Our Cupcake Challenge

My eight-year-old daughter loves watching all the cake shows on the Food Network.  Any of the Challenge shows and especially Ace of Cakes. Much excitement in my house in December when Duff talked about celebrating Chanukah. (Mom, Ace of Cakes is Jewish!!) and absolute madness when he made a guest appearance this past week on the Disney Channel's Imagination Movers.  That's my five year old's favorite show, so everyone got into the act.

It got to the point where my daughter was making cakes out of play-do, enlisting her little brother as her assistant and making us time and judge their work.  When she asked me if I knew how to make real fondant, I knew we were in trouble.

You know my husband is the cook in our family – and he loves to encourage the kids in the kitchen.  They made their first cakes together a couple of weeks back, but neither one of us is a baker.  So we got a very cute book called, Hello Cupcake. Step by step directions (with pictures) of how to make some very cool stuff.

Our first project was my pick - the popcorn cupcakes.  We had a dinner party Saturday night, so we spent Friday whipping it up.  I never in my life thought I would spend a Friday night cutting up 200 white and yellow mini-marshmallows. The kids stuck with it longer than I thought (the hardest part was keeping them from eating everything, of course!). Here's the finished product (it's about 50 mini-cupcakes):

I know, I know – cupcakes probably aren't the best hobby when you've got a kid with diabetes. Too bad.  Benny gives up enough already. 

We're not going to do this every day of course, and you'd be surprised how much easier it is to control blood sugar for treats like this, as opposed to more complex foods like pizza (cheese, sauce, bread - it's a mess). 

I guess, with all due respect to the Food Network, we've got our own Challenge going on. I say, bring it (and pass the cupcakes)!