Things have been quite hectic these past few weeks so I’m just posting a quick blurb. I’ve actually been doing a lot of baking, but a massive workload has been dumped upon my desk so I haven’t been able to take pics or write anything witty or creative about the goods. Here’s a rundown of the past 3 weeks:
1) My lovely friend C asked for angel food cupcakes again for her 29th birthday (she looks 24, people ;o) and of course, I couldn’t refuse. She requested almost double the amount from last year, and this time requested half with vanilla frosting and half with chocolate frosting. Done deal, woman! C was kind enough to meet up with me @ my office for the pick up, and I felt like a d*ck for not being able to celebrate with her b/c of my workload. =( But I think this time around the angel food cakes came out better than last year’s batch. I can tell b/c Vin ate all my extras… even the test “rejects”. He said they were like eating fluffy marshmellows. haha I was in such a rush that day that I didn’t even remember to snap a cell phone shot of the goodies. *sigh* So stupid of me.
2) Our friends J and D just got engaged a few months ago and I baked red velvet cupcakes for their engagement party. I made cream cheese frosting for this event and tried to make half of it appear to be fall colors, but homemade cream cheese frosting is fickle; I wanted a nice bold, orange color and ended up getting a peachy orange. Meh. The lovebirds and their guests liked them and said they were great so I could care about the color. It was a last minute request so as long as they tasted fine and looked half decent… it’s all good.
3) My little brother and sister’s birthdays were the end of September, but since my bro was coming to town this past weekend for Geekfest 2011, we had decided to wait to celebrate their birthdays later. (And by “little” I’m making a reference to the age order. I’m the oldest but I’m also the runt of the group and I have a mild Napoleon complex so I pull rank and still call them “little” =) I don’t quite remember the exact details that led up to this situation, but a few months back, I asked my sister what kind of cake she wanted for her birthday and somehow we were talking about being old and if she was cake decorating, then her cake would look like a My Little Pony taking a poo. Really. Don’t ask. We discuss really random things and I think the two of us take the cake (pun!) when I say we can really talk about anything. haha So… since I didn’t have the time to sculpt a My Little Pony out of fondant or molding chocolate, I just bought this little cake topper thing from Amazon. I had left over cake batter from the previous week’s red velvet engagement cupcakes, so I made a little 4″ filled cake with cream cheese frosting. The top of the cake box caved in and smushed the top of the cake so I did a quick fix and covered the edge with shaved chocolate. It didn’t look half bad for a speedy on-the-spot repair. In went the plastic figurine, and I brought a little sandwich bag of chocolate frosting for the poo and made a little blob by the tail. It looked weird as hell and you wouldn’t get it had I not mentioned the odd backstory, but eh, it was funny and everyone liked it. haha
My little bro (he’s almost 6 feet tall and if he didn’t have such a baby face, he’d make a good linebacker) has a thing for pies. I don’t know why he’s obsessed with pies, but since I’m a caring and thoughtful big sis, I made little banoffee pies for him instead of cake. Last month, a girl friend and I checked out this place in the Village that was apparently known for this British dessert made of banana + toffee. I got a slice to go and it was really tasty! And I realized it was super easy to make for those times you’re in a time crunch (I was working on my sister’s cake the same time I was prepping the pie)! I was in a bind so I bought ready made graham cracker crusts, but I still made the toffee, sliced the bananas, whipped the cream and hand shaved the chocolate. You pretty much dump those ingredients into the pie crust, refrigerate, and eat. As long as my brother and sister liked their speedy birthday baked goods, I was happy. It was a nice way to end our family dinner =)
4) We had our open house the day after my sibs’ birthday dinner. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to sweeten the pot (another pun! I’m on a freaking roll!) for potential buyers checking out the house, so I made about 4 dozen mini red velvet cupcakes when I made my sister’s mini cake. I used the last of my cream cheese frosting batch and made quick ghetto swirls on all those minis. A few of them looked sloppy, but eh, I was being speedy since I needed to set them out quickly (what else is new these days?) and plopped them onto my glass cake stands. Vin made a nice little sign and laid out my baking cards and napkins, and we rushed out the door so the realtor could work her magic. She told us later that the cupcakes were a hit and that quite a few people were really interested in the house… but we haven’t heard anything since =( We’re just waiting for those offers to come rolling in. Any day now. C’mon, people… my house is realllly nice…
I’m pretty much spent. I have a bridal shower order for this weekend and wedding favors for the same beautiful bride-to be, then making mini cupcakes in support of a rising actress friend’s play, but other than that I can’t really take anything else on with the borderline suicidal workload and all the extra effort needed in keeping the house neat and clean. Such a Catch-22 getting all this business now and I have to turn people down b/c of my real job. Meh. I was thinking of making something pumpkin-y for Halloween, but who knows. Aside from these projects, I’ll probably just be baking for Thanksgiving and Christmas family holiday dinners… and catching up on sleep. And I’m kiiiiinda sick of red velvet now. =P
