Hello again!
I know, I know… I’ve been missing a while… (ahem, more like abandoning my poor blog for a couple of weeks). Sorry guys, I’ll try my best to post more regularly (as much for your entertainment as for my sanity).
Life, or should I say work, has been insanely busy and will get even more crazy till the end of the year (eeek!). Not to worry though. I have a few baking projects coming up – which will hopefully balance out the work bit.
Speaking of baking projects, I completed one this past weekend. I baked my first bulk load of cupcakes in celebration of my father-in-law’s 50th birthday party (pictured below).
The party theme was “rock ‘n roll” (colours being black and red with a touch of beige). What a rocking party it was! A live band played classic rock hits as well as modern songs from Mumford & Sons and Red Hot Chilli Peppers, amongst others. Despite the great music, the love and strong bond between everyone in the room was amazing, and is one definite positive of marrying into an Italian family.
Another positive of becoming part of an Italian family is sharing in their love of food. My darling sister-in-law and I provided the desserts. She baked a beautiful two-tiered chocolate cake, complete with fondant records and musical paper. I baked a whole bunch of red velvet cupcakes.
This was quite an interesting adventure. Firstly, I have never made over 60 cupcakes before. Halfway through mixing the batter, I realised that my dear Kenwood mixer could not handle that amount of batter. With said machine pathetically whirring and whining and batter overflowing, I (frustrated and red-faced), had to admit defeat, plonk batter in to the largest tupperware I could find and proceed to mix with an even smaller hand-held mixer (cue higher pitched whining).
Eventually, I managed to mix and bake 60 + cupcakes (this all took place on the Friday night). I made the icing on the Saturday morning. Smooth sailing? Not a chance! First of all, I bought the wrong sugar. Castor instead of icing sugar. Halfway through mixing the icing I realised this and in a panicked state rushed off to the shops.
Secondly, I ignored the mistake I had made the night before and decided to mix the whole quantity of icing in one shot. I don’t think I need to explain what happened…
Despite the mistakes, they turned out well. Wrapped in pretty black and red cupcake wrappers, they were topped with “rock ‘n roll” themed paper toppers and finished off with red sprinkles. They seemed to go down a treat – and that’s all that matters really. As long as my baking makes people smile, I’m happy.
dollytoast 