Ivy's Cupcakes

Yeah,  I made my first cupcake sales!!  I have only been making goodies for friends and family, so I am very estatic that someone outside of people I know want my cupcakes.  When Acme asked for the SPCA cupcakes, she told me to provide my info, so anyone interested could order my cupcakes.  She made me signs and little flyers for people to pick up.  I was very nervous yet excited with the fact that someone might want my cupcakes.  I worried that no one would like my cupcakes, and that my friends and family have just been nice by saying they taste good.  

So when I received an email from Ivy asking about ordering cupcakes, I was jumping for joy.  She said she had my cupcakes at the SPCA and wanted some to take to a farewell party.  YEAH!!  Then she asked how much I charged,  oh no, I hadn't figured that out yet...  Oh well, I knew what all the designer cupcakeries were selling them for and I knew how much they were being sold for at the grocery stores.  I didn't want to scare her, so I went for the just a little more than grocery store prices.  (Now I know why bakeries charge more, making from scratch and the packaging costs alot.)  

Right away she told me she wanted two dozen.  YEAH again!!  And she would like a variety...  hhhmmm, my recipes can be halved to make a dozen at a time, so I suggested her to order two types of cakes with two types of frosting and I could interchange them.  She requested chocolate/ chocolate, vanilla/ chocolate, vanilla/ vanilla, and chocolate/ vanilla cupcakes.  She wanted them elegant and not too cutesy.  I asked and she said flowers and colored sugars were okay.  I went through some of my flickr contacts' pictures for inspiration.  So many beautiful cupcakes, if any of you have the time and like looking at cupcakes, search through flickr.  There was one with a purple flower on top of vanilla buttercream.  I thought it was very elegant, so I went with that.  

I tried piping flowers out of royal icing, but they wouldn't dry in time, so I cut out purple and pink fondant flowers before heading to bed.  Once in bed, I couldn't sleep.  I felt the pinks and purples were too cutesy, so I got out of bed at 2am and made a new batch of fondant and cut out 30 large and 60 small white flowers instead (I always make extra since I'm a total clutz).  After that I fell asleep soundly.  A few hours later I got up early to make the cupcakes and buttercream.  I tested the packaging (which I purchased at Michael's the day before) to make sure the cupcakes wouldn't bang into each other (tissue paper helps).  I still had to decide what to do with the flowers...  I went through my boxes of stuff, and pulled out two bottles of pearly dust I had purchased a while ago.  

I dusted some of the gold onto a flower and WOW so elegant.  I went with it.  I dusted half the flowers with gold and then found some light pink royal icing and painted the other half of flowers with the pink icing.  I topped the flowers on the frosted cupcakes, and if I may toot my own horn, they were so pretty.  I felt they still needed something, so I added silver dragees to the chocolate frostings and pink flowers and sprinkled clear crystal sugar on the vanilla and gold ones.  Now they were complete.  

I boxed them one more time and walked around to make sure they were secure in their bed of tissue paper.  When I was satisfied, we (the cupcakes and I) waited patiently for Ivy to pick them up.  When she called, I felt my heart jump out of my chest.  I was so nervous.  But she really liked them, and thanked me for them.  Later that night she wrote back and said they were a big hit at the party.  I'm so happy!  Even now I can't stop smiling.  Thank you, Ivy for the opportunity!!