Our managers decided that today we would have a "Start Of New Season" day to kick off the football season. You were to come to work dressed up in your favourite team colours/jerseys and if you wanted to, bake a cake to support your team - the bake a cake part was only on the email and not on the posters so I am assuming this is why only 3 of us bought in cake. At first I wasn't all that keen as 1 - I'm not a real big football fanatic and 2 - I don't really have a "favourite team". My first thought was to just pull anything out of my wardrobe which matched any team colours and just wear that. Then I remembered that Ryan had his Rooster's shirt. Okay so last season they performed reeeaaaallllyyy badly but loyal supporters don't jump ship. Even though I am not truly a fan fan, I did go to almost all the games in the season before last (with other Rooster's fans of course). I must admit though that I most likely would have ended up a Tiger's fan, the very first game I went to watch live was the Grand Final where the Tigers won over the Cowboys - that was an awesome experience. Anyway, after much drama I managed to get my hands on Ryan's Rooster's shirt this morning and changed into it at work. I wore it with my denim shorts and while I was at Macquarie Centre yesterday spotted these blue, red and white striped knee high socks that were perfect to go with my outfit. I copped a bit of slack from some of the managers, more so from the HR manager who is a HUGE Tigers fan. I stood my ground though and I am glad I did because I ended up coming 3rd place for best dressed to my suprise, everyone commented on my lovely socks! I think the cupcakes I baked helped to sweeten the deal too ;)
At first I wasn't going to bake but I thought "Hey, what the heck any excuse to bake!". I had actually originally planned to gym it last night but changed my mind during the day just to go home and bake =D Originally I was going to be boring and just do vanilla cupcakes with coloured chocolate frosting representing the team colours. The idea soon evolved to "marble cake" (but was more like striped cake) and the icing was a cream cheese frosting (hadn't done it before and thought it might be a nice change to white chocolate ganache). I spent way too much time in that kitchen last night but I have no regrets. Everyone loved them, this was a bonus confidence boost on top of winning the 3rd place award, but I was awarded based on looks, both for me and the cakes. I've baked goodies before for work but it's usually been shared with the people who work in my immediate area, today was a bigger and mixed crowd. Having thumbs up all around felt really good. The big Tiger could not swallow his pride and have a cupcake - his loss really =p. I used the Magnolia Bakery Vanilla Cupcake recipe again. With the addition of colouring of course.
1. Cream (beat) the butter until it's fluffy and pale. 2. Add the sugar a bit at a time then beat.
2. Remember, one egg at a time, I get away with 2 at a time. 3. After all egg is mixed in should look like this.
4. Mix in the flour and milk and vanilla, a third at a time alternating between both.
Finally got to use my colouring gels.
Regular vanilla batter, blue coloured batter and red coloured batter.
Instead of "marbling" the 3 colours I left them as they are to create the different coloured layers. No one expected this until they took a bite =D
They look so pretty!
Cream cheese beaten until soft and creamy. Icing sugar is added, about half a cup at a time until it tasted sweet enough. I also added a touch of cream to loosen up the frosting and a squeeze of lemon juice to cut through the richness of the cream cheese. Then it was playtime with blue and black colouring gel, was hard to get the right blue! This is as close as I could get because it was so frustrating. I was also too lazy to sift the icing sugar so I ended having many little lumps in the frosting.
It was hard work icing these, the white chocolate ganache was a little on the runny side (it was leftover from something else) so was hard to control the stripes.
Say Cheese!
(Got these photos from work, our director is a giant! Or I'm just tiny!)
Words from our director: "Winners of the individual prize for Best Dressed were: 3rd Prize: Angie Dinh - for being the only Roosters supporter and not only wearing her team's colours with pride, but also baking some themed cupcakes." (Sympathy vote perhaps? =D )
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