The cupcakes of death
NS April 4th, 2009
It was TNC’s third birthday on Thursday. We took her to the zoo on the day but we’re having a party with family and friends tomorrow. Nothing major but I’ve done my usual trick: said I was going to make and bake a bunch of things myself and then ended up not doing them, or doing them badly. Will I ever learn? Who was I kidding when I thought I’d get enough time (or skill!) to make my own pinata and decorate two dozen cupcakes to look like sheep, like I saw in a Waitrose food magazine?! It was harrowing enough to organise the location, buy the food and decorations, get a party dress for the birthday girl, send invites and directions, and put together goodie bags for the kids. I obviously still harbor delusions of grandeur in which I am Bree Van de Kamp a la Desperate Housewives.
Not me
When, in fact, this is more like me. Or, rather, will be me at 10.55 tomorrow when the guests are getting ready to arrive and I am still slapping Betty Crocker “heart attack in a can” Vanilla Icing onto my dry, tasteless cupcakes (you suck, Waitrose food magazine) with a spork while trying to wrestle the plastic tags off of the decorations and games before passing them off as handmade.
Me
More reporting from the dark side tomorrow…
- Home and Hearth , Hunger Pangs , Parenting 101
- Comments(10)
You know, since Brie is a cheese and Van De Camp is well known for its baked beans, sounds like you might be trying to be cheesy beans on toast. How British is that! Hope all goes well tomorrow.
“Sounds just like the sort of thing I might do,” says the one who seems temporarily to have forgotten that she offered to be the one to provide the dessert for a Passover Seder meal for 60 people, envisioning making cute little cupcake bunnies or little raspberry tarts or something. Better Crocker brownie mix, here we come…
good luck, lady! you’re brave for taking on the task of making cupcakes that look like tiny sheep. i hope all goes well!
Good luck!
I’ve never been much good at baking, but have been doing quite a bit of it with Rosemary lately (it’s one of the easier things to do to together, I find), and have more or less mastered the basic sponge. Lulled into a false sense of security, I decided I would be able to make chocolate cake yesterday. Nope. It’s the driest, least fluffy thing I’ve ever tasted, and needs to be eaten in ratios of 1:10 cake:ice cream to make it edible.
Hope it’s not too horrendous a day!
This is why “Mums go to Iceland” you know.
A for effort! If they turned out very dry, you could recycle them in kind of a special Easter-Gotcha game. Just slab on different coloured icings and duck down…
Betty Crocker to the rescue! I ended up making my own cakes but used Betty’s tried and trusted vanilla icing. Great success and the Brits all rave about that icing every time I use it. I got asked a few times how I made it and I could’ve lied but I decided to come clean and tell them which aisle of the supermarket they could find it in. My friends, being fabulous, didn’t mind a jot and thought it was mad of me to have tried to make sheep cupcakes from a poncy Waitrose mag. The temporary insanity that overtakes me every time my child’s birthday comes around has finally abated. Life can return to normal. Sweet relief!
Birthday parties are so hard – we feel we need to everything but we can’t. And shouldn’t!!! I kept my son’s recent 5th birthday totally simple and basic and it was a huge hit with all the kids. I also lathered my cake in Betty Crocker from a can and it was delicious and no one knew or cared!
LOL about Bree Van de Kamp . . . are there women like that who really exist today? I will admit to watching the show this year (after missing several seasons) and I really can’t believe that woman is for real. Well, you know, as *real* as a character on television really is
Well, you have a post from the following day, so I’m going to assume that you’re not in the nick. So you made it through a 3 year old birthday party. Well done.
Hey Happy Birthday TNC
)
I do know women like Bree….& they are equally unhinged lol.
I’m not looking forward to Poppy & Alora same day party…think I might just buy bubble machine & paper lanterns & a crate of wine……