Cupcake Project - TV Dinner & Spaghetti Dinner!

WARNING!!! MEGA LONG POST AHEAD!
(Stick with me here, people - I promise it will be worth it!)

So, for the most part, I thought I would be taking on this cupcake journey solo. Immediately I realized that wasn't true, since Anthony has been with me every step of the way. But what I wasn't ready for was all the people wanting to join in! It's so neat to have people thinking that what I'm doing is cool.

With that said, this week's project is different in 2 major ways. First - It isn't just the normal 1 project/2-page spread that I've dealt with so far. It was 6 pages!!!! 2 Projects! That is 4 pages of instructions for the TV Dinner project, and the normal 2-page spread for the Spaghetti Dinner. (Don't worry - it is super large font and has pictures!). Second big difference - I was not alone!

Meet Beckie:
Beckie is one of my best friends in the whole world. I was a bridesmaid in her wedding and she was Matron of Honor in mine. We've been friends for over 7 years now, and she's been one of the greatest roommates I've ever had! And she was the first to volunteer to help me out with my project. We had so much fun!

We started out with teaching Beckie all the new techniques that the book taught me (because that is a rule! We follow the book, even when it leads us down an unsure path!) and got baking!

Our first project was TV Dinner. Here is what it looks like from the book:

We took it in turns and did the "peas & carrots" first. Beckie made the frosting green, and we added green runts and orange runts. It looked cool! Then came the potatoes! Mashed, to be precise. Vanilla frosting (over frosted, really) with a yellow starburst (circa Corn on the Cob) for butter, and caramel sauce to look like gravy.
Then came... the chicken bones. *WARNING* At least a P-G13 RATING for the next paragraph or so...
So the book innocently says "Trace this out on wax paper, then fill in the outlines with melted white chocolate." Ok - so. We did that. And when you fill it out with the chocolate, it ends up looking a little... ummmm... phallic. No getting around it:Of course, jokes ensued, and we giggled a lot. But it turns out that is what they are supposed to look like! Because when put into the tops of cupcakes covered in frosting and Special K crumbs, it actually looks like a fried chicken leg! Add one last cupcake covered in chocolate frosting and jimmies (or sprinkles, or 100,000's, or nonpareils - take your pick) to look like a chocolate pudding dessert, and voila! TV Dinner!

We had a lot of fun!
Then, we got right to work again, this time on our Spaghetti Dinner! (Obviously, it was the night of entrees). And I had the perfect Pasta Bowl my mom gave me a few years back to display our masterpiece. We put the rest of the cupcakes from the batch into the bowl. Then the instructions said to add cocoa powder and yellow food coloring to the frosting to make it "brownish-yellow" for the pasta. We were skeptical - not gonna lie. We thought it was going to look like mud.
But once again, I was taught to trust the book. It looked great! We covered the cupcakes in a thin layer of frosting and all three of us (Anthony joined in too!) had at it! It was so much fun to just be messy with frosting! We squeezed the whole bag out over the cupcakes through a tiny little hole and it really looked like Pasta!



Beckie added the "Meatballs and Sauce" which are Ferrier Roche chocolates and strawberry preserves. It looks pretty realistic. And smells so good! That really is a lot of frosting!

Thanks, Beckie, for coming over and helping me with my project! It was so much fun. Can't wait to do it again!
Next week - "Box of Chocolates." Oh - and if you are interested in helping me, come on over and claim a page in the book! Miranda called dibs on the "Owls" project, and Alyse called dibs on about 4 projects (don't worry - there are still a ton of projects left untagged) and I'm looking forward to all the help! I'm loving this project.

-Jen