I made the chocolate ganache with a generous cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips and about 2/3 cup of heavy cream melted together over a double boiler. The recipe I read online suggested 1-2 teaspoons of Irish Whisky. I started with this amount (off the heat so the alcohol wouldn’t burn off) and realized that a couple of wimpy teaspoons were not going to achieve the St. Patrick’s Day buzz I was hoping to give my coworkers.
So I added a couple more. And then some more. And then I lost count. But, you could taste the booze in that ganache when I was done with it. Oh yeah.
Then I got started on the Irish crème cream cheese frosting. The recipe I saw suggested I add a couple of tablespoons to the frosting. Well friends, I tried that. And maybe it was all the whisky from the ganache, but I could barely taste the Irish crème.
So I added some more. And then some more. And then I lost count. Hmm. Anyways, by the time I was done with it, you could taste the Irish crème in it. How else do you know when it’s done?
So around this time, my little brown life coach showed up to get me through the evening. She was under the belief that she was there to make cupcakes for her guyfriend, but came bearing chocolate and coaching skills.
When the life coach came in, I had her taste the ganache and the frosting to get her professional opinion on the potency of my components. You should probably know that the life coach does not drink much. I’ve seen her get all cute and tipsy on a couple sips of wine. So when she tasted the spiked ganache and frosting, her reaction to both was, “Yeah, there’s definitely alcohol in there.”
While the life coach got set up to frost her cupcakes, I got my cake frosted with the Irish crème cream cheese frosting. Because of all the extra liquid in it, it didn’t quite crust and I wasn’t able to really smooth out the frosting like I wanted. But I got it reasonably smooth and figured no one would notice after they consumed the alcohol.
Well friends, now came the moment of truth. The time when my will to finish the cake came into direct conflict with my desire to drink Irish whisky straight out of the bottle. The time when the skills of my life coach would be tested.
It was time to flip the transfer.
I took my transfer out of the freezer and cut away the excess wax paper. I took a deep breath. The life coach took a deep breath. And then I flipped it and started pulling away the wax paper.
And then I started using every bad word I could think of, several times each.
As I pulled the wax paper away, much of the black outlining that I had so patiently outlined stuck to the wax paper. But the worst part was the bigger yellow area. As you can tell, the yellow did not transfer very well. Or pretty much at all.
Yup, the yellow area pretty much tanked.
Once I had all the wax paper off and could really see the extent of the damage, there was a moment when the life coach just watched me, waiting to see what my reaction would be.
I stood there staring for a minute and briefly thought about the nearly full bottle of whisky sitting just a few feet away from me.
And then I decided that this was fixable.
Thank God, I still had all the colors mixed up and in bags ready to go. I sat down and started to re-draw the outlines that had stuck to the wax paper, and the fill in the missing colors. My sweet little brown life coach stood next to me, encouraging me and telling me that I could do it. It was like a Rocky moment in cake decorating. I should have started singing Eye of the Tiger...
And then it was done. I had re-filled the missing areas and even had enough frosting left to add the borders.
You may not be able to tell, but the top border got a little away from me and I realized it was totally lopsided. The life coach took one look and reassured me it was perfect. I agreed because there was no way I was going to try to fix it.
Do you see those frosted green cupcakes behind that awesome looking cake? Those are virgin cupcakes I made for a couple of pregnant and nursing coworkers of mine. Even though I may not agree with a zero-alcohol policy, I’m just nice enough to be supportive of it.
So now after all this exciting cake talk, you’re probably asking how the contest turned out. Because surely I have maybe a couple of readers who aren’t already my facebook friends…
Well friends, it was tough. The competition was stiff and the baked goods were boozy. In sampling the other entries, I could tell there was some Irish crème in a couple of them. One claimed to be a Guinness and orange cake.
But in no other entry could you smell the alcohol wafting than in my cake. My cake screamed booze. And it made me proud.
We sat near the judges to eat our samples. And I’m not proud of it, but I desperately tried to listen to what they were saying.
I also may or may not have given a cupcake to a coworker who subsequently rounded up our entire accounting department to go down and vote for People’s Choice…
And then they posted the winners.
In the words of the great Charlie Sheen, “Winning.”
That’s right friends; I won both First Place and People’s Choice. I won $75 to Williams Sonoma and $50 to Nothing To It!
But credit needs to go out to the little people who made this cake happen, especially the little brown life coach who knew just when to bring her encouragement and her chocolate. It also goes out to my awesome coworkers who went down to vote for my cake. And finally, to the judges for not firing me for bringing an alcohol soaked cake to a zero-alcohol company function. Thank you.
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