My First Paid Cupcake Gig!

While I was vacationing in San Francisco in mid-November I got a text message from my roommate asking me to call her ASAP.  Thinking something horrible had happened I called her immediately.  As soon as she picked up the phone she asked "Do you think you could make 120 cupcakes?  By Tuesday?"  It turned out that my roommate had been talking up my cupcakes to her coworkers, and her boss asked her if I could make cupcakes for a special treat for the crew of the movie she was working on.  Seeing as how I was getting back into town on Monday afternoon, I thought it unlikely I could have 120 cupcakes finished by Tuesday.  After a brief conversation with her boss, she asked "What about Wednesday?"  And so I found myself with my first paid cupcake gig.

At first I planned on doing three or four different flavors, but worried that I wouldn't finish in time I decided to keep it simple(r).  Since people really enjoyed the pumpkin spice cupcakes I made a few weeks earlier, I decided to make them again.  I also decided to decorate each cupcake with a fondant Θ and Π, the name of the sorority in the movie.

I was so stressed about finishing in time that I totally forgot to take step-by-step pictures, or pictures of the final 159 cupcakes laid out on my dining room table.  Here are a few pics that I did remember to snap:

I spent a total of ~20 hours on the cupcakes, though I had an additional 10 hours of help on the fondant cutting and assembly.  A lot of the time came from having to do multiple batches of things - my mixer could only hold one batch of batter at a time (I made 5 total) and my oven could only cook 2 dozen cupcakes at a time.  I probably could've reduced my total time by 75% if I had a commercial mixer and oven.

All in all it was a great experience, though exhausting and not super profitable.  (It worked out to ~$7/hr.)  I think I'll leave the professional baking to the real professionals from now on.