My daughter had a Jubilee party at school recently, like many children around the UK I think. The previous morning the request was made for mum’s cupcakes to take into school so I dutifully fulfilled her wish. She’s not a ‘young’ 11 year old (indeed she has a rather mature and sensible head her shoulders) so I didn’t want to go childish or gaudy as she wouldn’t have wanted them to be like that.

Some simple vanilla and chocolate cupcakes were made (18 of each). I striped the piping bag with red & white butter icing and, using my trusty Wilton 1M piping nozzle, I piped some roses onto the vanilla cakes. The chocolate cakes had a simple ‘squiggle’ of vibrant red icing (not a lot, you understand, because if you’ve ever seen the colour your tongue goes after eating “red extra” food paste you’ll know why less is more!) each cake was topped with a simple blue or white flower to match the theme.

So, 36 cupcakes were decorated, 4 given as gifts to each of 2 neighbours, which left 28 cakes. Plenty for school, work and home.

The morning of the Jubilee Party comes around and how many did she want to take into school? Oh yes! 6!!!!!!!! 6 came to work with me and didn’t survive past 10am which was dutifully declared cake o’clock. 4 were set aside for my parents but hubby forgot to give them to them. It turns out that she didn’t even get one of my cakes at school because the teachers bagged them first! This means that she then went away on holiday with my parents for a week and hadn’t had a single one of the cakes that I made for her.

How come then that, out of the 36 cakes, 20 were given away or shared, which leaves 16 cakes, there are only 11 left? Wonder whether that had anything to do with the hubby and the 16 year old both being at home!! At least they won’t be going to waste though, eh?