Where have all the cakes gone?

Oh hai there!

Yes, I am still around.  Yes, I know I should blog more.

Part of the reason why I haven't been blogging as much as I've become a bit more involved in a completely new facet of my life - something which has kinda sprung out of nowhere and has left me scratching my head a bit.  At the moment I'm running with it and seeing how it goes.  If it becomes successful, then yay.  If not, then at least I had fun for a while.

The area that I'm talking about is cupcakes.  Which as someone who is a fitness instructor certainly sounds utterly conflicting.  I did a few decorating courses at the beginning of the year and got completely hooked.  Now I can't stop.

It's not even about the cupcake itself anymore, it's about creating something which is a blend of flavour, texture, structural engineering, geometry, and art.  If you're thinking, 'structural engineering, WTF', yes, some of the designs I've put together I've had to seriously think about the structure and how it's going to be put together so that it holds up.  A lot of the time it's not as simple as just 'sticking it on there'.

Here are some of what I've come up with.

But with new challenges come new prejudices.

I've had firstly, friends complaining whenever I upload a picture saying 'STOP showing me images like this, you're ruining my diet!'.  Little bit of a slap in the face, but I can understand what they're saying.  To me I don't see a unhealthy food item, I see the output of hours of effort.

The main thing that I find myself experiencing though is people assuming that I'm eating all of these things I'm making.

Why the hell would I eat all of it?!  Heck, why would I eat ANY of it??  I may taste the batter just to verify that the balance of flavours is right, but if I'm trying to maximise the ingredients, I'm always making something to pass on to someone else. I'm *NOT* eating my own product.  That's just a waste.

If I want to eat a cupcake, first of all, it will likely be a small amount.  1 cupcake, 2 at most.  Also, I don't want to go through the effort of baking it and decorating it for myself.  I'd BUY the damn cupcake if I wanted it.  All of these things I'm making are for when OTHER PEOPLE want it.

One problem in fact that I have in my house is when I'm making and sculpting cake, is that there's a whole lot of offcuts.  My parents hover around the offcuts and while I tell them clearly "Do NOT eat those, I want to make them into Cake Pops.", they still start gobbling it.  Then I turn around and go "... Where the hell are my offcuts?!"  Then they blame ME for their sore stomach afterwards.

I'll always have extra which I'll be flogging off to people since I don't want to eat it myself.  Sometimes it's a case of when it's done I'm like "Get these things out of my sight, I've spent enough time on them."  Various friends and work colleagues are happy to devour them, though I try not to give them to the same friends all of the time so that the same people are not overexposed to the cupcakes.

Even so, it has absolutely bewildered me that so many people that know me, and know me well all assumed that I was eating what I was baking.  Jeez.  So do you assume that all of the chefs in restaurants eat EVERY MEAL that they create too?  They taste every meal, but they don't need to consume an entire dish every time the dish is made to have confidence that it's a goodun.

I shouldn't have to justify myself to anyone, and in some cases I've actually stopped speaking to people since they started telling me that I shouldn't be eating all of these cupcakes - these people used to be good friends too.

If any of you are interesting me in making some cupcakes for you, have a look at my Facebook page - Rai Rai's Cupcakes.  Just know that if I do end up making the cupcakes, that is all I'll be doing.

If the cupcakes are gone, someone else was doing the eating.

It was probably them, in the corner over there.

*points*