Just The Two of Us

Cupcake Wars

I hope everyone's Thanksgiving was fabulous.  I know ours was.  But instead of focusing on all the great family time, good conversations, good stories and lots of laughs that were to be had at our Thanksgiving table, I'd like to instead focus on the turkey.  This one:

Looks delicious, yes?  Ok ok, obviously this wasn't our Thanksgiving turkey, but it's a pretty good rendition of one, don't you think?  I can brag on this amazing cupcake only because I wasn't the one to make it.  You may remember how I make cupcakes for folks at work if they have the unfortunate opportunity of working on their birthday.  Well.  Jeanne, the other part of our management team (ok, the part that is a little bit higher than me on the "management team scale", decided that she would help me with this staff appreciation/birthday endeavor.

Fine, I said.  Bring it.

And thereby began...the Cupcake Wars.

Seriously, now.  Did she really have to go full-force and make The Turkey?  I brought one home to show RW, and his first words were.. "Wow.  Where does she go from there? She's left herself no margin!"  Exactly.  However, I can't even pretend that I wasn't impressed.  Seriously impressed. 

So this week when I made cupcakes for Karen's little Keira who turned 3 on Thanksgiving Day, it was hard not to be just a little discouraged.  Especially when RW came downstairs to look at the Moose's (meese?) I was creating for Keria.  In true RW fashion, he announced.. "Well.  They certainly aren't on the 'turkey' level, are they?"  Thanks, RDub!

 And like I told RW.. "She's THREE!  She'll think they are cool."

And did she?  Well, you be the judge:

Score.  Even though the antlers and ears were falling off, Keira thought they were the coolest thing ever.  And as for Jeanne? Apparently she's upping my cupcake game.  Bring it.

Sweet competition.

It's a Pumpkin Kinda Month

Last week was Laurel's birthday, and since it was in October, I thought pumpkins would be in order.  That and I had most of what I needed for these, and it was a last-minute cupcake plan. Laurel wasn't actually scheduled to work on her birthday, but she traded with someone, and I scrambled!

But despite the last-minuteness of the whole thing (you like that non-word?!), I think these turned out pretty well.  What do you think?

Sweet Squash.

Name That Cupcake

Last week Cortnie had a birthday, and by now you should know what that means... cupcakes!  Now that I've been making cupcakes for a year or so, the one thing that I've started paying attention to is context.  Here's an example.  Look at this cupcake, and tell me if you think that it is in any way attractive:

What do you suppose that is supposed to be?

One by itself isn't too fun, but put them all together, and you have:

Corn on the cob, dripping in "butter".  I thought that was appropriate for October, don't you think?

It's hard not to notice that there are 2 different types of "corn" in that picture.  That wasn't completely on purpose, and I have to admit, RW totally made fun of the shiny "corn".

RW: "Interesting.  What do you think about the shiny corn?" [smirking]

ME: "It's FINE!  It just looks like there's melted butter on it, right?"

RW: "Since when does melted butter make the corn opaque?"

Ok, he had a point there.  The reality is that I got quite tired of cutting up candy corn for the "real" looking corn, and after 6 cupcakes, dropped everything to go in search of yellow Jelly Belly's.  I found them. At Target.  Along with several other non-cupcake related items, but hey, I was distractable at that point.  Thus, the shiny, "opaque" corn.

But I thought they were cute, nontheless:

Sweet Corn.

An Apple A Day...

Last week was cupcake week here at our house.  The first batch didn't turn out exactly like I planned, so I was mad at them and refused to take pictures.  How's that for maturity?  Thankfully the cupcake receiver didn't know what they were supposed to look like, and oooed and ahhhed over them like a polite person would.

RW, on the other hand, is always one for flat-out, pure honesty.

RW: "That doesn't look anything like the picture.  Will anyone even know what it is supposed to be?"

ME: "YES!  Of course they will know!!  i hope..."

For the record, they were "golf" cupcakes.  There was a green, a sand trap, a flag, a tee, itty-bitty golf balls, and for the part that didn't turn out... the rough.  They were sorta cute, I guess.  But I picked myself up, dusted myself off of the gallons of green sugar that it took to make the putting green, and moved on to the next batch I had to make: Apples.

These were for Michelle, a gal I've worked with for almost 10 years.  She, like myself, was having the traumatic and dreaded 40th birthday.  Just for that she deserved cute cupcakes, don't you think?  When I told Karen what I was making, she decided that they sounded completely boring.  Yes - thank you for your confidence, friend!  It seems that between RDub and Karen, I've surrounded myself with brutally honest people.  Perhaps they could just go for encouragingly polite next time, don't you think?

Anyway, here are my September apples:

So for Michelle's and my own sake, I wish I could say that an apple a day keeps the birthdays away, but that's not really how it works.  Well, actually - one of THESE apples a day probably COULD keep the birthdays away, but only because we'd be dead from a diabetic sugar coma.  But we can pretend, right? So here's to sweet health.

PS: Don't forget to pick your teams - contest ends Sunday morning!

Race Cars and Birthdays

This little guy turned 5 on August 20th:

Jentzen is a pretty cool kid.  He's all boy.  He loves cars.   I was plenty excited to make Jentzen his birthday cupcakes, which I had decided would be a car.  Not just any car, a race car:

RW checked it out while they were in-process:

RW: "Sorry Babe - that looks nothing like a car."

He revised his findings once I had the back spoiler on.  Apparantly that made all the difference, in RW's book.

I drove the finished cupcakes over to Karen and Nathan's house, where not so ironically, the birthday boy resides.  This was no easy feat, as one must travel 2 or 3 miles on a very bumpy gravel road to get to aforementioned home.  I was just happy the cupcakes made it there relatively unaffected.

The kids immediately swarmed my car, Jentzen quite eager to see "his" cupcakes.  When I lifted them out, sufficient "oohs and ahhs" ensued.  However, it was Jentzen's comment that really made me laugh:

Jentzen: "WOW Deb!  Did those take a super long time to make?  Did they take lots of extra focus?"

Why yes, Jentzen, yes they did.  But I'm happy you like them!  Sweet Speed.

Cutie-Pies

Tonight we get to go to a little retirement party for a beloved co-worker of mine, which means... cupcakes!  I had these ones picked out for Janet long ago, a beautiful lady - they just seem like they fit her, except the part where she actually doesn't eat sugar.  Other than that, she seems like a bake-sale kind of gal.

Seeing as it was made apparent that given the retirement, she would no longer ever work on her birthday (yeah, I'm a pro at logic like that), I knew the retirement hurrah would be the perfect opportunity for these particular cutie-pies.

While the cupcakes were baking, I got on the business of sorting.  Sorting colors.  To be more precise, I was sorting M&M's BY color.  Good times.

 
This was just slightly disappointing, as I really only needed the red ones and blue ones.  Coincidentally, did you know that blue dye is much, much cheaper than red dye?  I didn't know that either, but considering that there were a bazillion more blue ones than any other color, I came to that conclusion (again, I'm a regular pro at that kind of logic.  Just ask RW).

So after the 3 hours it took me to eat the green, orange, yellow and brown ones.. (KIDDING!  I actually didn't eat a one), I got about the decorating bonanza.  Although it didn't really feel like a bonanza, as I was by myself.  Unless you count the dog, but he really wasn't much fun.

So I present to you, Janet's blueberry and strawberry pies:

 

 
I thought they looked okay... but then RW came home and opened the fridge:

RW: "OH!" [looking puzzled]

ME: "Do you like them?!  Aren't they cute?"

RW: "Ummm, yeah?"

ME: "What?"

RW: "What are they?"

oh dear... I have failed miserably if one can't even tell what they are.

ME: "They are miniature pies!  Blueberry and strawberry!" [like, duh?]

RW: "Oh, I can see it now.  But they are way too fat for pies. The fatness threw me off."

Whatev, RDub, whatev!  Janet will enjoy (looking at) them (you know - that whole sugar thing), and the rest of us will enjoy eating them.  Sweet slices.

STRIKE!

My gorgeous niece, Sarah texted me today and said that she and her husband Brad had decided that if I ever renamed my blog, I could name it Little Debbie's Cupcake Adventures.  I like it!  So in the vein of Little Debbie's Cupcake Adventures, I present to you Karen's birthday cupcakes:

 
Like I told Karen, look from afar, they look way better from 5 feet away than 2 feet.  And it didn't help much that they started melting, like a snowman meeting 40d weather for the first (and last) time.

But they did the job, she liked them and the kids ate them.  Nothing like loading the kids up on cupcakes, mini-cupcakes, donut holes and 3 lbs of frosting before an outing.  Sweet strikes.  Or in my case, spares.

Stepping Up to the Mike

One of the more difficult things about making birthday cupcakes is picking out the perfect cupcake for the specific birthday girl.  They have to fit her personality, and it's not always as easy as it seems.  Good thing I have Karen to help me choose them, as she knows the ladies, too.

Picking out the perfect ones for Jodi was easy.  I knew it was for her as soon as I saw it. I channeled my inner American Idol and went to work:

 
I wish I had a picture of the giant Styrofoam microphone that RW helped me make, it was the perfect centerpiece for the musical treats.

One small snag in the perfect cupcake plan - the microphone "balls" tried diligently to unattach themselves from the microphone "stems", which made the thought of transporting them to work somewhat... undesirable.  But score one for me, I talked Karen into taking them for me, which clearly absolved me from any cupcake mishaps along the way.

They made it to work in one piece, and Jodi spent the day singing their praises.  Sweet songs.

Shaking Things Up

Looking for a cupcake idea that wouldn't take me 4 hours to execute, I found these on Bakerella's website, and thought they looked just perfect for a summer birthday, specifically Jeanne's.  Jeanne is my manager, so I knew it had to be good.  No, not really - she'd be relatively forgiving with ugly cupcakes, but the problem is that now the expectations at work are well, high.  RW made that observation last year when I started making fancy cupcakes:

RW: "You do realize that you are now unable to gracefully back out of this, don't you?"

ME: "So?"

RW: "Well, if you make normal cupcakes now for someone at work they are going to think you don't like them.  Not a stellar idea for someone on the management team."

He has a point.  Good thing I like making them, or I might have to quit my job.

Thankfully, given the fact I would be presenting them to my boss, my little milkshakes turned out ok:

 

 Seeing as I was trekking over to my mom & dad's later that day, I saved a few for them.  Good thing, because when I got there I found out that 3 of my little nephews were coming too.  They were not terribly disappointed to discover not only cupcakes, but 3 of them.

A few minutes later, John Michael (cute as a button - wait.. not all buttons are cute, but I can promise you - he is) scooted over to me, cupcake in hand, looking distressed:

"Aunt Debbie!  But there's nothing IN here!"

I turned around to give him my full attention and saw him sucking determinedly on that straw.  That straw stuck into the middle of a cupcake.  Getting past my giggle, I was happy to see that apparently, they did in fact, look like milkshakes.  Sweet sips.

My Favorite Flowers

As I was staring at the photo in the cupcake book, pondering the likelihood of any one cupcake that I make looking remotely like the picture, RW breezed by.

RW:  "Whatchya doing?"

ME: "I'm going to make cupcakes - it's Hannah's birthday tomorrow" (a team member at work)

RW: "What ones are you going to make?"

ME:  "Those." [pointing at the lovely picture]

[moment of silence]

RW: "Riiight.  That's never going to happen." 

...and he took off upstairs to do something highly important, like watch a Netflix movie, leaving me to labor by myself in a lonely kitchen, fueled by my deep desire to prove RW wrong.  Today, just this once, I shall make cupcakes that turn out looking just as advertised.

4 hours later, RW pounded down the steps and blew into the kitchen.

[moment of stunned silence]

RW: "Wow."

So I present to you now, the cupcakes that turned out just like the picture.  You might want to mark this moment, because I'm not sure it will ever happen again.

 

Aren't they pretty?

 

Sweet Revenge.