Taking it Like a Saint - Itty Bitty Babycakes

Wedding Week might have been all kinds of tulle- and lace-infested nuptial fun, but heck, we are in for something even better.

But wait! What could be better than going for a swim dressed like a bright orange Nemo in a barrel of venomous barracudas?!?!

*dramatic pause*

Welcome to Baby Week here at The Delicious Life.

Seriously. It is now officially Baby Week.

Don't try to do the math in your head. Wedding Week back in September was for one of my sisters and Baby Week, which technically started in October with a Baby Shower, is for my other sister. Not that it should matter anyway – what is this, 1950?

So yes, I really am a masochist, and while that certainly does apply to the fact that I am about to inflict itty bitty pretty in pastel pink on myself for the full duration of a week, the real punishment of which I post was deciding that I would bake cupcakes for my sister's baby shower. Oh alright, I actually do like to bake, I’m just not very good at it. Oh, the pain, oh, the suffering, but not mine – pain and suffering for everyone who braves a bite of something that comes out of my kitchen. So I guess, technically, that makes me a sadist.

There are bakeries in LA that bake cupcakes, and in fact, the mother of all cupcakeries, Sprinkles, is just up the street from me, but I hold a grudge against Sprinkles. As much as I would love to think of myself as a very forgiving person, I’m not. On the outside, I can fake it. Can’t we all? But on the inside, I will harbor evil thoughts forever, and my first taste of Sprinkles was a punch in the face with a leaden lump, the blow softened only by the sickeningly saccharin sweet frosting that tasted like sugared sand. Forgive and forget, some may say. What would Jesus do? some may ask. Turn the other cheek. I did, and again, I had to taste and bear it. Unfortunately, though my ever-widening of my backside betrays me, I have run out of cheeks with Sprinkles.

I did like Leda’s, but I have realized that almost as great as my mildly masochistic streak is my horrible terrible sloth of a lazy ass. I convinced myself that driving over the hill into the *gasp!* dreaded Valley was far too much trouble to pick up teeny tiny perfectly perfect cupcakes from Leda's Bakeshop (even though the little gems really were pretty incredible). Now that would be taking it like a saint.

So instead, I attempted to re-create Leda’s little darlings myself. Well, at least re-create the “small” part. I pretty much had to accept the fact that my miniature cupcakes would be missing a filling and that they wouldn’t look quite as pretty with swirly piped frosting and sugared decorations. It's probably better to keep myself out of Leda's league and just say that I made miniature strawberry cupcakes with pink-tinted cream cheese frosting and dark chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting. It took some work to get all the pieces together: I made my way to Surfas first and bought a mini cupcake pan and the liners, but they didn't have anything beyond colored sugars for decorations. I found those high-pitched Iron Chef judgette squeal-inducing sugar booties and duckies at Gloria's Cake and Candy Supply in West L.A. I suppose I could have made the sugar decoration myself, but who am I? Martha Stewart? (But please, please, never call me Sandra Lee) This whole baking thing has beaten me into submission.

But when Aidan, one of the shower guests’ toddler sons, his cherubic little face covered with frosting said “Thank you, Sarah” in that tiny cartoon voice, well, my silly girlie heart melted faster than whipped cream frosting on an uncooled cupcake.

Searching high and low for decorations, baking, and frosting all 48 of those things – it was all worth it.

Surfas
8777 Washington Boulevard (@ National)
Culver City, CA 90232
310.559.4770
www.surfasonline.com

Gloria's Cake and Candy Supply
3755 Sawtelle Boulevard (@Venice)
Los Angeles, CA 90066
310.391.4557
www.gloriascakecandysuplys.com

tags :: food : and drink : american : cooking : baking : reviews : los angeles