Martha, Martha, Martha
I have been in full-on Martha Stewart mode the past few weeks. I have managed to annoy everyone with it, including myself. That's why it hasn't bothered me as countless people have proclaimed, "I hate you," to my face.
It's all good. I deserve to be hated.
This is the first of a few Martha-esque posts. It is the one about . . . drumroll please . . . The Magical Cupcakes.
It's a thing I do precisely once per year. I save up all of my baking and decorating energy for exactly one project. I create over-the-top and ridiculously complicated cupcakes for Alexis to take to school to share with her classmates. Here's the history:
2nd Birthday
3rd Birthday
4th BirthdayIn retrospect, I think the pandas win for most complicated and ridiculous cupcake. Of course, thinking that one year stood out is pretty much an invitation for the next version to suck harder.
And it did.
The lesson I learned this year is that I cannot have Alexis in the room with me when I'm scouring the internet for cupcake ideas. She will look over my shoulder and decide that I'm making something that is far more complicated than anything that I would have picked out on my own. And if I'm looking at Bakerella? The kid can't even be in the same zip code as me.
Alexis decided I should make Hello Kitty cake pops.
The bigger lesson I have learned is that I absolutely positively cannot start on The Magical Cupcakes early. I did this year and it came back to bite me in the ass. First, I managed to burn an entire pound of melted white chocolate. That requires skill, in case you didn't know. The next night I managed to engage in a fist fight of sorts with a second pound of melted white chocolate. It beat the crap out of me, even managing to throw me out of the ring. In fact, I had given up on the Hello Kitty cake pops when the white chocolate suddenly started mocking me and laughing about how it was all in my head and HEY, LOOK! The melted white chocolate is the exact right consistency now!
Or something.
Then I managed to get in a fight with the edible black marker. For the record, if you fight with a marker, the marker will win. But! I totally kicked the marker to the curb and carried on without it NEENER NEENER.
Once I was basically out of time, the cake pops flew together pretty quickly. I should have just procrastinated until then and avoided all of the white chocolate/marker/baby mama drama.
Anyway, this year's entry into The Magical Cupcake history books is:
(Hello Kitty's whiskers decided to go search for her mouth, so SHOOSH. I don't want to hear it. I also don't want to hear about how the one Hello Kitty looks like she got her ear caught in Mike Tyson's mouth. SHE'S SPECIAL, DAMMIT.)
While I'm busy confessing that cupcakes can make me look bad, I should probably admit that in my fury over the edible marker working on any substance on earth EXCEPT the white chocolate, I might have taken a permanent marker to one of the cake pops as a form of I'M THE BOSS, DAMMIT.
I didn't make anyone consume Sharpie ink, but I did consider it. Hello Kitty just looks better when her whiskers are visible to the human eye.
(Psst . . . you probably shouldn't eat that cake pop in my fridge, unless you are curious if Sharpies taste as good as they smell.) (They don't.)
Monday, January 31, 2011
Reader Comments (15)
LOL. To be honest, if you hadn't said anything about whisker-less/mouth-less Kitty, I might not have noticed.
Oh my gosh - all those cupcakes are amazing! You're a great mom to make cupcakes that Martha-esque. I can't decide if I like the pandas or Hello Kitty more... but since I kinda hate anything Hello Kitty (even though your cake pops are awesome looking and cute enough to make me kinda like Hello Kitty), I'll go with the pandas as the best so far! Plus, I like pandas a lot.
@firemom--Hello Kitty doesn't have a mouth. Really. It is a fact that has confused me pretty much my entire life.
Please don't tell my kid that her stay at home mom is a bigger slacker than her working counter parts because I don't have cupcake skills. At all. I could make them a kick ass pot of spaghetti and meatballs or chili but somehow I don't think would go over as well with the pre-school crowd
they look great! Every year when birthdays roll around I think..."hey I can do that" then end up cursing all night as I try to pull it off...and it usually costs me twice as much as just buying them! ha! And don't you know, that boy of mine HAD to have this cake pan on the last trip to Wally-world in which I was alone with him and the baby. I would have given that boy the whole toy department just to get out of the store with my sanity. Instead I know own a 9 piece train pan that I HAVE to make otherwise my husband will just look at me with those "ha, bit off more than you can chew this time" look and we can't have that now can we!!
I made cupcakes at our household the other day (funfetti) and gave my 25 year old boyfriend a dozen to take to work (they're all 40+ grown men) . It made me giggle that he had to be selective about who he gave cupcakes to because there wasnt enough for everyone. I had an instant flashback to being a kid and giving out cupcakes in class and being everyone's best friend for the day. I like to think this is what happened to him at work that day haha
I'm sitting here reading Better Homes and Garden, and checking out your post. Now, I want to paint something, grow a garden, and bake something! I've bought all the stuff to do some cake decorating, but have yet to dive into it. Love your Hello Kitty cupcakes, I bet they were a big hit!
You rock my socks. Seriously.
1. I am jealous of your awesome skillz.
2. I thought you might appreciate this. I thought it was rather enlightening, but I assume you already know all of this: http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/81056
holy. shit.
HOW Freaking adorable!!!!
The Panda Bear one's are over the top awesome! Sounds like WAAAAAY too much work though!
Nicely done!
Who are you...and what have you done with Burgh???
Wow. Just wow. I am a year-round-baker, but in the last few years I have started putting some real effort into the kids' cakes because they only have one birthday a year. And you are right - every year it becomes a contest within my own head to do better than the year before.
Hee hee hee...Alexis is so going to glare at you when she's a Momma, trying to make her daughter's dreams come true and FINALLY realizing how impossibly high you set the bar. ;-)