hour 36 of cupcake mania.

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So the day of baking has finally come to an end. All that's left for tomorrow morning is some slicing, dicing, and icing. I now have 55 cupcakes (an odd number since we munched on a few throughout the day) in varying flavors (strawberry, carrot, blueberry, and chocolate-peanut butter), 4 frostings (strawberry buttercream, cream cheese, lemon buttercream, and a fluffy vanilla), one failed Strawberry Swiss Merigue Buttercream in the garbage, sugared blueberries, sugared lemon zest, one failed attempt at candying oranges (that made for some beautiful pictures), and one very successful batch of candied oranges.

Ahh, the finish line is in sight.

have your cupcake (or 48) and eat it too.

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This weekend is all about the cupcake. And by the cupcake I really mean 4 dozen cupcakes. In 4 different flavors. With 4 different icings. And 4 different decorations.

If you haven't yet realized, I like to obsess. And I like to do things over the top. That are complicated. And time-consuming. So, when Ant's sister asked me to make a dessert for her wedding, I couldn't just offer to make a dozen or so vanilla cupcakes with store-bought frosting. Absolutely not. I decided to shoot for the moon - or a distant planet where this is normal - and make 4 dozen cupcakes. In 4 flavors. With 4 different icings. And 4 different decorations.

So, as of now, at 5:21 on Friday afternoon, T minus 2 days until the wedding, I have accomplished an utterly failed Strawberry Swiss Meringue Buttercream (imagine clumps of yogurt swimming in Pepto Bismol), potentially fatal candied oranges (I'm sensing a rock-hard mass of beautiful orange slices, trapped forever in a lovely, but solidified, caramel ... like a mosquito preserved in sap), two very successful and delicious buttercreams - one vanilla and one strawberry, and (fingers crossed), some delicious blueberry cupcakes, which should be coming out of the oven ohhh .... NOW. Be right back.

Ah, yes. A successful cupcake batch #1.

Thanks, Martha.

Stay tuned. Lots more cupcake-mania to come.