Birthday cupcakes

Time is sneaky. Sometimes it goes by so slowly you reckon that it is unmoving, still as the air. Yet, you look at the clock and see the minutes ticking away ever so slowly. Then again, at other times, it gallops past you, almost akin to a sprinter racing the way to the finishing line. You bat an eyelash and a whole day is gone.

Just like today, time FLEW by so much today. I blink and it's lunch hour. I blink again and lunch is over. The next time I blinked, it's already 4pm. Then  I blink again, it's 6pm, time to knock off but I don't cos you know, whenever it's nearing end of the day, suddenly there's like a multitude of tasks to complete. I leave at 7pm instead. It feels like today, I blinked and blinked, like I'm blinking in terms of hours. pffft.

Time comes and goes as it pleases, not caring if anyone wants it to go slow or hurry. And we all blow the candles once a year every single year - which reminds us that we are stealthily growing older and older. pui. Anyway, speaking of birthdays, I made these cupcakes in November for an aunt's birthday.

I wanted contrasting colours and flavours. No boring plain old (but scrumptious of course) chocolate. I decided to remake the ispahan (minus the lychee as it was a last minute decision and I used what I had on hand). To complement the colour tone of the pinkish ispahan, I wanted something citrusy bright. Lemon was akin to chocolate, yummy but just a tad overdone. So I decided on orange cupcakes (I secretly clapped my hands in joy as you know, I do have a bottle of Grand Marnier...that really really goes well with orange-anything.).

Piped cupcakes. I know how ugly they look. I mean, I did try my best...

Raspberries; A berry in each cup; Cupcakes with spread (not piped, I gave up after just two attempts) frosting; A mouthful of cupcake.

Skinless & juiceless oranges; Orange-y cupcakes.

I'm really loving the old washed out effects photographs I see online, and after I saw in one of my reads on how the person explained the gist of how to achieve that look, I tried it out (refer to first and last photographs) and it came out looking totally rad! I'm so in love with the effect. (:

I think it's high time I start posting all my food pictures again. It's a new year, so let's clear away all the old things. What say you? Look out for more posts this week as I strive (note: the word strive denotes something to keep in mind and not a promise to do so. snorts.) to clear the remaining of my 2009 baking pictures. (: