"a house divided" - my first harry potter cake!

y'all, sometimes people are in love with other people, which i don't get. and sometimes people are in love with harry potter, which i get more than anything in the world.

my co-worker is one of those people who loves harry potter. she also loves her husband-to-be, but he did not love harry potter until very recently, and so, i do not, for the life of me, understand how she loved him before then, but okay.

still, once husband-to-be got his head out of his ass and got on the harry potter train (insert hogwarts express reference or pun or yadda yadda yadda), he was sorted into gryffindor. okay, i guess he is seeming more and more like a decent guy. except for the fact that my co-worker is a diehard slytherin.

everyone knows they're doomed. good luck to you, crazy kids!

honestly, this is one of my favorite cakes i've ever decorated. obviously. i mean, just look at it. it's really fucking good. this is just the kind of quality you come to expect when you come for the sassy badger. i don't know anymore, it's late.

while making it, i also realized that it was the first harry potter-themed cake i'd ever decorated. i cannot imagine how this is possible, but it's true. if this cake is a bludger, then i am a beater, and i smashed it out of the pitch. no one gets a harry potter cake ever again. this can't be topped. sucks for y'all.

TOTAL DECORATING TIME: 2.5 hours + 45 minutes of groaning after learning johnny depp was cast in the fantastic beasts sequel. ughhhhhhhhhhwhy.

mischief managed,
sassy badger

"minimalist" - happy birthday to me

it was my birthday in july. me and a bunch of my friends, like A LOT of my friends, i have a lot of friends, went to see ghostbusters. i just really wanted to celebrate me by ruining the childhoods of a bunch of whiny dudes.

i also wanted cake for my birthday, but none of my many, many, many very, very close friends has ever taken up the mantle of learning cake decorating. not that they would be as good as me. not that their blog would even be worth reading.

so, i asked myself, "do you want to decorate a cake for your own party?"

wow, that was a great joke.

never ever would i ever spend hours on something like that. these plain cupcakes were the best present i could possibly give myself. like, really, i would never ever do something so stupid as decorate a cake just for me.

i couldn't completely turn off that creative itch, though. some cupcakes had white icing. others had chocolate. some had no icing at all! crazy.

then, an even more amazing thing happened. my friends mel and ben, just two of my hundreds of friends, brought me cupcakes. and these weren't just any cupcakes. these were...

...cupcakes of all of my sheroes. these were dope lady cupcakes. so many of my favorite things!

now, mel and ben, my friends, which i have a lot of, took a unique approach to decorating these. they printed some pictures off of the internet. they taped them to some sticks, and then, get this, they stuck the sticks in the cupcakes.

where are the hours of tracing the images? and simplifying them so that they translate to cake? and trying to color match and mix the icing? and switching out between the many icing tips? and spending hours on it? and not getting any sleep before work the next day?

newbs.

geniuses.

to be sincere for a second, i was beyond touched by the gesture. i love my friends. the multitude of them.

ok, sincerity over.

TOTAL DECORATING TIME: 20 minutes + zero stressful thoughts while making these. i need to get out of "the game."

i have friends, i definitely have friends,

sassy badger

"hamilton" - best party ever

yeah, okay, it's been awhile. everyone's used to it by now.

typically, when the sassy badger drops a masterpiece on a party, it elevates the soiree out of mediocrity. how many of your college dorm parties had a custom pokemon/spongebob/lotr cake? a lot of them? well, then you were friends with me, and that doesn't count. and also, you're welcome.

all you other losers just had lame parties with alcohol and maybe people to sex with afterwards. gross.

this cake, on the other hand, was merely a blip of whimsy in an all-around evening of unmatched greatness. three words for you: hamilton karaoke party. if you don't like karaoke, fine. if you don't like hamilton, get the fuck out.

not only am i obsessed with the musical (after all, i'm not a worthless pile of garbage), but this kind of karaoke was where the hired dj just played the track and you sang along, and it masked your eternal-boy-going-through-puberty crooning. truly, the only kind of karaoke for me.

the kind of karaoke where, after a few drinks, everyone just sang along to every song anyway, and you all sang the second act of the musical all the way through. the kind of karaoke where, at the act break, we all went into another room to watch lemonade. the kind of karaoke where you're sent home with a tray of lasagna afterwards.

another three words for you: best. party. ever.

there were some professional hamilton cupcakes at the party as well. they looked much better than my contribution, but in my heart of hearts*, i know that human sunshine lin-manuel miranda would still tell me i did a good job. lin's opinion is the only one that matters.

thanks, lin. i love you.

TOTAL DECORATING TIME: 2 hours (mostly just trying to capture that twinkle in lin's eyes) + 1 month of party prep that included studying the lyrics and practicing cool ways to hold the microphone.

your obedient servant,
s dot badge

*i hate this idiom. but i learned to work with it, unlike burr and hamilton and...