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More cupcakes, and a RANT.
June 18, 2008
But first, the cupcakes!
Yesterday I had a go at the Caramel Apple Cupcakes, recipe here. They are (I think) enormously tasty, but some how I didn't get the caramel quite right. The topping turned out much more like fudge on mine (lovely, grainy, homemade fudge), and it was setting like a bugger while I was trying to frost the cakes with it, so the first 10 cakes came out smooth on top, if not shiny, while the last 4 looked like someone had rubbed fudge all over them, which was essentially what had happened! My god were they scrummy though...
Little cakes:
Cutting a cone out to put in the filling:
Filling!
Top back on:
Smothered in fudge:
All the little cakes - you can see them go from smooth on the right to rough on the left!
And here is a cross section of a cake - looks pretty cool!
The cakes scored highest for smell, which is fair enough, as they were full of spice etc, and lowest for presentation, which is also fair enough. The average score for all reviewers against all criteria was 7.9, so slightly less than last weeks cakes, but more on that below.
THE RANT:
This week a lot of my friends weren't in the office, so I took some cupcakes to another floor. I ended up giving some to people who were:
a) unappreciative (if I ask you if you want a cake, don't just say "suppose" and grab one out of my tin with your greedy little fingers);
b) made me feel like a dork ("do I have to fill out a form?", yes you do, loser, didn't I just explain to you what I was doing? How come everyone last week thought it was fun but you're scowling at me - you do get something out of it for yourself too! And you don't have to eat one if you don't want!);
c) then made meaningless comments on my forms, eg "the idea of cupcakes as a wedding cake is unusual so hard to judge", well firstly it's not unusual (SEE?!), and secondly I explained they were for a wedding, so why take one if you thought you would find it so hard to say if it's tasty or not, or "not sure fudge is the correct flavour" - what? Correct?
It all reminds me a bit of people asking me to knit them a jumper, but then considering it too much effort to come to the shops with me to pick yarn. I fully explained what I was doing and why, they were getting a yummy snack out of it, they should have taken part properly. And if they thought I was a dork, then don't take advantage of my good nature and waste my cakes.
Last week everyone was so lovely and gave me loads of great ideas and constructive criticism. I know who will get cakes on my next experiment.
Posted by jen at June 18, 2008 07:37 PM
Comments
YUMO!!! My grandad makes me cakes similar to these but puts green icing on top with smartie eyes haha delicious!!
Posted by: Ashlee at June 18, 2008 11:14 PM
Well I think these cakes look scrummy! I'll fill a form every day if you bring me one of these to test! Even the rough ones look good to me but that's probably because I love home made fudge!
Posted by: Marie-france at June 18, 2008 11:19 PM
Yum! I want to work in your office - though not with the people on the other floor obviously!
I was going to suggest that you split the hot sugary stuff into batches and added the butter to finish the fudge to each batch in turn; but just looked at the recipe and see that they are making fudge in a different way to me so that'd be no use. Fudge is glorious whatever though!
Posted by: kirsty at June 19, 2008 08:17 AM
Um, head up to Gloucester with the next batch - my office will do ANYTHING for free cake.
Posted by: Anne-Marie at June 19, 2008 02:16 PM
Oh, people can be so thoughtless and rude!!! Your cupcakes are so cute :-)
Posted by: Keri at June 19, 2008 04:01 PM
yeah this week's testers are MORONS! go back to the original ones!!! :)
Posted by: carolyn at June 19, 2008 09:02 PM
Good grief, people can be ungrateful sometimes. I love being given surprise cakes and a form to fill in is a small price to pay. Keep going with the testing, I love the cupcake idea.
Posted by: Abi at June 19, 2008 09:19 PM
Hmm, it sound like you entered the dork zone on that floor. At least none of those people will be at your wedding.
I make caramels at Christmas and couldn't do it without a candy thermometer. If you don't have one, that would be my suggestion. Those cakes look incredible.
Check out these ideas from Sprinkles in LA...
http://www.sprinklescupcakes.com/wedding/wedding_index.html
Posted by: silvia at June 19, 2008 09:39 PM
Those cakes look gorgeous! Don't worry about the losers on the other floor - people who act like that are either a.Jealous, b.deeply insecure or c.miserable as sin and determined to make someone else's life a misery as well!
Stick to the people you know appreciate what you do and let the rest of them wallow in whatever it is that's making them moody!
And keep posting the wedding plans here because we all enjoy it! :)
Posted by: Jackie at June 20, 2008 04:12 PM
Hi Jen!
I often look at your lovely blog and love to see the knits and bakes!
I just had to write and say I can't BELIEVE the NASTY people on the other floor! what an unpleasant, graceless bunch of horrids! Stick to the kindly, appreciative, helpful bods you generally work with - they sound a super lot!
Best wishes for you wedding preps . . . and congratulations to you both
Rosy x
Posted by: rosy at June 20, 2008 08:46 PM
"Don't take advantage of my good nature and waste my cakes."
My new curse for all rude peeps.
Reminds me of a line from an ornery lady in M. Night Shamalyan's "The Happening":
"Why you eyein' my lemon drink??"
Posted by: Cirilia at June 21, 2008 01:53 AM
hmm you mentioned something about lots of icing perhaps being the american style of baking cupcakes. i don't know if this is true-i personally thought you had a lot of icing on the first set of cakes! the only time i feel like cupcakes don't have enough icing is when they are dry. so maybe you should go for a cupcake with a filling and then go easy on the icing? either way the cakes look delish and i would be glad to evaluate them anytime! ( :
Posted by: audrey at June 21, 2008 10:30 PM
If having "lots of icing" is the American way, then I'm happy to be an American!!! Give me icing over filling any day. I recently went on a cupcake "tour" of NYC and was disappointed by every cupcake place I tried. Some of them had good icing (most didn't) but all of the cupcakes were dry. So I'd focus on getting a good cake consistency and let the filling and or icing be the "icing on the cake" rather than the main focus.
Posted by: Elspeth at July 1, 2008 11:05 PM
where is the agree button??? i need one for that rant. : )
Posted by: sarah at July 24, 2008 05:51 AM
Hello there, I found your blog via your Blackberry cardi pattern on Knitty (which I really want to knit, but am not sure whether it's too complicated for my scarf-level knitting skills!). What a bunch of shits you had to deal with. I would be almost insane with excitement if one of my colleagues asked me to take part in a survey that involved eating home-made cakes. I think you should make another batch for them, this time containing the contents of your vacuum cleaner bag or some bird droppings. That way, you'll be able to remain cheerful about the whole thing even if they can't :-D
Posted by: Rebecca at September 3, 2008 10:53 AM
Oh, and I might become a regular reader here - not only do you knit great stuff and cook tasty snacks, but I see you're getting married next year (congrats!). I am too, and need as many wedding-type outlets as possible to prevent me from boring my friends with bridezilla type monologues ...
Posted by: Rebecca at September 3, 2008 10:57 AM