On Saturday it was another beautiful sunny day in the North West of England. It's officially the season to show off sunburnt beer bellies, buy plastic cutlery, re-discover Nobbly Bobbly's, irritate the neighbours with excessive lawn mowing at anti-social hours, and drink Pimms while the ever present threat of a hose pipe ban looms over us.
On days like this, most of us make do with dipping our feet in a kids paddling pool or going swimming in the pond, but it just so happened that on this spectacularly sunny day I was invited to a party with a hired hot tub! Well, more of a cold tub actually, but that suited us just fine in the current weather conditions.
So what does one bake when going to a cold tub party? I couldn't think of any underwater snacks off the top of my head, so I decided that I would make some birthday themed cupcakes to mark the hosts, (Hazel's) birthday. Cupcakes are easy to eat, and although some crumbs will always find their way into the filter, I'm sure the hot tub company have encountered much much worse.
I made a basic sponge mixture, and spooned a couple of teaspoons into each cupcake case. I didn't want to over fill them, because I wanted room to do some fancy decorating.
I made two batches of butter cream, one pink and one white. I used my super-dooper new piping bag to ice pink strawberry flavour swirls on half the cakes, and sprinkled them with sparkly edible powder and pink and white sugar stars. On the other half, I spread the plain butter cream over the cupcakes with a device to create a wavy surface, and then piped Hazel's age on top in pink.
As I had one malformed rejected cupcake, and enough spare icing, I decided to make Tobey a cute little cake of his own. I have included the picture for your amusement. Not all cakes have to be perfect, we all like a bit of fun.
The car journey was a critical stage in the life of these cupcakes. The sun was beating down so hard, I thought they might melt before we got there. The many roundabouts and traffic lights almost saw them splattered on the windscreen a few times too. If someone invents seatbelts for cupcakes, contact me - I want some.
It was a lovely afternoon. Bubbles were added to the cold tub, clothes got soaked, the dog played football on the lawn, and spending time with friends was the icing on the cupcake. Thanks Hazel, and happy birthday.
Coming soon, another instalment of rate my apron! You won’t believe your eyes.
Your descriptions just get more and more mentally arresting and emotionally animated with every passing blog. I haven't the foggiest how to bake stuff, but you have inspired me to pay more attention to aprons.
ReplyDeleteBridie I loved the cakes they were delicious, I will need to get you to do my daughters 21st birthday cake for me as you do such a good job xxxx
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