Franzycakes V 2.0

As I mentioned last March, I have a friend who really likes Franz Ferdinand. Her birthday came around again, and lucky for me, they've come out with another album. Behold! Franzycakes: The Return!



Those are Mexican Hot Chocolate Cupcakes with Quick Melty Ganache from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World.

Most of the cupcakes simply said TONIGHT: YOUR BIRTHDAY



But that got boring, so I made a few hands, too:



Then I realized I wasn't actually giving her the cupcakes on her birthday. She picked them up from my office almost two weeks later and I didn't want my cupcakes to be living a lie:



The cupcakes themselves are very tasty, but were a little dry. That may have been because I couldn't get my flax seeds as well ground as I should have (I used a wooden mortar and pestle).

The decorating went easier and faster than I expected it to. I would have gone slower if I thought it would help, but it wouldn't have. As I was working on the cupcakes, I thought to myself "Wow, these look like crap. I'm going to look up the pictures of last year's Franz Ferdinand cupcakes and will see absolutely no improvement in my lettering. That fucking sucks." Then I realized "Wait a minute, I don't think I've done any writing since last year's Franz Ferdinand cupcakes. How the hell can I improve if I don't practice?!" and that made me feel a little better. What made me feel even better (and worse) was actually looking at last year's cupcakes. Go click the link in the first line of this post. I'll wait.

Done laughing yet?

Holy crap! Those were fucking TERRIBLE! How the fuck did I take those out of the house?!? CHRIST! My friends should have confiscated my pastry bag then and there. Shit.

So yeah, one quick way to improve your piping skills (and maybe even your self esteem) is to start out making something that looks like TOTAL CRAP because you couldn't get your icing the right texture. I remember those taking fucking hours to decorate, too. What the shit.

This time, the icing was the perfect consistency. I was just a lazy asshole and didn't feel like getting a second pastry bag for the orange icing, so I washed the bag in between colors and refilled it wet, making my orange icing nice and runny. YAY I'M AWESOME!

They don't look anything like professional, but they taste good, all of them were legible and two people (including the birthday girl) were able to recognize what they were supposed to be without being told. For me, that's a creative victory.



(Also: two posts in one week! What the balls?!)