The glamorous life of a cupcake baker

So, I've got a pretty sweet gig. Working for myself, I get to set my hours... and I only have a couple days a week that are really jam-packed. (Unless it's close to a holiday, then it's pretty much 'work every moment I am awake'.)

The weekly schedule is usually something like this:

• Monday - grocery store, bank, clean house/kitchen, test new recipes, chill out a little
• Tuesday - bake in preparation for cupcake counter on Wed
• Wednesday - Sam's Club, finish up baking/prep work from Tues, sell cupcakes at counter from 3-6pm
• Thursday - prepwork for weekend, grocery store (again), work on business plan/emails/marketing/etc
• Friday - BAKE BAKE BAKE! This is my busiest baking day of the week.
• Saturday - sell cupcakes at counter from 11am-3pm
• Sunday - rest, hang out with my Business Man
• Everyday - fill orders for pick-up at our house (pretty much a daily thing), update Facebook page, plan ahead for future holidays/specials

So Mondays are a pretty chill day, usually. I run a bunch of errands and then test recipes. I don't really love the errand-running. Especially in this cold weather. And because I usually don't get everything I need and have to run back to the grocery store every other day of the week. And unloading the groceries is never fun. 

But I do love the recipe testing. That's the best part!

We are gearing up for Valentine's Day so I've got lots of cupcake ideas on the brain - Red Hot Cinnamon, Chocolate-Covered Strawberry, Cherry Cordial, Raspberry Cheesecake, Conversation Heart (not so sure about that one yet...) and the list goes on!

I really wanted to try the Red Hot Cinnamon today, but despite my obsessive list making, I forgot to buy the cinnamon extract. (Though I did manage to remember to pick up a few bags of peanut butter M&M's... hmmm...) So I tested out the Chocolate-Covered Strawberry cupcake instead. And a new brownie recipe.

Strawberry cupcake batter! You bet I licked those beaters. 

Both required a chocolate ganache, which I make all the time. No testing necessary... bring cream to a simmer, pour it over some semisweet chips (a ratio of 4oz cream:5oz chocolate). Let it sit for 5 minutes before stirring until smooth and then adding a few glugs of corn syrup! Then it just has to cool down to the right consistency.

I thought I'd speed up the process today by storing the ganache in the fridge and then stirring every 5-10 minutes. I do this all the time. Well somehow today, I placed it in the fridge, and the fridge monster must have messed with it or something. Because when I opened the door, it exploded everywhere! (Or, ya know... it just fell from the shelf.)

I had to laugh. The funny thing is - I was putting groceries away earlier this morning and debated cleaning out the fridge because it was looking pretty gnarly. But I put it off. Glad I did, because I ended up cleaning it anyway!

But of course, it got into every nook & cranny of the door, the bottom of the fridge, the drawer to the freezer, and the seal to the freezer. And all over several of our condiments. (Anybody in the mood for chocolate-ranch?) Lovely. And all over the floor and shiny white cabinets. It's moments like these when I wish I had a personal assistant. Or housecleaner. Or just my mom within a 30 minute drive. (She is the best dishwasher/cleaner-upper ever!)

So after an hour of clean-up, it was back to normal and I could resume my day. Haha. So much fun. The end result was totally worth it though! Chocolate-Covered Strawberry - strawberry cupcake (with fresh strawberries!) filled and frosted with chocolate ganache, and topped with a chocolate-covered strawberry. Yum.

Hopefully tomorrow will be a little more glamorous. Or at least less messy. ;)