Sweet Success

Let me start off by saying that I hold a whole new level of respect for cake decorators. My plan for Mattox's birthday party was to make my own cupcakes (with an idea in mind), my own cake pops, and my own food of course. Well after 2 attempts at cake balls, I broke down and ordered them already. I wanted them to resemble golf balls and mine looked more like... well, nasty schwetty balls. Plus they didn't even taste good. So onto the cupcakes. Matt's co-workers are loving me because I send my practice cupcakes at least once a week the past few weeks. I wish I had taken pictures of the "lil errors" because it has definitely been a work in progress. Icing/Frosting was a foreign language if it didn't come in a can. I had never heard of couplers or nonpareils. I started off with this and was determined to find the best recipe for what I needed:

Trial 1: Icing came out very runny/watery... so the 'grass' just ran together. I might as well have just used a knife to spread it on there. After 1/3 jar of green food coloring it still came out mint green - not grass green.

Trial 2: Tried different recipe. Forget the food coloring and just practice with making actual grass strands. Again, too runny and didn't like the taste of the icing at all.

Trial 3: Back to my original recipe minus the milk and vanilla. Used 1/2 jar of food coloring... AND... PERFECTION!!!! Ahhh! Success!

It's the little things I love.

I ordered brown wrappers, but I didn't want to waste them on my practice round, but here's the final product minus my white wrapper. If the cupcakes in March don't turn out like these, at least I have proof that I reached my goal.

Grass is not as easy as it looks. Seriously. A rose or a flower (like on a wedding cake) would absolutely blow my mind. New found respect. I know yall don't care about frosting, but it made my day today!