cupcakes again!

i'm back from my cupcake class! so what happens when you pay half the cost of my previous class (i know I'm bound to compare)?

Instead of:

1) Bringing back 6 BIG cupcakes of 2 flavours each, I bring 3 SMALL cupcakes from 3 flavours each

2) Having aprons and boxes provided, I have to bring my own

3) Having a dishwasher in the classroom kitchen, I have to do my own washing of the equipment used

4) Having a 3 small groups of 3 pax in the class, there are 2 BIG groups of nine pax!

5) Having branded equipment to work with, I used non branded ones

6) Having an aircon classroom, I have a non aircon one (although the place was windy and has a nice view facing the sea)

7) Having cupcakes that rise nice and evenly, we have trays of cupcakes which all turn out loop-sided and no one told us what to do to avoid it (phew! good thing I already knew!)

Well, the crowd is different, the place and everything is different. I am seriously thinking whether there will be a second time for me here.

The reason why I am there today is to learn more different flavours of cupcakes and different types of frosting. There are not much tips to pick up, because honestly, whatever she says, I already know...and for the questions raised by others, I already can answer them as well.

I have earlier seen the pictures of the end result in the email ad of this place, and I had to admit I was not at all attracted by the look of its cupcakes. They taste and smell quite good nonetheless, but cupcakes are like human beings --LOOKS DO SELL.

The reason why these cupcakes I learnt today are not very professional looking is also partly because of the colour. All the 3 cupcakes I learnt today are black, or almost black, and so are the 2 frostings. Black on black does not stand out very well obviously. And the other reason, is of course, my lack of creative decoration skills.

I did not take many pictures of the cupcakes today because

1) they are not very photogenic

2) i don't even know whether i can say i made them. it was a hands on class, but because the group is so big, there wasn't much that I could do except to sit and let others do what they want to do.

I met 2 who look my age and have not baked anything before, so they are pretty eager to do things. I on the other hand, actually do not enjoy baking with other people because I want to do things MYSELF. And I cannot stand people who just want to spend time measuring exactly 200g of flour when they already have 198g on the weighing scale. This kind of people, I realised, pop up in every class. I think this is what I can call the newbie-kiasi-and-nonsensical syndrome.

I would say that seeing the recipes, they should taste quite nice. Actually I tasted one just now and it wasn't as nice as I had imagined (which was disappointing). I shall taste the rest tomorrow and try baking them myself some time soon. I can't wait to get my hands started on the one with nuts, bananas and chocolate.

Meanwhile, here are the not too photogenic pictures.