Hey there Cupcake!

Remember when you used to bake cupcakes for your birthday and bring them into your classmates every year? I had forgotten how much fun it was to decorate them! Each one can be as different or the same as the one before. They can be personalized or streamlined. The camaraderie of a room full of women giggling and squealing like school girls at the discovery of a new topping or sprinkle color and the chatter in regards to how fabulous it will look atop a specific cupcake is all part of the thrill. The final product is as different as each wonderful lady who decorated it.

You can tell so much about a person from the way she decorates a cupcake. She will use her favorite of the colors provided, paint her own design or use objects to create an image. There are shiny or dull decorations, multicolored or single tone - you can add height or depth to your cupcake to create personality. It is quite the crowd gathering activity for a birthday party. When they are all lit it looks like the most fabulous of holiday light festivals, with all the mini cakes, the trademark of birthday food, a blaze in a flurry of color and attitude and personality; they make up the different people whose influences make up the birthday girl herself.

I took full advantage of course, decorating two cupcakes for the contest (yes, even though you could only enter one, "Penelope" entered the other one :)) and eating two more! (Of course I waved a calorie free wand over them first!) The first was a play on those t-shirts with a lady in a bikini with big boobs. I used gum drops for the boobs and then iced over them. The second was a pink pony of course! It was trotting across the grass under the sunshine, just like a horse should. Both were parts of myself - fun-loving jokester and my soft-sided fondness for four legged friends. I challenge anyone who wants to bring a group of strangers together to have them take part in some sort of cookie or cake decorating. Your guests will come together to brainstorm ideas for decorations and cheer their new friends on. Pour a little wine, Cupcake wine perhaps, sit back, enjoy the baked goods, and watch your party come together.