I Might Have a Sugar Problem

I didn't used to be like this... promising my boyfriend things I can't mention on the interwebz in exchange for him taking the time to drive out of his way after work to pick me up a "Harvest brownie" from Sugardaddy's.

I will admit it - I have developed a severe sweet tooth. Right now I'm on a cupcake kick, specifically pumpkin flavored cupcakes. I have been trying to ween myself off sugar for a few weeks now, but last Wednesday I won myself a free cupcake from Three Babes and a Baker. This is a local business that actually operates out of a truck. Sounds a little creepy, or at least I thought so, but the owner is a darling and the cupcakes are wonderful. She does these promotions on twitter all the time (so if you’re a Columbus local and you like cupcakes you’re going to want to follow her) for free cupcakes. She tweeted that the first five people to tweet “I love cupcakes” got a free cupcake. I did, and I was one of the first five. She told me to pick my cupcake up… before 3:00pm.

I work 30 minutes outside of Columbus and I was scheduled to work until 3:00. So you know what I did? This may shock you but it was NOT the responsible adult thing, which would have been to pass up the cupcake to someone else. I left work early and drove like a bat out of hell to get there by 3:00pm.

And of course I couldn’t leave well enough alone. I was really wanting a pumpkin flavored cupcake, and I decided that I would take it upon myself to find the best pumpkin flavored treat (doesn’t even have to be a cupcake) in Columbus. I know, I know…. so brave and selfless am I to take on such a task.

I drove straight past my house the next day to Bakery Gingham and bought a Pumpkin Pie flavored cupcake from there. The following day, Friday, was the day I propositioned my boyfriend in an attempt to have him pick me up the pumpkin brownie I mentioned above. Due to an unfortunate turn of events he was unable to do so.

It’s getting real serious up in here, folks. I don't even know what lengths I'm going to go to next.

Justin is going to come home from work one day and I’m going to be lying on the floor in a puddle of frosting and cake crumbs, having OD’ed on one too many cupcakes.

Either that or I’ll just get fat. 

Cakerday! A Baby Shower Cake

So I suppose I should probably live up to my name sake and post some pictures here and there for when I am too   (insert appropriate response)  (busy, lazy, hungover, tired, bitchy, whatevery) to post something more interesting or humorous.

This week my excuse is school. It starts today (in a few hours) and I'm extremely nervous. First of all, I've never been on a real campus because my first degree was earned at "satellite" branches. I have to ride buses around campus and I have never done this before either (other than trips I've taken for school where it just takes you from one spot to another, no routing necessary). Second of all, I am waaaaay older than the other kids, or at least I was at orientation/convocation on Monday. I know I'm not that old, but I felt it then; I hope that there are students my age or older in my classes. Third of all, I feel like there is just SO MUCH stuff I need to do / be aware of / learn / understand about the 'college experience' that I didn't give a crap about before. I feel a lot of pressure to make sure that I really do well this time around. Anyway... on to a story about cakes:

I sometimes do cakes on the side for friends and family. I've worked for various bakeries and I've worked for a nationally recognized cake decorator (albeit for like a month because she made me a baker, which I don't really enjoy, and I had a second job at the time). I got my start decorating cakes here:

 Good 'ol Big Bear. You would not believe how hard I had to look to find a decent picture (thanks Wikipedia). I have pictures of myself goofing off working here from almost a decade ago but I can probably write a few stories about the joys of Big Bear employment so maybe I'll include them later. I'm glad it closed down, because I probably would never have been motivated to get another job. That's how much I loved it here.


Anyway, I digress. Here's my cake for Cakerday. I feel that I need a theme day but since I am lazy and sporadic about posting Cakerday will just be any day I feel like it. SO there.

This might be one of my favorite cakes. It was a "beach themed baby shower cake for twin boys" done for a girl I graduated with from high school. I was totally terrified because it is extremely easy to make fondant/gumpaste babies that will give you nightmares, but I think mine turned out pretty non-alarming. Really, what would you do if you ordered a baby shower cake and these were on it?

Congrats on giving birth - sorry your baby has no eyes!

This baby is moaning in delight!

Variation on the baby shower cake - Mummified baby!

What, you don't like dead baby jokes?

Come play with meee....

I bet his finger lights up and he flies over the moon in a bicycle basket too.

* My apologies to the creators of these cakes, I hope that you're not too offended. Lord knows I've turned out shitty-looking cakes and fondant creations too. All the time in fact. But honestly, these babies are just a tad disturbing.

The cake was hard, I freaked out over it a few times, I may have shed some tears or done some screaming at the boyfriend, but it got finished. Then after it was delivered and completely set up the palm tree fell over backward and took out a huge chunk of the back.... ftw. Here it is in all its final glory though. Enjoy!

Finished cake... resolution on this pic sucks.

Note the blue frosting on the palm frond? That's from the spill down the back of the cake.