Cupcake Wars and bags of melting frozen veggies

I have to admit.  It has been kind of awesome being restricted to the house with my surgery patient.  There have been no places to run during the day, no work (at the office anyway), and Emily being who she is has even requested my presence with her when watching afternoon movies- which has meant nap time almost every day.  However, trying to keep track of her medicines-the times issued- how much has she drank- when is her antibiotic due (plus the whole recently pierced ears cleanings) are a bit taxing, so that naps are a necessity.  That's what I keep telling myself anyway.

I'm also the keeper of the frozen vegetable bag rotation- which is a BIG responsibility (dang I wish I would have grabbed that ice collar from the hospital!)

When I'm not slinging narcotics, freshening frozen bags, fluffing pillows and cleaning ears- me and emily have been watching lots of episodes of Cupcake Wars.

Lots of cupcake wars.

And yesterday- when I found myself going a bit stircrazy, I decided to act out an episode right here in my very own home.

Of course, I was out of boxed cake mixes, but since I am a world class baker and own my own cupcake shop I got out my recipe book and looked one up.

And then I apparently forgot to put all of the ingredients in because what was supposed to make 30 cupcakes made 17 and they didn't rise.

I mean at all.

And they were very heavy, but moist.  And a bit salty.

Fortunately the portion of the show we were in was the decoration part, so it didn't matter.

 Emily and Sam were my 'team'.

 As they carefully peeled up the decorations I'd piped out of chocolate to stick on the top of the cupcakes- I was behind them screaming '30 seconds, load load load!'  They really appreciated it.

 I homemade the butter creme frosting and then, contrary to my normal action of either slapping it on with a butter knife or using a ziplock bag to pipe it on, I got out an actual pastry bag and piping tip and worked my magic.  And by magic I mean I put icing on them.

 I could hear that one older guy saying in his accent 'Zee decorations are very nice but zee keek is, how you say, odd.'  But the third guest judge, she really liked them.

Yesterday was the 100th day of school.  Emily was totally bummed that she didn't get to go.  Truth is, it would have only been her 84th anyway with all her sick days last semester. (See the browned areas around only a few of the cupcakes- it was really chewy and kind of crunchy- truth be told I kind of liked it.  Wonder if I can remember what I left out of the recipe and do it again???)

I bet you are wondering who won.  We did, of course. 

Today I think we will reinact a Hoarders show and clean out some of these cabinets.