CupCake Class On A Cruise


CUPCAKE CLASS
Cupcake Cupboard

  • From Pittsburg, Napa Valley, Europe, and LA with two instructors from China and Russia...
    • we were ready for global communications,
    • we were ready to bring peace to the world,
    • we were ready to apply icing to cake.
  • They had:
    • 2 Cupcakes
    • Plastic plate
    • Small black plastic container
    • candy (green mellon candy, candy dots, long black sprinkles, and 2 Smarties)
    • Frosting tip #8, frosting bag, and frosting 
  • Laid out on the table under layers of plastic wrap.
    • After we had all washed our hands we were deemed clean enough to remove the layer of protection.
    • A chocolate and Vanilla cupcake sat staring at me.
      • I’m not a frosting person.
        • I know this means I also have green skin and scales, but it’s not my thing.
      • Meaning these cupcakes sitting there with nothing between me and them were in serious danger.
        • Maybe I could just decorate the plate and no one would notice?

  • But the teacher saved me from self-destruction and started instruction.

  • “Put your cupcake upside down and cut it in half.”
    • We had sharp little knifes for this.
      • I felt honored that they trusted me with such a weapon.
        • But then again they didn’t know me.
        • I resisted the urge to hold it like a pirate sword and shout “Argg, hand over all the cake and no one gets hurt.”
Cut your cupcake in half

          Then they had me cut it like an A. I obviously do not know what an A looks like because I cut it like this.



Cut wrong


I was instructed to think back to my primary school learning and cut the cupcake like this…

Cut it in an A shape

  • At this point I had no idea what we were making. 
    • Maybe it was an A? 
      • If so, almost done.
  • Then they told me to ditch the A. 
    • But, I had finally figured it out…
  • Time to focus on the chocolate cupcake.
    • Well, now this I understood.
    • I had my knife ready to cut away the parts not needed. The parts I would then help everyone dispose of.
  • But we didn’t cut it.
    • We drew lines on it in the shape of an X (this letter I remembered) and  added more and more (For the body of the puppy).
Make lines on your second cupcake
    • Sure, this is what puppies bodies look like. I was ready to go back to making As

Make more lines

  • Then we went back to the vanilla cupcake, it was time to “put it on the body facing you.”
    • They obviously had never seen me in high school wood shop.
    • There are 4 sides to this cupcake piece. 
    • Three ways for me to mess up and two of them were irreversible.
    • And thanks to my earlier forgetfulness of how an A slopes, I was down to one piece.
      • I hesitated.
      • I clarified.
      • I asked outright.
    • The woman finally realizing the class could not move on without me, came over and placed it for me.
    • Turns out, the part that was originally the top of the cupcake is where the face of the puppy should be. And you should face that towards you.
  • Now it was time to make sure that puppy stayed put.
  • I suggested a leash and several chains…but they recommended flowers at the base of the puppy\vanilla head.
  • Make flowers to cement the two pieces together
  • My flowers came out all squiggly and wiggly
    • They told me it was fine, I was not satisfied with this.
      • So, I made them teach me how to make the flowers look like flowers.
      • And ladies and gents here it is…Squeeze, stop squeezing, pull.
        • It was the “stop squeezing” of the pastry bag that I then proceeded to work on. 
        • Even after my head understood the new directive my hand had a field day disobeying.
  • Now we fastened the green melon looking candy, with some frosting, to put on the front of our cupcake to look like the muzzle.
  • Note: You can get carried away with the amount of frosting.
    • Again, I blame my hand.
      • It’s on vacation, and since I type for a living, it decided to do what it wanted.
  • Then you make lines, starting near the chocolate base or green melon, up the doggies face to where the top of the original cupcake stops.
  • I thought, oh good, hand do your thing. The hand made crooked lines.
Make straight lines

  • Next fur, on the 4 remaining untouched cake surfaces.
    • The lady teaching gave us two option.
      • One to make lines, for a sophisticated looking pup
      • Two a bunch of the little flowers for a spiky dog.
    • My dog told me he was a punk rocker, so I started the flower approach.
      • My hand was not happy.
Fill the other three sides with flowers 
  • Find that Green Mellon on the front and zig zag up and down it with frosting so no green shows.
Zigzag the icing on the mellon

  • By now the tasty cake has built a fortress over its self, rendering its self safe...
  • Next we took half a black jelly bean and added it onto the front, just above the now hidden green melon candy.
Add the jelly bean nose
  • Next, we took our blue candy buttons and put them on our dogs.
    • My pup look appropriately pouty and forlorn. He must be a teen dog who’s best friend is out of town.
Add candy button eyes

  • Next, came two American Smarties (not to get mixed up with the Canadian M & M like candy).
    • I’m talking the chalky Halloween candy that is mainly sugar with a tiny bit of flavor.
    • I loved them because when opened it had a zillion pieces of candy.
    • To share, or not share with others.


Add smarties
  • Oh yeah, these are ears. They look like mouse ears, so we were instructed to frost over them in a pointy A shape.
Add smartie ears to your cupcake dog
    
    • I had Finally mastered my A.
      Add frosting to the ears in an A shape on the cupcake dog
    • Mrs. Guilly, my kindergarten teacher, would be proud.
  • You also put a large dot of frosting behind the ears at the base. 
    • This is to help keep the ears from sliding and becoming a bow tie.
Add a dot to your ears on your cupcake dog

  • Next, we had chocolate sprinkles, the long kind.
    • I’m not sure of their technical name.
    • We put frosting on a toothpick and were told to pick up the longest one in our cups
Use tooth pick with a bit of frosting to pick up a sprinkle

  • Put it under the nose. It’s supposed to be center, but my pup is a punk rocking teen, he has attitude.

Cupcake dog
  • I then was instructed how to do eyelashes, which you can see on my instructors well coiffed version of this here (i.e. what mine was supposed look like)…

  • I did eyebrows instead...


  • My puppy looks droopy which would’ve been great if I was making Droopy. 
  • But, this was a combination of a sweaty cupcake base (make sure your cupcake is cool) and melty frosting. 
    • I asked a teacher what she did when her frosting got saggy.
      • She said she put it in the fridge til it got cool again.
      • My conclusion is too have two frosting bags going.
      • One in the fridge one you are using so you can switch out. 
  • Then we flipped it to the back and added an ending to this tail.

Add a tale
  • Then I dug in and "ate the cake", or what I could extract from the rebellious pup.
    • Or if you prefer, "preserved it forever"...sure...if that makes you feel better.

eating the cake



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