Getting Ready for Camp

In an effort to minimize the madness to come this weekend, I decided to start getting things together for the cupcakes a bit early. The goal for tonight was to get the chocolate frosting and caramelized sugar decorations done for my competition cupcakes. This frosting is kind of out of control. The ingredients include 2 1/4 cups of butter and a pound and a half of chocolate. It's a Paula Deen kind of thing but, surprizingly, it came straight from Martha. If you ever wondered what that much chocolate and butter would look like, wonder no more.

Next up was come caramelized sugar. This was something I didn't think I could possibly mess up...but I did. Boy am I glad I decided to get this stuff out of the way early. Here's what happens when you try to make caramel and the sugar doesn't dissolve. Rock candy!

Needless to say, that went straight to the garbage can. The second go round was much more successful. I added more water and made sure the sugar was totally dissolved before it got to a boil. I was a little too careful and it took forever for the water to boil off but ended up with a much better result. I decided to try my hand at forming the sugar in molds. I'd been reading about it online and it seemed easy enough. I pulled out my collection of woodland creature cutters from Ikea and some random ones from the drawer.

A couple of them turned out alright but none of them are fantastic. I think I'll end up breaking them up and sticking them in the icing. I also made some bubble sugar which I'd never heard of until today. You crumple up the parchment, cover it with some vodka, and pour on the molten sugar. The sugar and alcohol react and create bubbles. It was a pretty cool little science experiment.

The dry ingredients for both batches of cupcakes are measured and ready to go. Hopefully the rest of the prep will work out as well as tonight. I'm really looking forward to this weekend. Not only do I get to make cupcakes and witness what 20,000+ cupcakes look like in one room, but I also get to spend some time with a few of my friends I don't get to see too often. Yay! I'll be sure to update when I get back from the weekend. Wish me luck!