Still August

I may have taken a few days off for Anniversary celebrations, but August isn't over until midnight, and I can squeeze one more post in for the month.

Look what I made this morning!

Spaghetti and Meatball Cupcakes!

And when I say "this morning" I am not kidding. I was piping the "spaghetti" at 4 am. I won't go into the details of exactly why David and I didn't get any sleep last night. The nutshell version is that the storage option we were using for a bunch- a BIG bunch- of the stuff we have accumulated in the last 10 years suddenly became unavailable at 6 last night. It took us all night long making multiple car and Jeep trips to bring everything over here. Sadly I can't park in the garage any more. But I have big organizational plans for Labor Day weekend, so maybe by next week I'll be back there. Anyway, I couldn't let unexpectedly being up all night affect my plans for my friend L's birthday today, so there I was piping away at 4am on no sleep and with no arm strength for piping chilled frosting (to maintain the noodle shape better) thanks to lifting so many boxes.

To explain the cupcake thing, its a simple Devil's Food Cake recipe sized for 2 dozen cupcakes, topped with piped vanilla icing (straight out of a Betty Crocker can. My favorite!) to mimic spaghetti, a Ferrero Rocher candy standing in for the meatball, and slightly thinned strawberry jam standing in for the sauce.

They may look a little weird, but (admittedly tooting my own horn), they were pretty darn delicious.
Oh yeah. Why did I make my friend L "Spaghetti and Meatball" cupcakes? Simple. Because she's a girl who prefers savory things over sweet (although she does appreciate my cupcakes!), but cupcakes are what I do. So at least they look like they're savory. Also, I've discovered that I enjoy making foods that imitate other kinds of food. Last summer I made a sushi cake for one of my friends. Well, technically it was supposed to look like a giant piece of spicy tuna roll, and it even included green cookie dough "wasabi" and Hershey's syrup "soy sauce" for dipping.

Maybe I can develop some weird little baking niche.