Cuppycakes

I don't think ShannonAnn thought I'd be able to do it...but I did. I managed to make and post cupcakes to my blog while on my trip.

Joe's Aunt Betty (not the aunt we're staying with) has been in the hospital and is coming home tomorrow. We stopped by today to visit and I got to meet her for the first time. She's real sweet and I enjoyed our time with her. After we left, I told Joe I thought we should bring her flowers or cupcakes or some other similar nice thing to welcome her home. Joe thought cupcakes would be best.

Normally I would agree wholeheartedly but I don't have any of my tools, recipes or ingredients with me as they are all either packed up in our moving cubes or in the mail on my way to me in Oregon. I thought I might be able to do something anyway. Aunt Linda (Aunt Betty's sister and the aunt we're staying with) thought we should do carrot cake.

To make a long story short(er), though not operating in ideal baking conditions (tools, recipes, ingredients, etc), I ended up with 24 carrot cake cupcakes that weren't bad for a first attempt at carrot cake. The frosting was a little tricky, though.

First I did a creamcheese frosting but didn't have any frosting tools so simply used the back of a spoon. While functional, it didn't make the smoothest, most aesthetically pleasing frosting surface. The carrots were a bit fussy as well. The only materials I really had at my disposal were regular silverware and very thin sandwich baggies that had tails at the bottom (which made it hard to do anything too precise). In the end, I wouldn't put them in my portfolio, but they do at least resemble carrots somewhat. Hopefully Aunt Betty will just be charmed we made her cupcakes and won't notice some of my wonky carrots.