Cupcakes Heal Everything

Right after I came home from Christmas, I decided to take a Michael’s cake decorating class. I’d been meaning to do this for years and now I didn’t have to excuse of unexpected (film) work coming up, so what was holding me back?

So on a busy Saturday, I went and signed up for the basic class set to start on January 30th.

Cut to three weeks later, I had all my supplies neatly organized in my reusable Sobey’s bag (blueberry theme), my class syllabus and my receipt (this later made a big difference). I made sugar cookies on Friday (real butter!) and had the required six tucked away lovingly in a baggie, wrapped in paper towel and nested in a plastic container to later bring home decorated with the Wilton brand icing I purchased……or so I thought.

I arrived at the class 10 minutes early and waited as the Michael’s associates set up around myself and two other early birds. As we settled in our seats, and others joined us, I began to notice what everyone else had in their bulging bags. This didn’t immediately alarm me, but I saw that one lady had a gum paste kit with her. Then I saw another already had her icing bags set up and ready to go. These items were not listed on the required items list. Suddenly fear and panic set in. Did I come on the wrong date? Wrong time? Wrong class?

My fears were confirmed when I approached the teacher in front of everyone. Apparently when I registered for the class, the sales associate had accidentally put me in the intermediate cake decorating class, but still given me a basics syllabus and outline. These people already knew how to ice a cake and properly pipe roses with ease, where as I could barely fill an icing bag and keep my hands their normal colour.

Thankfully, a store manager took pity on my panic and saved me before the class really began, so I really only humiliated myself in front of half a dozen more talented people. I was led away from the room of the prying, nosy and probably judgmental eyes to the front of store registers, where I was properly registered for the next upcoming decorating basics class starting on February 18th and given a heartfelt apology for the mix-up.

Now working years in a retail setting myself, I knew it wasn’t the store managers fault, so I was polite and thankful and even making jokes about the mix-up. Inside I was steaming and red-faced and wanting the whole thing to be over and to be speeding down the road in my car, driving far, far away from this whole ordeal.

So I went back home, slightly demoralized from the whole experience and even a little sad, especially because I’d been looking so forward to taking this class. I tried not to make a big deal about it, considering that I’m still taking the class (19 days later than expected).

How did I fix this funk that I was in? I took to the facebook to mildly vent and my friends had the best idea: CUPCAKES.

Mini vanilla cupcakes with pink/white swirled icing with a few drops of almond flavouring. Delicious.