Sweet Cuppin' Cakes!: A Milestone...

It had finally happened to one of us. One of us had done the unthinkable. One of us had dared to turn 26. The wrong side of 25. The mere thought of this was enough to send me down a Peter Pan induced rabbit hole, but thankfully the victim wasn't me... Since J's birthday is first, she was the trailblazer into "wrongsidedom" as I will henceforth call it. Unfortunate for her, but fortunate for me. (I jest, I jest--Kinda. I'm serious about this whole Peter Pan thing...) Her birthday celebration was to be at a favorite Mexican restaurant and I, of course, was going to make the treats that we would feast on. It had been a bit more than a year since my initial foray into cupcakery, and since then (as you can tell by the blogging) nary a celebration is had without me, cupcakes in tow. J requested chocolate cupcakes, chocolate buttercream and cherry filling. As I've mentioned before, my "base" recipes have long since been perfected, and for the most part it's all about the toppers. So I began brainstorming exactly what could adorn the cupcakes for wrongsidedom. The martini glasses I had made a few months earlier were such a hit, I decided to include those, as well as some brightly colored flowers. I also wanted to have something uniquely J on those cupcakes. I spread out my arsenal of tools, and thought, and thought, and thought, until divine inspiration hit me. Peacock feathers! These are very J. So to work I went, mixing what I thought were the perfect color combinations and crafting tiny peacock feathers. I frayed the edges with my trusty exacto knife (it never lets me down!) and voila! Peacock feathers! I sat looking at my tools again, and decided to also make little Js. Hot pink, a favorite color, Js and as it just so happened, I had some sprinkles the EXACT same color pink. Thus came into fruition one of my new favorite decorating techniques. I covered my parchment paper with a thin layer of hot pink sprinkles. Then, I pressed the fondant down into the sprinkles, gave it a few quick rolls with my fondant roller and cut out the Js. The result was sparkly Js. Perfect! On top of the cupcakes they went, and off we went to celebrate wrongsidedom. A wonderful time was had by all (despite the occasion... ha!). Cupcakes go great with birthdays, and Mexican food!