Cupcakes and carrots

Cupcakes and easter hatsOne of the junior recipe testers celebrated a birthday on the weekend. Being among the youngest in her class, her birthday is always much longed-for as finally 'catching up' to everyone else. A party was planned and a cake was selected.

This year I did not attempt to make buttercream icing with butter and cornflour. That lesson learned from last year, I have now clearly labelled my pantry containers. I did make a chocolate dome to enclose the correctly iced cake. The dome was to be hammered, pinata style, after the blowing out of the candles.

As I type I am looking at the dome, still in it's bowl mold. It resolutely refused to budge from it's bowl. It would not emerge the first time, not the second time, nor the third time I remelted and remolded it. Apparently all that is required to unmold a chocolate pinata, is a 'brief rub over the outside of the bowl with a hot cloth'. This is a lie. The hair dryer provided no more help and served only to cause the parents of party guests to wonder what sort of person dries their hair standing at the kitchen bench.

With that behind us, we thought to do better with a set of cupcakes for a classroom celebration. The transport of a sizeable quantity of cupcakes to school unfortunately coincided with an ark-worthy quantity of rain. It was also the day the Easter Raffle donations were to be deposited at the school office. Of course it was.

Armed with cakes, chocolate donation bunnies, three raincoat clad juniors and several umbrellas we made it to school. From the school's front office door I could see the place where the rabbits needed to be, so I instructed the juniors to remain put and took the bunnies in.

I was gone for perhaps 8 seconds. In that time all three thought it a good idea to de-robe themselves of their raincoats and were standing under a narrow awning in the rain. Why they thought this is a complete mystery. Further, had they been asked to remove their rain gear, the task would have taken at least 15 minutes. It took the next 18 minutes to sort them back into their coverings so we could trek to the requisite classroom.

Apparently the cupcakes were a hit. None were returned home, for which I was grateful.

No time for crowing our successes: Easter Hat Parade tomorrow. I'm off to construct a rabbit hiding in long grass and an oversized carrot.