cup cake farewell

it's fair to say i'm a little tired at the moment. it's been a busy week. yesterday was the last day in the office for the best boss in the world. like the little wall flower she is, she didn't even think that we might give her a farewell. so tuesday night i stayed up and baked cupcakes. many, many cupcakes.

the successes were mixed. the cakes themselves were fine. i used JC's chocolate one, and nigella's vanilla. after getting home from work and feeding the cats I set about whipping up 12 dozen. needless to say the sink quickly filled with egg shells and the floor took on the same feeling the one at the exter has (sticky) after i broke a bag of sugar and it sprayed everywhere. but the cakes were cooling and i made myself some jiaozi to level out the emense amount of sugar and fat i had consumed through all of that bowl licking....

the icing proceeded nicely. i did a white chocolate and sour cream one, and cream cheese one from nigella (she's a bit of a cupcake fan herself) and sprinkled with chocolate sprinkles or sugar stars, depending on the icing. for the vanilla ones, and the ones that i was writing on i wanted a chocolate icing, so i made ganache. would it set. i think not. at midnight i had it in the freezer. exhausted and just wanting sleep i loaded it up with icing sugar in the hope that this would thicken it. no, again failure. so this icing was very runny and took away form the effect a bit, but the photos make it look like it was all ok. and the boss was happy and surprised and got some lovely flowers too.

aside from the ganache episode it really was lots and lots of fun. am thinking of joining in the cupcake hero events. january is coffee, and i probably don't have time, but if the february challenge is to my taste i might give it a go. am already thinking of fantastic things i could put in them.....