bluRopes!

Allow me to start with some rough conversations I've had with my husband

regarding this event:

   -- Three weeks prior to bluRopes --

Me: Hey, so bluRopes is coming up soon... And I've just had a really crazy idea!

Husband: ... Go on.

Me: So you know how church is having a barbeque... Well, we could also have cupcakes to sell!!

Husband: Okay, but who's going to make them?

Me: Well, I could!

Husband: No. Absolutely not. Under no circumstances. No cupcakes.

Me: But-

Husband: No cupcakes.

   -- A few days later --

Me: So, you remember how you said you were fine with me making some cupcakes for bluRopes?

Husband: No, I remember saying absolutely no cupcakes.

Me: But I've already got ideas for how to do them! They could have blue icing, and I could make melted chocolate musical notes to put on top of them!

Husband: Uh huh.

Me: Because it's a music event... Called bluRopes.

Husband: I get it.

Me: With music! You play music, and therefore you'd like me to make cupcakes.

Husband: That's a kind of twisted logic.

Me: Maybe I'll just make just a few... I promise I won't go crazy.

Husband: Fine. But don't make more than a hundred. Like, seriously. Not even a hundred and one.

Me: Okay, no more than a hundred... (clapping my hands in delight because he had changed his mind!)

   -- Two weeks until bluRopes --

Husband: (checking Facebook at the time, looking at a photo I had posted of our re-arranged freezer with perhaps a few more than 100 cupcakes in it) Nat, why do we have 218 cupcakes in the freezer?!

Me: Um... I kind of maybe baked another 100 cupcakes... Today.

Husband: You did what?!

Me: But it's okay! They're all in the freezer; I washed up afterwards, and I won't bake any more... Because, well, there's no more room left anyway...

   -- One week until bluRopes --

Me: So with the cupcakes, right... I was thinking that maybe we could wrap them up?

Husband: No. Absolutely not. No wrapping. Bakeries don't wrap their cupcakes!

Me: But they will look so pretty - like little presents!

Husband: Nat. Seriously. There's no need to wrap them. They can just be put straight into people's hands on the night.

Me: But what if they want to keep it until later?

Husband: That's their problem!

Me: But I may have already bought little bags for them...

Husband: I thought you promised you wouldn't go mental.

Me: Soorrryyy...

   -- The night before bluRopes --

I made more cupcakes... And also decided that instead of just blue icing for all of them, I would make a blue/green icing combination, and a red/yellow combination, because Redwoods was also playing! I couldn't have felt more proud of my own brilliance!

I also melted chocolate and traced musical note upon musical note onto baking paper and set them aside - ready for the following day!

   -- The day of bluRopes --

Starting pretty much as soon as I woke up and made myself a coffee, I took the cupcakes out of the freezer and placed them in rows over the (entire) kitchen bench, all in their colour co-ordinated (blue/green and red/yellow) sections... Oh man! I forgot about pink! While they were defrosting, I made (in batches) 3.5 kilos of icing... I then counted how many of each colour I had, and without wanting it all to be colourfully imbalanced, I decided that the pink ones could have a white/chocolate combination on them.

With batches of icing, I piped the icing onto the cupcakes. Then I went around and placed the chocolate musical notes on them...

Cupcakes were taking over my kitchen!

Despite all that icing, though, I ran out of it at 200 cupcakes! I went slightly nuts at my poor husband because he refused to buy me more icing sugar to make more icing for the remaining 60 cupcakes! He said that there was already plenty of cupcakes, but I was freaking out because there was so many left still to ice!

I asked him (starting calmly, escalating to crazy) to "Please, please can you just go and buy me some more icing sugar? I really don't want to get all cranky and crazy, so please just do what I've asked you to do!"

To distract myself from my ingredient disaster, I melted some chocolate and made more musical notes, double notes this time, instead of single ones and just kept on going until either the chocolate ran out, or the baking paper...

I don't even remember which one it was!

My husband left to go and set up for the evening. I hoped he wouldn't be long and would be back with his shining armour, and with icing sugar!

Meanwhile, with tongs, I started placing the finished cupcakes into the bags and tied them up... This part was honestly the most time consuming of the whole story, and also the part where I wondered "Why, oh why, had I decided to do this part and not listen to my husband?!"

Then saw how good they looked and remembered ;)

I looked at the time, and it was quickly running out! Just as I had packed the last finished cupcake into it's bag and tied it up, my (wonderful, wonderful) husband came back with icing sugar for me, and I was able to ice another 30... Before I ran out of margarine! Rahh! What I had already iced would just have to do.

At least most of them sold...

Well... About half of them sold.

Probably should have stopped at 100.