The Sift Keeper

This past week was one of the most stressful of my entire life. I guess it could be considered a "good stress" if there REALLY is such a thing... but to me it felt like someone was just trying to see how far they could push/pull me until I felt like a rubberband, going in every direction.

Let me explain.

Thursday I received a call from Living Social telling me that my "deal" was going to go live on Monday at 5:30am. This was after months of waiting for the deal to even post, since when I signed the contract, I was told it was most likely going to run around Mother's or Father's Day.

I also had my first Wedding with a cake and 150 cupcakes to make and decorate and get out to Asheville, NC.

The deal that ran was a 12-ct box of chocolates for $9. I guess I must have been out partying it up like crazy the night before, since at this point in the game, I would have never agreed to something like that from a business standpoint. I LOVE the publicity that it gave me, and I LOVE the fact that nearly 200 people purchased this deal, which was a great marketing tool that I didn't have to pay for... but the thought of all 189 tickets coming in at the same time made me apprehensive.
I make all the chocolates I sell here in my shop. They all take HOURS to make. So, when you have nearly 2300 chocolates that are essentially sold before anyone even steps in the shop... It made me nervous and scared that I wasn't going to have the time to create the amount necessary.

Fast forward to Monday morning. I think I might have turned a nice shade of blue from all the breath holding I did that day. I started the day at my friends house for breakfast, then came to the shop with my intern, Liz.

During all the craziness of the Living Social Deal, I had my cousin and Liz working on getting the dry ingredients ready for the cupcakes that needed to be made for the wedding, so that we didn't have to worry about getting all that together at the last minute. It would be easy to get the wet ingredients together pretty quickly... no added stress.

Tuesday we decided to do a test run on the cupcakes. Of course I decided we were going to make the carrot cake first. The first batch went into the oven and turned out BEAUTIFUL. I mean these cupcakes were stunning. Soft, moist... just beautiful.

The second batch went into the oven. I was in the kitchen with Jason. Something smelled like it was burning. I just figured some batter that might have been left on top of the pan might just be burning off. The smell got stronger and stronger... Jason opened the oven and the cupcakes were EVERYWHERE. When I say everywhere, I mean everywhere. The cupcakes exploded! Apparently whomever put the ingredients together confused baking soda for baking powder and a chemical reaction happened. BATTER EVERYWHERE.

Consider this a lesson learned. Read directions carefully. The REREAD them again. Especially when dealing with the baking soda v. baking powder as they both have VERY different outcomes.