Wedding Cupcakes

I'm not married.
I have no desire to get married and have kids.
But that doesn't mean I won't be happy for those who do get married.

A friend of mine is getting married tomorrow and I feel very honoured to be baking cupcakes for her reception. 

I am not much of a cupcake person and I don't do fancy icing work, so when she asked me to do the same style of cupcakes as the ones I had made for my niece's 100 days party for her wedding, I was relieved!
The cupcakes are chocolate and topped with piped white chocolate ganache roses. I will be decorating them with red hearts and a flag (which I bought off Ebay) to add some colour and a personal touch.

Fondant icing is not my kind of thing and buttercream icing can also be very sweet but chocolate ganache? Now that's my kind of cake covering. Chocolate has a smoothness in the mouth that most people can't resist and let's not forget the smell! I am not much of a sweets person but as I make sweet things a lot I can't not try it right? I have grown to love working with chocolate, it's just a shame my hands are too warm to work with it for long. To tackle this, I fill a flat based pan in the freezer with water in it and once frozen, I would use it to regularly cool my hands on it when piping ganache.

When the day came though, it was one disaster after another. Everything that could go wrong, went wrong. Cases were coming away from the cakes, the ganache had split when I went to whip it (thank god I had split it in to 2 batches!) and it was a VERY warm day in my mum's kitchen (where I had set up my baking studio for 2 days). Why the hell does this have to happen on such an important day?!
I was on the verge of tears and could not think how the hell I was going to save the split ganache - Believe me, I tried saving it but it was a lost cause. So my mum, being the ever saviour, got in to her car and drove 10miles to the nearest supermarket to pick up more white chocolate and cream for me. Seriously, I wouldn't know what I would do without her at times. 

After that little mad run, I finally got the ganache perfect and was ready to continue piping - that was until the piping bag burst on me halfway through! Yup, my ganache was chilled too much so was a tad hard but I was in the mindset of, "let's get this s*** done". And I paid the price.

As I was piping the ganache, my 4 year old niece, Ella, decided she wanted to help. Yes. Help. 
I will give her credit though, she was actually very patient and she cheered every time I finished one cupcake but then she tried to count how many cupcakes there were on the table. One perfectly piped cupcake was ruined after her little arm squashed it as she dropped her arm after counting! 
Fear not, I had baked about an extra 10 "just in case".

In the middle of what seemed like an endless list of disasters, I was expecting the delivery of my cupcakes boxes that was being delivered by courier on express. I had emailed the company I ordered them from to confirm that they were going to get to me on time because I never got a dispatch e-mail, like they said I would. They gave me a tracking number, which I clicked on and it stated I would get it between 3pm and 4pm. 
That's okay, I didn't need to get the cupcakes to Forfar until 7.

3pm came. Nothing.

That's okay, DPD are very good with their schedules. Normally.

4pm came. Nothing.

Let's check the tracker again...."Delivered"...."signed by Adamson E"....WHAT?!

Seriously. 

WHAT?!

I could feel the tears coming on but that switched to anger and I was ready to kill someone. So I called DPD to ask why someone under the name of Adamson E was allowed to sign for a package that was meant for me and the advisor on the other end asked me, "how did you learn of this package?"
What the hell do you mean, "how"?! I was supposed to have received it! The company I ordered from gave it to me!
I'm guessing he realised the crazy woman on the other end of his line was freaking out at this point so he was typing as fast as his fingers would allow and bless him, he was very calm.
We finally got an answer.
I was given the wrong tracking number. That package wasn't meant for me. So....where is my package????
"You're package is on its way and will be with you between 7 and 8pm."
Oh thank goodness!!! 
I wanted to laugh and cry down the phone to this complete stranger but I think he wanted to get hang up as quickly as possible, so I let him go.

Once I hung up, I returned to finish the cupcakes off and then sat there staring out of the window until dinner was ready. 
The doorbell rang at about 7.40pm and I sprinted to the door. 

Okay, I didn't sprint. But there was running.