On today's episode: Chris gets his first order and its Panda cupcakes. Did he learn his lessons from the last time?
First off, apologizes for taking so long to write this, should have been posted a long time ago but work has been kicking my ass. As I was drinking a lot last night and am now recovering I finally have some time to write something.
(At some point I become the first to be tipsy, so my co-op student asks me "is this what happens when you get old?" Ouch.)
Secondly, I've learned not to underestimate the power of cheesecake over women. Chocolate may be number 1, but I've come to believe that cheesecake is number 2. Case in point. I baked a cheesecake recently and brought it to my karate class. One of my sensei's (a woman, just to be clear) hugged me. Its that powerful.
Ok, so after last time, my sister showed the picture of the panda cupcakes to her boyfriend's niece, and as she liked Kung Fu Panda she wanted them for her birthday party at the end of the week. So, sweet, my first "order" and also my chance for panda redemption.
The party was Sunday afternoon, but due to work I couldn't start on them till the Saturday night. I was going to post my step by step details of the panda build, but I didn't have my camera and didn't log what I did so heres a vague recollection of how it went:
7:30 Start making cupcake batter, I decided to go with white chocolate
8:00 Cupcakes go in to oven, have about 25 minutes to kill, start playing Starcraft
8:30 Cupcakes go out, mini cupcakes go in, another 15 minutes to kill, more Starcraft
9:00 Start frosting the cupcakes and applying the Oreo crumb fur and putting on the arms, turn on the TV, flip channels till I get to the Bachelor Pad, this looks interesting enough
9:45 Oh snap! So much drama. That Elizabeth is a troublemaker. Start working on frosting the heads.
10:30 Start putting on the facial details
11:15 Assemble head and body. Done!
So the next day I go to drop off the cupcakes. If you remember from last time, several panda cupcakes died a horrible death during transport due to crazy driving, so I decided to drive extra carefully. I kept thinking of that GI Joe episode where the Joes are transporting explosive crystals, but then Cobra ambushes the convoy with the Joe's family members. So devious!
Fortunately the cupcakes arrived without incident or ambush. The cupcakes were a big hit. Definitely lesson learned this time!
Next episode: Chris throws a party and has to bake and decorate a whole bunch of things in less than three days. Can he do it?
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Pandas and Babies
Today was my god daughter Kaiya's first birthday party and for her party I had decided I would bake Panda cupcakes from my Hello Cupcake! book. I had intended on starting on them a few days ago, but due to work craziness, I started working on them last night. My plan was to bake the cupcakes, then frost and decorate them the next morning. Unfortunately, work also deprived me of playing Starcraft for several days so I thought I'd play a few games while I baked. A few games turned into 3am. Needless to say I was pretty messed up the next morning.
(So I'm playing with my friend John, and we decide that I would go air and he would go ground. Me being inexperienced with Terran air units, start pumping out Banshees because they seem pretty powerful. John then messages me ``those are air to ground units`` at which point the enemy comes in with their entire air force and annihilates us. Oops)
Mental note #1: Don`t play Starcraft the night before I have to get up early and decorate
Sub mental note: Don`t use Banshees to fight air units
So this morning I hit up Bulk Barn to pick up some decorating supplies. I couldn`t find chocolate covered sunflower seeds or chocolate cereal Os so I decided to substitute with chocolate chips and mini oreos, although this had the effect of making my pandas look slightly Mickey Mouse-ish. Surprisingly Bulk Burn does not have mini marshmallows (or regular marshmallows for that fact) in bulk which is surprising since they have so many sugar covered ones in bulk. So I settled for a bag which unfortunately means I will have to find a need for the 99% I don't use. I then made what I thought was going to be a quick trip to pick up Kaiya`s birthday present, but ended up taking a lot longer which didn`t give me a lot of time left to decorate.
I was running late to the party so I raced down to the park. As I reached to pull out my cupcake carrier out of the car, I looked down to see what looked like a panda cupcake massacre. Heads had flown off and others mangled. I salvaged as many as I could but some remained headless casualties. But I delivered my cupcakes and they were quickly eaten up. The cupcakes even got tweeted! (sure he's a friend of mine, but that still counts) I`m definitely moving up in the baking world.
Mental note #2: Cupcakes need seatbelts (or me to drive slower)
Cupcake Notes:
-I should have secured the heads and arms with more frosting to avoid heads flying off, so be generous when gluing the pieces together
-I used 8 cookies for the fur as instructed but I found that was way too much so you probably only need about half
-frosting the head is a bit tricky as the marshmallow tends to move around, just be sure that it ends up close to the center
(So I'm playing with my friend John, and we decide that I would go air and he would go ground. Me being inexperienced with Terran air units, start pumping out Banshees because they seem pretty powerful. John then messages me ``those are air to ground units`` at which point the enemy comes in with their entire air force and annihilates us. Oops)
Mental note #1: Don`t play Starcraft the night before I have to get up early and decorate
Sub mental note: Don`t use Banshees to fight air units
So this morning I hit up Bulk Barn to pick up some decorating supplies. I couldn`t find chocolate covered sunflower seeds or chocolate cereal Os so I decided to substitute with chocolate chips and mini oreos, although this had the effect of making my pandas look slightly Mickey Mouse-ish. Surprisingly Bulk Burn does not have mini marshmallows (or regular marshmallows for that fact) in bulk which is surprising since they have so many sugar covered ones in bulk. So I settled for a bag which unfortunately means I will have to find a need for the 99% I don't use. I then made what I thought was going to be a quick trip to pick up Kaiya`s birthday present, but ended up taking a lot longer which didn`t give me a lot of time left to decorate.
I was running late to the party so I raced down to the park. As I reached to pull out my cupcake carrier out of the car, I looked down to see what looked like a panda cupcake massacre. Heads had flown off and others mangled. I salvaged as many as I could but some remained headless casualties. But I delivered my cupcakes and they were quickly eaten up. The cupcakes even got tweeted! (sure he's a friend of mine, but that still counts) I`m definitely moving up in the baking world.
Happy 1st Birthday Kaiya!
Mental note #2: Cupcakes need seatbelts (or me to drive slower)
Cupcake Notes:
-I should have secured the heads and arms with more frosting to avoid heads flying off, so be generous when gluing the pieces together
-I used 8 cookies for the fur as instructed but I found that was way too much so you probably only need about half
-frosting the head is a bit tricky as the marshmallow tends to move around, just be sure that it ends up close to the center
Pilot Episode
Welcome to my blog! So who is this guy whose baking adventures will be followed in this blog? I'm a regular guy who writes software for a living. I play more sports than I can count. I have a black belt. I know how to solve a Rubiks cube. I like to teach myself new things. I play poker, video games, and I can make an awesome pina colada. I have zero food training experience. And I enjoy baking. A lot.
When I tell people about all the stuff I bake I often get asked the question "What's up with the baking?" I will then explain how one day, I decided to bake cupcakes (it was instant mix so no skill involved) for the the kids on my basketball team which they finished instantly so then I thought there might be something to this baking thing. I also thought it was a good way to impress a girl. So I started baking and eventually got completely hooked.
So here I am a year later. So why am I here now? A week or two ago, I happened to catch a bunch of episodes of Cake Boss and DC Cupcakes which I have never seen before, and I thorougly enjoyed watching their wacky adventures. Then I thought to myself, "they have wacky adventures baking, I have wacky adventures baking!" and so I decided to chronicle my stories here, until I get my own reality tv series that is. Hope you enjoy reading them as much as I do making them!
Chris, baker in training
p.s. thanks to my sister for the blog name, way better than the names I came up with!
When I tell people about all the stuff I bake I often get asked the question "What's up with the baking?" I will then explain how one day, I decided to bake cupcakes (it was instant mix so no skill involved) for the the kids on my basketball team which they finished instantly so then I thought there might be something to this baking thing. I also thought it was a good way to impress a girl. So I started baking and eventually got completely hooked.
So here I am a year later. So why am I here now? A week or two ago, I happened to catch a bunch of episodes of Cake Boss and DC Cupcakes which I have never seen before, and I thorougly enjoyed watching their wacky adventures. Then I thought to myself, "they have wacky adventures baking, I have wacky adventures baking!" and so I decided to chronicle my stories here, until I get my own reality tv series that is. Hope you enjoy reading them as much as I do making them!
Chris, baker in training
p.s. thanks to my sister for the blog name, way better than the names I came up with!
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