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I wanted to impress Jarod & Liz (.com) this afternoon with my giant cupcake skillz.

Even though it was such a success last week, I think I got a bit cocky this morning… and ended up with this:

And this is improved, because it’s at least decorated and hides the burnt outsides and the so-uncooked-it’s-still-runny insides. The nude version was UGLY. Trust me. It even needed a spatula to move it from the cake airer because the uncooked batter fused the damn cake to it.

It was easily the biggest baking disaster I’ve ever created.

Jarod and Liz picked the icing colours, and the decorations. We popped a mini cupcake (made from batter leftovers) on top in a vain attempt to minimise the horror.

Liz made chocolate hot cross buns and they were much better than my dismal attempt at baking.

I’m thinking I might branch out into the world of professional cupcaking. What do you reckon?

These babies are in the oven RIGHT NOW.

Keep an eye out for the finish product as well as the recipe on That’s Noice on Tuesday!

Last week I wrote on That’s Noice about my love of the Crabapple Bakery Cupcake Cookbook and mentioned that the company had gone out of business and found there had been more than a few negative reviews about the poor-quality of the cupcakes and the bakery itself.

I’ve since discovered that they are up and running again as Crabapple Cupcakes and Supplies.

It will be interesting to see if Jennifer Graham will be able to renew the Crabapple name to its former glory. I hope she does, because those recipes in the book really are fantastic.

If you haven’t been to Cupcakes on Pitt and have been wanting to – DON’T.

That is, unless you’re planning on being disappointed (like I was).

I’ve been strangely curious about Cupcakes on Pitt; more than a handful of friends have had half-hearted opinions of their wares and I’ve been debating for a long time if I wanted to find out for myself. But the very brave Leigh took me to the Parramatta Cupcakes on Pitt store.

I’ve never been to the Bondi store or the flagship store in the city so don’t know if it’s the norm to not have any decent seating, but I was surprised that there were only about 4 barstools in the shop, and no tables.

While I was choosing which 2 cupcakes to buy, the woman behind the counter kept yelling flavours at me. It was like I was in the middle of Paddy’s Markets or walking through Kings Cross. At least the prices were down to $2.00 from the original $3.50. All the cupcakes looked impressive but I managed to decide to buy a lemon meringue and a passionfruit.

I have to give credit to the packaging; my little bundle of cupcakes made it home in one piece after being lugged around multiple laps of Parramatta Westfield.

The cakes themselves were dry and plain. The passionfruit icing was fake-tasting and the meringue was rubbery. The nicest part was the tiny amount of lemon under the meringue.

Overall, a thoroughly disappointing experience. If you’re looking for a nice cupcake cafe in Sydney, then Cupcakes on Pitt is not the place you’re looking for!

Jam Donut Cupcakes = YUM

The batter was a bit sticky; probably needed a bit more buttermilk to make the spooning easier.

Once again, Not Quite Nigella proves her awesomeness in the food stakes.

Yesterday Olgie turned the ripe old age of 30.

I figured a significant birthday deserves significant gifting – so I gave Olgie a set of 4 cupcakes HANDMADE BY MOI:

Lucky for Dan and me, there were some duds left over, which of course we had to eat. To save the world from the horror of bad cupcakes.

So October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and on Monday it’s Pink Ribbon Day.

This weekend I’m off for a girlie weekend where we’ll celebrate Pink Ribbon Day. To bribe everyone, I’ve spent the week preparing my signature cupcakes, and finally finished them just now:

I made the ribbons over the course of Tuesday (coloured the fondahhhhnt in the morning before work and shaped them when I got home that night), made the cupcakes last night and made the icing tonight to finish off the whole shebang.

I was debating leaving the buttercream icing uncoloured, but decided to go with some pink. Overdid it with the Wilton pink icing colouring, but as if there’s such a thing as too much pink!

No doubt Barbara, Kay, Leigh and Naomi will have their sugar fix well and truly sorted by tomorrow afternoon…

Yes, I know it’s bootie in this context, shaddup :o)

I keep telling myself that when I get time I’ll have a go at modelling with fondant (or “fondahhhnt”, for those to want to pronounce it properly) and finally got inspired enough to get my act together when I saw Not Quite Nigella make it look easy.

So to mark the start of my week-long break from work, I gave it a whirl.

I made about half a dozen before my attention span waned. Already I know what I’ll do differently next time, but am pretty chuffed with myself for at least pulling my finger out and giving it a go.

Major props to my Wilton icing colour pots, awesome job with the blue colouring, although I now have some lovely patches of azure on my fingers :o)

So after finally getting the right tip to pipe cupcakes the way I imagine them, I gave myself another go at another batch tonight.

These cupcakes will go to work tomorrow – themed in the WYD08 colours to celebrate surviving the ordeal.

The cats decided they couldn’t help themselves (again) by breaking through my well-prepared barriers and nomming 2 cupcakes off the counter while they were cooling (again). I decided to play their game and iced their 2 cupcakes and left them in their bowls to nom. All they really did was lick the icing off. But I feel like the winner in any case.

AND! I finally remembered to try out one of the cupcake trees I was given for my 30th last month. Didn’t think much of them, but after putting these babies on the mini-tree, I’ve changed my mind.

You should have tasted these cupcakes I made last night and took to work this morning.

Delicious doesn’t even begin to describe them.

They were only plain, with coloured buttercream icing and silver cachous on top. I ate 3 last night and 3 more today.There’s one left for Dan and I’m wishing I didn’t have TAFE tonight so I could make another batch.

Promise to show you the photographic evidence when I remember to grab the pics from work.