Cupcake Wars; Shakespeare Style

Greetings friends and followers!  I bring news of  the Shakespearean cupcake wars, where each young soul is assigned a category from The Tempest.  They are then given the challenge to create a  handsome cupcake deserving a reward!  Your very own Watermelon Radish partook in this affair, and was assigned the topic of Ferdinand.  Shall we see how she represents the handsome hero of our own bards famous play?

I was given the topic of Ferdinand the prince, the daring new love of Miranda.  "'tis fair morning when you are by at night,"  These soft spoken words of Ferdinand convey his love for Miranda.  The moment he happened upon her nestled deeply into the island, he knew he had found an angel.  To represent the deep new love of Ferdinand and Miranda, the cake is sweet red velvet.  Since Ferdinand is a prince, rich chocolate frosting coats the top of the cake to symbolize his monetary wealth.  The silver wrapper represents the many tears he cried for the loss of his father in the storm and inevitable shipwreck.  The delicate white chocolate flowers on top illustrate his growing love for the exotic island.

It all began with a box of red velvet cupcake mix, because that seemed the best to me.  I had the help of my grandparents caregiver, and my friend, Brianna.  She bakes a lot, and gave me some helpful tips.  Instead of oil, we used butter to make the cake moist.  When I opened the box, the mix was brown.  I was, naturally, very confused.  Red Velvet cake should be true to its name, and be red right?  Brianna assured me that when we began to mix the cake, it would turn red.  That was a relief, I really hate chocolate cake!

  

I definitely made sure that the batter tasted just fine before we baked the cakes in the oven, and I might have tried the frosting (just to be sure that it was good!).  Next up where the "delicate white chocolate flowers" that I spoke about in my speech.  It definitely wasn't delicate trying to make them.  My mom had been experimenting Friday night when I wasn't home, and I'm positive that I wouldn't have been able to make them if she didn't.  I had done some research in a cooking book (given to me by my friend Maya) and decided that using Wilton's melting chocolate would be the best.  The best way to do this, was by using a lot of plastic spoons.  When I got home on Saturday, we immediately got to work with the white chocolate.  After dipping each spoon in the newly melted chocolate, we stuck them in the fridge and waited for the chocolate to harden.  After they did, we took them out and began attempting to peel the petals off of the spoons.  My mom explained to me that you had to bend the plastic so that the chocolate started to peel off, but not to break the spoon.  This sounded easy at first, but not as easy when shards of plastic were flying around the room at alarming rates.  You have never felt frustration, until you have tried this.  Some spoons worked perfectly well, and led me to believe that the next spoon wouldn't give me any trouble.  So I proceeded to break the spoon.  After many trials, complete flowers were finished.

Once we had set our our many tools of the trade, we decided that it was time to prepare the actual cupcakes.

The rich chocolate frosting was lovingly spread across the top of the cupcake, and my fingers (yummy). I had to be very gentle, or else the cake would lift up and leave gaping holes of red.  After the chocolate was spread as thick as we dared, the flowers were attached to the cupcake.  We attached the flowers by spreading a thin coat of chocolate on the bottom.  Then we squirted a perfectly textured dab of pink in the center of the Lilly, and then added yellow sprinkles.  The cupcake was complete!

Everyone in my family enjoyed them, including my grandparents.  I felt very touched by these comments because my grandpa doesn't ever eat cake.  My mom and dad shared one, and I had the last. It tasted perfect!  I loved the moist cake, and the chocolaty frosting!

I guess that all of that hard work payed off, because yesterday at school we heard the winners of the cupcake wars!  I was one of the winners in my class!  The other winner was my friend Maya.  I had so much fun, even though all the cupcakes were good!