NaNoWriMo ended up being a bust, no surprise. I took down two of the three posts because they were long and unwieldy. The third stays up because it's amusing and also contains the Tully Monsters roster (may they never be forgotten!).
But this week I've been rather productive. We had a potluck at work, which was a lovely excuse for me to try something new with cupcakes.
I made my own buttercream frosting instead of grabbing a can of Betty Crocker frosting at the store. It was fantastic. I decided to use a couple drops of peppermint oil for flavoring, and here's where it became clear that my common sense was running about 20 seconds behind my motor skills. A bit of oil had landed on my finger, so I tasted it. It was, indeed, pepperminty. Very pepperminty. Extremely pepperminty. Pepperminty to the point that the only thing I could taste for the next 45 minutes was peppermint, no matter what the item's actual flavor was.
I did this before checking the flavor of the buttercream to see whether it was too minty or not minty enough. Magna cum laude at work, folks.
Fortunately, two drops of peppermint oil was just the right amount, and the frosting was a raving success.
Piping white chocolate for the snowflakes was a bit of a pain, but they turned out all right. After several snowflake arms broke off while I peeled them from the wax paper, I learned the lesson and stood outside in the winter cold to peel the second batch. Success with delicate, easily melted chocolate figures is so much easier when I don't have a warm kitchen plus warm fingers working against me.
Stick the snowflakes in the frosting, add a touch of powdered sugar, et voila, pretty and tasty treats.
My other accomplishment for the week:
As soon as VistaPrint's shirts go on sale again, this will be mine. I may go broke creating my own custom hockey shirts, but the process may also force me to become somewhat competent in Adobe Illustrator after six years of failure and gnashing of teeth.
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