one big cupcake

christmas was a very exciting time for me this year, because it allowed me to take advantage of the fact that we were having many hungry guests coming over for dinner. of course, i took the one time we were having people over to try baking a new treat! smart plan right? i also decided that this dessert would be completely made by me. that means i ask my parents no questions and turn away any help they offered. i only suffered minor mishaps throughout the process, and i think the outcome of this cake was a COMPLETE SUCCESS! 


so, for my birthday last month heather gave me a "big top cupcake" baking set! there was the option of putting a filling in the cake as well, but i decided to start out small and just bake the cake without a filling. it was a smart idea.


for the cake, i decided to go with a red velvet because that's just a really christmassy flavor. and i like chocolate.

now, the baking process was not super tricky, but i really had to pay attention to how long everything was in there because the top of the cupcake bakes faster than the bottom. but here's where my mishaps began. when i took the top out, i decided that it was still a little too gooey (for the guests...i would eat it raw!), so i put it back in the oven. then of course i ended up burning the edges a tad. but nothing a little frosting can't cover up ;)

top=fail

after letting the cakes cool for a few hours, it was time for the most frustrating part of this whole baking extravaganza: taking them out of their pans. now the giant cupcake instructions called for putting non-stick cooking spray on the pans before putting the cake batter in, but we didn't have any of that. instead i just used crisco, which is SUPPOSED to work. apparently it doesn't work. because BOTH the base and the top of the cupcake had some massive problems coming out and they both split in half. i was about ready to give up at this point, since i assumed that the cake would no longer look like a cupcake, therefore no point in serving it. 

both top and base=COMPLETE FAILS

but i decided to man up. actually it was a combination of that and my parents' encouragement. this is when it truly turned into an art project. now it was about the presentation, not the taste. i got out my frosting and began working on reconstructing these random bits of cake into the giant cupcake they were destined to be. and ya know what? i think i did pretty good:

last but not least was the decorating portion of this adventure! i still have absolutely NO cake decorating tools at all, so i went with the old fashioned ziplock bag technique to frost. i decided to make it resemble a christmas tree to fit the occasion. after about an hour of frosting and re-frosting, and generally trying to make everything look perfect, i did it. i completed this monster of a cupcake, and thankfully, it impressed all our dinner guests! by far my most rewarding baking experience yet.