Fun-dant with Brittany

We just returned from my niece's graduation in Texas...which was Texas-sized, heh, heh. She and 570 or so classmates made the transition from little people to "big people," as their class Valedictorian so eloquently proclaimed. Ahem...

So that was all good and fun and we all congratulated Rachel a bazillion times. In addition to this very momentous event, another major happening occurred:

I got my hands on some fondant.

You know, the fancy-schmancy stuff of beautifully decorated cakes and pastries. Rachel's sister Brittany, who I believe has made it her own mission in life to make her two sisters feel special, thought her graduation was a great reason to decorate cupcakes with this magic sugary blanket-y stuff.

(And because she doesn't know any better, she also turned my sons loose with jars of sprinkles. She's the Fun Cousin, believe me.)

Back to the fondant: if you've never used it before, pretend you're in preschool again and you're playing with Play-doh, only you can eat this stuff without getting sick.

It comes in a white blob in a canister, and all you do is tear off what you need, add food color, and knead the color in. And if you're also thinking about people in your life who have wronged you, this kneading thing can be very therapeutic. Then you get to cut it with a sharp knife! I'm tellin' ya...who needs to pay $100 an hour for a shrink?

Brittany's very ambitious plan was for each cupcake to illustrate something Rachel had done or a club she'd belonged to. So some of these won't make much sense to you, but I can tell you they were special for Rachel. Brittany called it an "edible scrapbook..." Did I mention she's creative with words, too? I'm trying hard to still love her. And that's without mentioning her passion for photography.

(Here's the illustrated version of our day. I'm posting these pics in random order, though, because Blogger in all its free-to-use glory, makes it very painful to change the order of graphics. So in order to get this post up before August, I'm posting it anyway. Just scroll up and down a bunch of times if that bothers you.)

Because it wasn't enough to fondant her way through the day, Brittany thought we could use some candy graduation caps. Oh, my! She'd tell you to thank Bakerella for this delicious idea.

I'm thinking Brit and her sister Lauren could build my boys a playhouse out of this stuff.

Sweet Lauren...who also doubles as a lifeguard, who has friends who are lifeguards who came over that day, and lifeguarded the boys in their pool while I fun-danted. Try making verbs of nouns sometime...it's a blast.

The buttercream backups. Yum!

Could she be having second thoughts about letting them have the sprinkles?

Ambitious Brit whipping up a mess o' buttercream, which we used for gluing on the fondant. And that's a Kitchen Aid mixer...isn't everything in the kitchen more fun with one of these?

It only looks like a mess. It's really the workspace of pastry wizards. Who need coffee in order to work their magic.

...and computers.

I did this one...yay for me! And for tiny fondant cutters! The University of Texas at Arlington is where Rachel is headed next...and apparently 2013 is when we'll see her in another graduation ceremony. If cupcakes are involved I'll be there for sure.

I think Brittany's nails were manicured when she started the day. She's a hardworkin' girl...

...who always does just a little extra.

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This post will be entered in June's Write Away contest at Scribbit. She's my friend who writes from Anchorage, Alaska. Ya'll head over there and cool off...