New Skillz

I had mistakenly left the "s" off "Skillz" in the title, thus it read "New Killz" - which looks like a blog post title that some sort of annoying Gen Y contract killer would leave. As it is I am just an annoying Gen X food blogger aping Gen Y. So who's clever now eh? Hard to tell.

I learned new things this month - My friend CC and I had decided many many many months ago to do a "Cupcake Masterclass". Sounds fairly splendid doesn't it? It took us a while to actually get there, we had some, ahem, issues getting a booking and then some hilarious misunderstandings and then some recriminations and then some tears and then some sulky apologies and eventually we were all friends again.

I did not make this, but God, how I wish I did...

I was under the impression that we would bake a cupcake and then decorate it, but it was pretty clear when we mounted the stairs and were looking at rows and rows of naked cupcakes that we would be decorating only. Suited me just fine, I was already in that frame of mine where I was one degree of difficulty away from suggesting we leave and go to a bar. I may have said twice that "what would make this perfect is a glass of wine". There was none forthcoming, so we made do without. It was a full room. Full of women.. predictably. Women who loved cupcakes, women who were mothers, women who knew nothing about decorating and women who knew a lot about it. And Jennifer. She was the woman running the class.

Jennifer, centre back.

Jennifer has a zeal regarding baking that borders on the religious, whilst I couldn't quite get on the same page I had to admire her love of the product and also - she's awesome at what she does. Jennifer talked for ages, ages and ages. She talked about cake being the most important substance on earth, it's place in ritual and  where it originated. It was more than I bargained for. I was vaguely worried that CC, my bestie, would be getting restless and bored and when she does that she sometimes groans audibly. I have sat through a couple of pieces of theatre in which CC moved from quiet moans of suffering through louder snorts of derision to openly and quite loudly saying "No more, no more!". So you see, Jennifer's monologue regarding the importance of cake through the ages was a concern for me. But CC hung in, she did roll her eyes afterwards, restrainedly.

Jennifer

Jennifer

Yes, Jennifer again.

Jennifer showed up a couple of rather handy and very clever methods for the application of icing or frosting, the best thing that she said was that we should practise on a bench or a tray, then we could just scrape up the icing and refill the piping bag and try again. That is an awesome idea!!! As opposed to producing mutant cupcakes, which is generally what I do.

Me.

As you can see, I tried to reproduce some of what she did, I had a go at the rose that she made at the top, but my icing fell floppily about and so I jammed a flower on it and pretended that was what I had wanted to do all along. It's there in the mauve.

I did attempt the shrubbery with the flowers and I think that ended up quite pretty, I have to say that the level of stress that I was feeling was quite high. My unnaturally high standards and need for perfection were coming hard up against with my actual level of ability. See the pink flowery looking one, with the yellow flower in the middle? I did that with the wrong nozzle - it still looks quite fetch, but I was deeply concerned as I made it "Not looking perfect, seems weirdly piled up, hers didn't look like this, I might be approaching failure".

Of course no one except me gave a shit how my cupcakes looked and in the end I was happy enough with them. Gabe licked the icing off two of them.

I made some caramel slice today, I've already blogged about this recipe, but I popped them in individual papers and cooked them in a muffin tin. I highly recommend this - it makes them a more manageable size, they look extra pretty and you don't have to hack through them and destroy any possible symmetry.

Wrapped!

Unwrapped!

There are a vast pile of things at my house now, so if you want one please let me know. They are still impossibly rich and after two bites you have to to hunker down for the full battle. I had to take a break, but I made it.