Death of a Cupcake

The WC's birthday is tomorrow. Eight big ones. He has invited 8 boys over for football, pizza, cake and Shrek the Third. And how could I forget - a sleepover. We did it last year with no problems. The lights were out at 9:00 and most were asleep by 9:30. But I'm doing it solo this year. The DH has to work.

In addition to agreeing to the boy fest at my abode, I signed on to bring cupcakes to his class, tomorrow. The WC didn't ask. I just got a wild hair or something. Cupcakes are easy, right? I have never been one for presentation, but these don't even look edible.


I effed them up - BAD! I think I was supposed to let them cool before I moved them but because I filled them too full they spilled over their tops and bled into one another so they looked like a sheet cake when I took them out. I thought I'd never get them apart if I let them cool. Well, they are apart, by God. Now, I just have to mount the icing to hide the mess. The kids won't care. Right?

I had a similar cooking debacle last year when I tried to make a Gingerbread house with the WC's class. I spent at least two hours preparing the night before. Cutting the dough using templates that I gleaned off the Internet for the "easiest" Gingerbread house ever. That should have tipped me off. When I got to school with my carefully baked pieces, none of them fit together. I spent the better part of an hour and a half scrapping the pieces, desperately tyring to get the damn walls to meet, while the restless kids watched (and played under the table) in the student kitchen. Finally, I got the four walls to meet enough and "glued" them together with Royal Icing. Great lesson, I thought. Perseverance prevails. Then my house of shame met an inadvertent elbow from a hyper kid and the walls they crumbled down. I wanted to cry. Really. But instead we slathered the pieces of the house with the (can I tell you how nasty this stuff tasted? But it is what everyone uses to "glue" their gingerbread houses) icing, Skittles and M&M's and the kids happily ate my house. Sugar is sugar, right?

I hope that sentiment is prevalent tomorrow. Luckily, the boy's REAL birthday cake is coming from the local Sister's McMullen bakery.