Queen of My Heart

The Girl's Ministry at our church sponsored a Chocolate Festival this weekend. Girls (and their moms) were encouraged to enter a "chocolate creation" to be judged on presentation and taste. Well, my daughter has watched one too many episodes of 'Aces of Cakes' (that television is bad, bad I tell you) so we couldn't enter brownies or cookies or something common. She and her overachieving mother thought it would be best to put their complete no experience of working with chocolate together and make Chocolate Monarch Butterfly Cupcakes.

Inspired by the beautiful book, 'Hello Cupcake' we planned our work and worked our plan. I baked and iced, she piped and piped and piped.

To make the butterflies she had to pipe the outside of a wing in brown, fill in the inside, swirl with a toothpick to create the pretty mottled effect and sprinkle with white nonpariels (sprinkles). Each wing had to be created separately so it could be propped on the cupcake to look like it had just landed and then the body was piped inbetween.

They were a beauty to behold. When we were finished, I could hardly believe it.

Then, there was the judging....and our team was...runner up. Runner up! So close. And the Chocolate Queen got the whole royal setup --- tiara and the "Chocolate Queen 2009" sash. Beat out by a team who served chocolate crepes with strawberries and bananas. Wouldn't you rather eat a butterfly?

So now we're off to set the DVR for more episodes of 'Ace of Cakes' for inspiration and wait until next year.