Posts tagged funfetti

Almost a year ago was my first time baking for people I might not know, when I made Black and White cookies for an art opening. Usually when I bake I bring it to school, improv shows, or friends houses because I love sharing sweets. A couple of weeks ago a friend of mine asked if I had recommendations where to buy a birthday cake for her roommate’s party and of course I offered to do it. Since she was willing to buy a cake from a real bakery, she wanted to pay me for my services and thus became my first “real” baking gig. Now I’ve only made a cake once before, which was during my baking class, so I still didn’t really know what I was doing. I was in the kitchen all day yesterday and had a couple of hiccups. 

My task was to make a small cake for Vanessa (the birthday girl) and 2 dozen cupcakes. The only stipulation is Vanessa didn’t want chocolate on her cake, she was also in charge of buying the cupcake liners.

I made a mini yellow/funfetti layer cake, and I overfilled the pans so the middle took a really long time to bake and the outside over-baked and the top made a huge dome and I had a lot of cutting to do to make the cake usable. But at least I had a lot left make my roommate test with frosting (my nose is stuffy so my taste buds are off).

Also, I was a little stressed because I lost a lot of the cake, and I didn’t have a cake stand and was having a “what do I think I’m doing? I can’t possibly do this” moment, so the layers didn’t come out as beautifully as planned. 

The wonderful thing about making a cake, is that frosting fixes a lot of it. You cover it, and make it pretty, and it all tastes the same. I made a simple buttercream frosting, that reminded me a lot of the kind you buy from a grocery store. It was harder than what I usually make for cupcakes, but was excellent for decorating. I couldn’t make purple, or pink or red because I didn’t have any red food coloring, so I decided to go with turquoise. Viola! 

It was my first time doing lettering, and I really liked the line quality. I have some work to do on other decorations. 

This weekend my wonderful niece Lena came and stayed with me in Boston. On her other visits we’ve baked together and it’s been really fun, so among the things I had planned, I promised we would bake again. 

It was hard to decide what to do but we settled on Homemade Funfetti Cupcakes to celebrate spring (while it’s been cold this weekend, it’s sure starting to look like spring, and I am very hopeful about warmer weather soon).

She’s 5’1” now, and in middle school, soon enough she’ll be taller than me. In all seriousness, she’s the coolest 12 year old I know.

Funfetti cake out of the box used to me my go-to thing to bake, especially when I was in college. To make our cupcakes we followed a vanilla cupcake recipe I have and just added spring sprinkles in the batter.

Lena folding in the sprinkles.

The batter was looking great and tasted just right… now the frosting, that was a whole other (sad) story.