Rainy Tuesday

I haven't been very good about posting lately, but I've had an excuse.  No, really.  For some while, I've been having ominous messages on my Mac every time I tried to download new photos.  Seems my "start up disk" was almost full.  Huh?  Over the weekend I had an appointment at the Apple Store with a "trainer" (that One to One program is worth every penny in my experience....can I tell you how much I WANT the new iPhone?  It has VIDEO, people....but I digress.) and we (WE? HE!) got the whole thing figured out, saving me a lot of money as it was looking very likely that I would have to get a new, bigger hard drive.  This miracle worker actually "found" almost 20 gb of space, so, whoohoo, I'm back in business.  And there will be more space once I figure out how to burn copies of the four movies I downloaded but have never watched.  By the way, there is a downside to these newer digital cameras with the huge number of megapixels (the Canon G-10 has FIFTEEN).  The pictures take up HUGE amounts of space on the hardrive.  Working on that.

So, to backtrack to Memorial Day Weekend, we had some family stuff after the trip to the sheep and wool festival.  Grandson #1 has a birthday in mid-May (actually, 3 of the 4 grandkids have b'days in May, ouch!) so this year it was a combined holiday/birthday celebration.  I'm in a cupcake mode these days, so I offered to make cupcakes for dessert.  One of my new books has some alterations to cake mixes that make much better cupcakes than the plain mix does (get the non-pudding mix, use 1 cup buttermilk in place of the water amount, and add an extra egg) so I did Devil's food, the birthday boy's fave.  I had plans to do "people" cupcakes representing all the guests but ran out of time.  Instead, I did just the four cousins and here are My Little Cupcakes:

From l to r: Aidan, Carina, Dylan and Baby Gus

Mine did not come out as good as the ones in the book (there is one in the book that looks so much like the Big Guy it's scary!) but close enough.  The eyes are mini M&Ms flipped over, the noses are pink jelly beans, the rest is done with frosting.  They were a hit with the Birthday Boy!

The grownups got something a little different.  This concept needs some work....I suspect the frosting needs to be firmer, maybe a homemade butter cream instead of canned, and I think it should have been assembled on-site, but the picture came out okay.  How about Spaghetti and Meatball Cupcakes?

Devils Food cupcakes (vanilla would have been better) with vanilla icing squiggled on to look like pasta.  The "sauce" is low sugar strawberry preserves, and the "meatballs" are Ferrero Roche hazelnut candies!

It's pouring rain here today with thunderstorms (SO glad I watered the garden yesterday!) so I think I'll spend the day knitting.  One sleeve to go on Port Clyde!  Maybe a FO by the weekend!

 


 

Comments

[Carole]

Adorable cupcakes!

[margene]

Oh, yum! Cupcakes!

[Karen]

Those are so cute! I bet the spaghetti and meatballs ones were gone in a flash!

[Laurie]

Food as fun! Fun! I like the creativity.

[Anne]

I loved the baby Gus voice lesson video - and the cupcake of him bears at least a passing resemblance. :)