me: cupcake failure

Sometimes good intentions fail.  My husband works in education and asked me to contribute to a fundraiser bake sale.  Well, this is right up my alley and I jumped at the opportunity.  Baking, making stuff, basking in my misguided fantasies that all the teachers at his school will envy my hubby for marrying such a catch and wonder, "how does she do it all?" after they see my fantastic cupcakes.

OR...

Here's my tutorial on how to fail epically at making cupcakes for a bake sale.

Step 1:  Search the Internet for the perfect cupcake recipe.  I chose this one.

Step 2:  Realize early in the week that work is C-R-A-Z-Y right now and there is no way you will have time to execute your chosen recipe.  Send hubby to buy boxed cake mix (sigh) and pre-made frosting (double sigh) at the grocery store.  When hubby doesn't buy your preferred cake mix repeat this mantra, "Do you want it done right or do you want it done?"  (Repeat this mantra to yourself as much as possible.  It makes for a happier marriage.)

Step 3:  Decide to compensate for not-made-from-scratch cupcakes with charming cupcake decorations.  However, work is still crazy so scratch any ideas involving fondant or piping.  Stop at Michaels after working a twelve hour day and purchase cute cupcake papers (when did they get so many different designs) and shockingly expensive m&ms in hubby's school colors.

Step 4:  Design a sign for cupcakes thanking bake sale customers for their purchase.  Envision rows of perfectly frosted cupcakes sporting your cute sign held on top with a toothpick.

Step 5:  Try to leave work early one day to execute making cupcakes (5:30 is early, right?).  Clean kitchen and mix cupcakes.  Realize that you previously threw away your cupcake pans because they were so ratty.  Send hubby to Target for cupcake pans.

Step 6:  Lick the spoon.

Step 7:  Put cupcakes in the oven and go print and punch cupcake signs.  Search frantically for jump drive so that you can transfer file from the laptop to the one computer in the house hooked up to a printer.  Abandon search for jump drive and climb under the table to disconnect the printer from old crappy computer and connect printer to laptop.  Print signs and realize you have no ink.  Realize that only one sign is salvagable and that cupcake signs ain't gonna happen.

Step 8:  Take cupcakes out of oven and note that they don't look quite right.  Disregard and move on.

Step 9:  Frost cupcakes and continue to ignore that they don't seem right until a cupcake literally disintigrates in your hands while you are frosting it.  Sacrifice one cupcake to the husband taste test.  Cringe when cupcakes fail the test...hubby will eat anything so they must be bad!

Step 10:  Re-read back of cake mix box and realize that you mixed up the measurements for oil and water.

Step 11:  Throw away cupcakes and clean kitchen.  Put away shockingly expensive m&ms for another project.

And that's how it's done.  Sure you could fail at cupcakes in fewer steps, but what fun would that be?  If you are going to fail at something do it right!