, "we got ourselves a cupcake!"
