Yesterday, I gave away 125 homemade cupcakes at the carnival celebration of "Tabitha's House", a ministry that was started by a lady in our church 13 years ago. Tabitha's House provides support for our local community whether it's through their thrift store, food pantry or the backpacks in the fall for kids who are in need. Each year they put on a family friendly carnival in their parking lot with lots of music, games and food and it's all free! I have my little cupcake business on the side and was asked if I would be willing to donate cupcakes for this years event and I jumped at the chance!
Baking cupcakes usually takes me to a happy place and provides me with a creative outlet much in the same way scrapbooking does for others. I have playlists that I listen to on my iPod while I bake specific flavors (much like authors do while writing) and there tends to be dancing involved - lots of dancing for which my family makes fun of. I do everything by hand, all my fondant, coloring, cut-outs, etc. and yes, I know there are printable sheets you can buy (they're kinda pricey) and yes, I know fondant comes colored but have you tasted that stuff? It's nasty. (My husband said once that the colored stuff tastes like play-dough. HOW he knows that is not my problem.) I don't know about you but if I have to choose pretty or yummy, I'm going for yummy. If I can achieve both then more power to me but if not, yummy wins out every.single.time.
I learned a few things this weekend about the power of a cupcake and here they are...
1) If you hand make 100 marshmallow fondant toppers, coloring them & cutting them out into cute little fall shapes, only 8 will survive. Nevermind that you've made these many times before and never had a problem.
2) You never thought it was possible to mourn the death of the little orange fondant pumpkins.
3) You learn that cupcake liners are in fact, flammable, as is the human finger. (You learn this lesson as you are torching the frosting on your nutella s'more cupcakes. Again, a task you've performed numerous times with out incident or injury.)
4) When you have reached the end of your rope and you don't care to see another cupcake ever again in your life, you rejoice at being able to eat the leftover frosting in the bowl. You've earned it after all, only to walk around the corner and discover a pan of unfrosted cupcakes.
5) When you arrive at your destination, you will climb out of your vehicle, almost dropping the box containing your precious frosted cargo, at which point you would not be the least bit surprised.
6) The last chocolate chocolate chip cupcake will cause people to threaten violence against one another.
7) The last nutella s'mores cupcake will leave young children in tears (literally).
8) The discovery of a forgotten nutella s'more cupcake will have the capacity to dry tears while making you feel like a superhero (minus the cape), all because it was deemed "unpretty" and not suitable for display.
9) After all your hard work, complete strangers will walk up to your table and make the following comments:
"They look fake.", "Are these even edible?", "Is there shortening in your frosting? Because I don't eat shortening. I only eat straight up butter." , "Why are you here?"
The best conversations were these:
Lady: "Where did you get these from?"
Me: "I made them"
Lady: "Where?"
Me: "My house."
Lady: "Oh. Well, what box did you use?"
Me: "Box? Oh no, I made them from scratch?"
Lady: "All of them?! How did you do that?"
Me: "Magic." :)
Man (eating a nutella s'more cupcake): "This is just that marshmallow cream stuff on top"
Me: "No, actually, it's a homemade frosting."
Man: "Really? Are you sure?"
Me: "Yep. I made it. Burned myself in the process."
10) Lastly, just when you're ready to pack up, one teenager will come up and politely point to the cupcake that has one of your beloved little orange pumpkins on it and ask if he can have that one? You'll nod, he'll start to walk away but then he'll pause, turn around and say these words, "I just want you to know that I've been looking at this one all day and I think it looks perfect!" (You think to yourself that you could totally kiss him right now but that would be awkward (his mom is right there) and inappropriate for many reasons, or, you could cry.) After he tastes it, he'll come back to tell you it tasted as good as it looked. Sigh....
Yep, the power of a cupcake. :D
Baking cupcakes usually takes me to a happy place and provides me with a creative outlet much in the same way scrapbooking does for others. I have playlists that I listen to on my iPod while I bake specific flavors (much like authors do while writing) and there tends to be dancing involved - lots of dancing for which my family makes fun of. I do everything by hand, all my fondant, coloring, cut-outs, etc. and yes, I know there are printable sheets you can buy (they're kinda pricey) and yes, I know fondant comes colored but have you tasted that stuff? It's nasty. (My husband said once that the colored stuff tastes like play-dough. HOW he knows that is not my problem.) I don't know about you but if I have to choose pretty or yummy, I'm going for yummy. If I can achieve both then more power to me but if not, yummy wins out every.single.time.
I learned a few things this weekend about the power of a cupcake and here they are...
1) If you hand make 100 marshmallow fondant toppers, coloring them & cutting them out into cute little fall shapes, only 8 will survive. Nevermind that you've made these many times before and never had a problem.
2) You never thought it was possible to mourn the death of the little orange fondant pumpkins.
3) You learn that cupcake liners are in fact, flammable, as is the human finger. (You learn this lesson as you are torching the frosting on your nutella s'more cupcakes. Again, a task you've performed numerous times with out incident or injury.)
4) When you have reached the end of your rope and you don't care to see another cupcake ever again in your life, you rejoice at being able to eat the leftover frosting in the bowl. You've earned it after all, only to walk around the corner and discover a pan of unfrosted cupcakes.
5) When you arrive at your destination, you will climb out of your vehicle, almost dropping the box containing your precious frosted cargo, at which point you would not be the least bit surprised.
6) The last chocolate chocolate chip cupcake will cause people to threaten violence against one another.
7) The last nutella s'mores cupcake will leave young children in tears (literally).
8) The discovery of a forgotten nutella s'more cupcake will have the capacity to dry tears while making you feel like a superhero (minus the cape), all because it was deemed "unpretty" and not suitable for display.
9) After all your hard work, complete strangers will walk up to your table and make the following comments:
"They look fake.", "Are these even edible?", "Is there shortening in your frosting? Because I don't eat shortening. I only eat straight up butter." , "Why are you here?"
The best conversations were these:
Lady: "Where did you get these from?"
Me: "I made them"
Lady: "Where?"
Me: "My house."
Lady: "Oh. Well, what box did you use?"
Me: "Box? Oh no, I made them from scratch?"
Lady: "All of them?! How did you do that?"
Me: "Magic." :)
Man (eating a nutella s'more cupcake): "This is just that marshmallow cream stuff on top"
Me: "No, actually, it's a homemade frosting."
Man: "Really? Are you sure?"
Me: "Yep. I made it. Burned myself in the process."
10) Lastly, just when you're ready to pack up, one teenager will come up and politely point to the cupcake that has one of your beloved little orange pumpkins on it and ask if he can have that one? You'll nod, he'll start to walk away but then he'll pause, turn around and say these words, "I just want you to know that I've been looking at this one all day and I think it looks perfect!" (You think to yourself that you could totally kiss him right now but that would be awkward (his mom is right there) and inappropriate for many reasons, or, you could cry.) After he tastes it, he'll come back to tell you it tasted as good as it looked. Sigh....
Yep, the power of a cupcake. :D
Love it!
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