Cupcakes were made to NOT outlast a celebration

I love cupcakes, as a previous entry may suggest. I love their size, their paper wrappers, their ability to make even the most hardened man look a like a little kid. Cupcakes are powerful and wonderful in my world.

But, today. Today, I fear that the all-mighty cupcake and I are reaching a breaking point.

“Oh, no! Why, Kristen? For all that is holy and pure and delicious in the world, why?” you cry.

Three words: Cupcake buffet overload.

For my family graduation celebration, I baked 10-dozen cupcakes. I frosted 10-dozen cupcakes. I served 10-dozen cupcakes. And today, 4-dozen cupcakes sit contently in my freezer, naïve to the pain they are causing me by their very existence.

I know this venture didn’t start in this anti-cupcake manner – it wasn’t always a sinkhole of flour, sugar, and butter. Once it was a beautiful party for my graduation. And I have pictures to prove it:

The set-up:

How Martha of me! Color-coordinated, labeled, and tiered! I just grabbed white bowls, flipped them over, and used Museum Wax to secure white plates for the cupcakes to rest upon. Call me a simpleton with vision.

The Grub: Vanilla

Plain and simple. For the classic palate.

The Grub: Lemon

Yes, these cupcakes are yellow and blue. Think school colors with a zesty finish.

The Grub: Carrot

The first cupcakes to go…because we forgot there was another dish in the other refrigerator.

Silver lining: They were fun to pipe. Dark, death-metal lining: I still have three bags of orange, green, and brown (see chocolate cupcake) icing in my house.

The Grub: Angel food
Loved by those who ate them; loathed by the rest of us. Sadly, 2- of the 4-dozen cupcakes in my freezer belong in the Angel food category.

The Grub: Pina Coloda

My absolute FAVORITE. Fun to make, fun to decorate, fun to eat.

Plus, the dried pineapple resembles a dorsal fin on a shark, so I was able to make a variety of Jaws references throughout the party. “Here are more cupcakes – oh, no! No room…I think we need a bigger boat!”

The Grub: Double Chocolate Chip with Mortar Boards

Winner of the whimsy award for the mortar board hat and tassel.

The hat? A solid wedge of milk chocolate – hello, sweetheart!

Once, these were dazzling cupcakes. Now, they are a slew of hockey puck sized weights in my freezer. Yes, my guests did their part – chatting, eating, and taking my comments of “Remember, I’m counting all of your cupcake wrappers before you leave” as jest. To their credit, they ate heartily, my brave party-goers, and still...

Still: 4-dozen cupcakes.

*Sigh*

Cupcakes, anyone?

Cupcakes were made to celebrate

Cupcakes. The mini-pleasantries of love and joy that we remember from childhood. A grade school birthday was never complete unless a plate of cupcakes was ceremoniously displayed, painstakingly passed out, and then ravaged in mere moments.

Reading that back, grade school sounds a lot like the Wild Kingdom.

Nonetheless: Cupcakes. As school has taught us, cupcakes are the best way to celebrate momentous events. Birthdays, weddings, graduations...

Yes, graduations. And by graduations I do mean mine. I submitted my last paper (a 50-page business plan) on Friday night and now I wait until that diploma arrives in the mail.

But I'm not going to wait. I'm going to celebrate - with cupcakes!

The Prep:
Observe: Carrot cake cupcakes in their oozy, sticky form.

The Result:

Observe: 8 dozen (soon to be 10), naked cupcakes.

The Beauty Shots:
Lemon cupcakes (Champlain blue and white)


Double chocolate chip cupcakes

Pineapple cupcakes (destined to be pina coloda)

Vanilla cupcakes

The Big Freeze: Take One

The cleanest my freezer has been in, well, forever.

The Big Freeze: Take Two
Frozen, organized cupcakes!

In two weeks these little beauties will make their graduation party debut - dressed to the nines in frosting and edible decorations. Until that day, I will refrain from freezing any items including, but not limited to: garlic, fish, onions, and Gorgonzola.

Self Promotion Graduation Style

Self promotion is never comfortable. And why should it be? The act itself goes against our most basic family-taught values: Humility, selflessness, community. To truly embody these qualities when trying to get a job, promotion, or merely make a business connection is to forfeit to the other guy - the guy that steps up and says, "I think I'm rather spectacular and here's why."

The truth is that self promotion is absolutely necessary and yet most of us hate to do it. My solution to this dreaded necessity: humor.

My example: Graduation

I graduated* from college yesterday. I did this dressed in a black gown and mortar board among 438 graduates of the same attire. My parents were never going to find me in that crowd and I was never going to be able to spot myself in pictures in the future. So, I decided to become a billboard.



With yellow electrical tape and a whole lot of glee, I crafted a message on my hat for the world to read:

FOR HIRE

In these two little words I showed three things about myself:

1. I'd like a job.
2. I utilize the resources I have and know how to use media (see image, courtesy of the the Burlington Free Press).
3. I have a sense of humor and don't take myself too seriously.

This was my 4-hour attempt at self promotion and it paid off in my networking. I spoke to people I never knew, got business cards, and managed to get enough pictures taken of me to make my eyes go wonky. This was my style of self promotion: Short, sweet, and to the point.

Yes, self promotion is not comfortable. But as long as you can find places where you can bring a bit of yourself into the process, it can be bearable. And even a little fun, but don't tell anyone I said that.