Another FAC, Another Batch of Cupcakes

While I don't miss working in the corporate world, I do miss a lot of the people I used to work with. Thankfully we've kept up our monthly FAC (Friday Afternoon Club) for some who still work at HP, a few of us who have moved on to other career aspirations and others who retired. We always meet at a local brewery and when I can attend I bake a small batch of cupcakes. When I worked at HP I used to make a batch once a month to celebrate many co-worker's birthdays. I remember there were a few who would ask me to put one on their desk as they were stuck in meetings and wanted to make sure they received at least one.

With an FAC scheduled for tomorrow I decided to bake! The batch I decided to make this time is a little simple on the flavor side (vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream), but I was in the mood to use vanilla beans. I then decided to go a little bit more complex on the decorating which didn't turn out as good as I wanted them to. More on that in a bit. Here's a gallery of what went on today.

It never seems to fail. No matter the recipe or what I have the oven on, there are a couple that either overflow, don't rise enough or both. I'm OK with it though as the two in the third image above were the sacrificial lambs for tasting! The different frosting colors and the triple bags with the single tip are the result of my wanting to be little more complex with the decorating. While I was able to get a couple of pretty results the heat from my hands while decorating ultimately made the frosting a little to soft and the last couple look more like multi-color blobs. Here are a some pictures of the first ones that actually look decent.

As you can tell I didn't take pictures of the blobs. If you want me to send you a picture of those, shoot me a message and let me know!

See you soon!

Mandy