The Humble Cupcake

This is essentially a blog about baking as a reflection of life, and I have talked about some pretty damn fine cakes and puddings in the process. My sister's famous Crunchie Bar pudding. The Hairy Bikers chocolate truffle cheesecake. Nigella's chocolate Malteser cake. Actually I don't think I have talked about that one, but it can be summed up like this: nostalgic? Craving an overdose of butter? This is the Cake For You. But the cake I have made more of than any other, is the cupcake. It is the obvious one for kids' parties, work dos, charity fetes etc etc...it's the first thing most kids learn to bake, they are the culinary equivalent of crayon drawing. Your cupcake is the blank sheet of paper, your decorating materials are your paints and pencils, and off you go. Unleash your inner Van Gogh. Cupcakes are even platforms for political discourse. If only David Cameron had painted his manifesto on cupcakes with edible paint he might not be governing in a coalition right now. Cupcakes can be beautiful piled high with swirly white icing, shimmery glitter and an edible rose, stacked tastefully on a cake stand, or they can look gothic and ominous, made with the darkest chocolate for a black bottom base and then swirled with orange icing and painted with skulls, for Halloween, or if you have a natural Dark Side, for any time of the year. My favourite scene in the movie Bridesmaids is the one where Annie, who used to own a cake business which went bust in the recession, takes out all the ingredients for cupcakes, and makes just one. When it cools, she whips up a beautiful, creamy topping and pipes it on to her cake. She frosts it with a covering shimmer, decorates it with handmade flowers, sets it on the work surface and contemplates it. It is a thing of great skill, and fragile beauty. Then she picks it up, and sinks her teeth into it. Icing on her nose, green leaf colouring round her mouth. Brilliant. This after all is exactly what cupcakes are for in the end. This week I am making 70 of the blighters for an enormous family occasion. In among all the other things I need to do for this occasion, of which I am Sole  and Principal Organiser, therefore also No 1 Control Freak, mulling over how I will top my cupcakes, is of all tasks the most pleasurable. What mood to project with my cupcake topping? It needs to be exuberant but not girly. It needs to show skill but able to be repeated with tolerable similarity 70 times over, in a fairly limited space of time. I want people to reach for them in preference to shop bought equivalents, which they will not do if these cakes look like the first attempt of a 4 year old on their second day in Reception class. They need to be of manageable height - Annie may have afforded to get icing on her nose but I really don't want to humiliate my family and friends in quite the same way. I think about it while drinking my tea and contemplating my rampaging sweet peas (see previous post for details). I think about it on the bus and while on the treadmill at the gym, I think about it while buying bagels and getting the papers in. And finally I settle on, white chocolate icing. White chocolate screams, party. Dark and milk chocolate have been co-opted by the afficionados and feel too hardcore. White chocolate reaches out to anyone with a young heart. Plus, anything you top with them is much more visible on a creamy coloured background. I am going to top them variously with, red glitter (See that girl, watch that scene, digging the Dancing Queen, oooooh....), purple crystal shards, popping candy mini mountains, pastel coloured chocolate drops, and my son's name. Or just his initial if I find his name is too long to fit on the cake. Etched on in bright green or bright yellow edible colour.  It's Joseph and his Technicolour Dreamcoat, splatted across 70 cupcakes.  How did I land on these toppings finally? Days and days of thought, followed by Oh Soddit. How often do you get the chance to celebrate exuberance. How often do you feel exuberant enough to want to exhibit it? I'm going for it. Just means I may need to hand sunglasses out to celebrants before they reach the table.