it takes a village to fill a hospital order...

1st of all...THANK YOU!

mostly, thank u to Carrie...for partnering up with me for this insane challenge! we make one hell of a team girl!!! ;0)

thank u to Ma...for pretty much saving our butts! without her, we would have been pulling some super late nights, on top of our 11-12hr days!

thank u to my genius brother, Joe...without him, the replica would have probably been totally deformed & then fallen over! ~lol~

thank u to my sis-in-law, Katie...for helping out with making a bucket of icing

thank u to Cindy...for coming by & putting in an afternoon on the icing assembly line ;0)

thank u to Curtis...for holding down the fort while i was MIA all week

thank u to my sister...for keeping an eye on my kiddos while Curt & i both worked

& thank u to all of u...for ur encouragement, offers of prayer & support...u guys r awesome!!!


hell week (as i like to call it) began last weekend...it probably should have began a little sooner, but i really wanted to wait on Joe...& i'm glad i did!

we really didn't have much to go on...no blueprints or floor plans, or anything cool like that...just pics we shot about a month ago...as well as some aerial pics & interior floor plans we found on RMH's site...

Joe crunched numbers & compared pics to the interior floor plans...

we drew out each floor individually...including the basement (which is covered by land in the front, but exposed/accessible in the back)...then we used the most awesome tool ever to burn out the MANY pieces of styrofoam

coming up with a pretty close replica if i do say so myself!

i went with styrofoam on this one because they didn't care to eat it...they wanted the replica to stand on display for the entire weekend event & would not be serving it at all...i even offered to make some of the land from cake, so they could do a ceremonial "cutting of the cake", but they declined - said they simply wanted it to look pretty ;0) i didn't want to take any chances of it leaning or settling over time - so we went the safe route...once it was all cut & assembled, i iced the entire thing in buttercream

Monday morning, i ran out to get the rest of our supplies...we'd already gotten the bulk of the ingredients from Costco, but we had to place a big order with Walmart as well - for the stuff Costco didn't carry...i went round & round with Walmart last week...placing the order a total of 3 times before it was finally officially submitted...we sure were cutting it close, but i was happy to hear our stuff had arrived Sunday night

Curt & i loaded up our trucks with everything & delivered it to my church...the supplies had been gathered in the extra section of our living room, as well as a fridge at the college where Carrie works...it was an insane sight! here's just part of the list:

150lbs of powdered sugar (three 50lb bags)
50lbs sugar
50lbs flour
2 gallons of oil
almost 25 tubs of sour cream
about 50dz eggs
140 sticks of butter
etc...

i couldn't imagine we'd go thru everything...& we did end up with some left over stuff where the cake batter ingredients were concerned (better to be safe than sorry tho, right?), but we did run out of buttercream supplies - making last minute trips to Food Lion & buying out their powdered sugar stock! ;0)

after dropping the load off at the church (it took both mine & Curt's trucks full), i took some time that afternoon to enjoy a Memorial Day cook-out at my parent's (more on that in my next post)

that evening, Ma & Katie (my sister in law) came by to help me get started...they began making the buttercream for me (each using a different Kitchenaid mixer), while i worked on the replica

it was a very slow process - applying the fondant...each section was covered separately, & once the fondant was on, i had to score the brick design & emboss the windows into the fondant, so that we could easily go back & paint them on

i made good progress on it Tuesday...Ma & i started at 8am - she made icing for me all. day. long.

i worked on the covering more walls...cause i knew that come Wed/Thurs, all my time would be consumed with cupcakes...we started out with six 5 gallon buckets of buttercream...that's about 141 batches!

Tuesday eve, Carrie arrived...i sent Ma home (well, to get my kiddos first, then feed/watch them while i finished up...she didn't exactly go home to put her feet up)...then, Carrie & i busted out our first 71 dozen cupcakes...in 2hrs & 40min to be exact! this was our time to learn the ovens...we had 4 to work with, but because of some uneven baking in the 2 gas ones, it equaled out to the equivalent of baking with 3 ovens - 12 dozen going at a time...of course, it took some getting used to, & several batches were burned in the process...but we felt confident going into Wednesday

we knew at that point, that just maybe, we could pull this off ;0) we headed home at 9:30pm that night

Wednesday - we started at 9am...me, Ma & Carrie

Ma was on batter duty...this time, using Carrie's big industrial mixers & beating up 4 batches at at time...she'd mix it up as fast as we could get it scooped out & baking...

we got a real assembly line system going...we'd line up tables with the pans, get em all filled with liners, then work our way down - scooping out batter simultaneously

as soon as the timers would go off & pans would get moved out of the ovens, to the cooling racks...more would get thrown in the oven to replace em

then we had another set of tables lined up with containers...as soon as the cupcakes were cool enough, they'd get dumped & sorted into the plastic holders

we got thru baking all of the fudge chip cupcakes on Wednesday (over 2500), & started on the white...we called it a night at 8pm - i couldn't believe i got home with a tiny bit of daylight still in the sky...enough to see to water my garden! we had 327 dz down, 73dz more to go...way ahead of where we wanted to be! Carrie had even began icing them & got 172dz done all on her own that night!

more major progress...we were feeling good!

Thursday - we started at 9am again...we finished up with all baking around 12:30pm - that last dozen going in the oven felt like the biggest accomplishment ever!

but we still had a lot of icing to do...so we started tag-teaming that...Cindy came by in the afternoon...right as it was time for Ma & i to take a break for Corinn's Kindergarten graduation (more on that in my next post too)

she kept bags loaded, & Carrie kept the line moving...Ma & i quickly returned, with more icing supplies in hand...we knew we were going to run short & would need at least another bucket full...Ma got busy whipping up more, & Carrie & i kept the piping bags flowing

around 7pm, we got down to the last 4dz cupcakes & ran out of icing! do you know what it feels like to bake and ice 420 dozen cupcakes to run out of icing with ONLY 4 dozen left?! ah, i was so mad! but what do u do?! Ma ran out for more supplies (turns out we over estimated on everything but the buttercream supplies) & we finally finished up everything (including clean up) at 9pm...let me tell u, my feet never hurt so bad!

it was an amazing site...i've never seen 5,000+ cupcakes all at once...& really never desire to again, to be honest! ;0)

but it sure was something else!

here's Jaden counting just to make sure ;0)

Carrie took a video - u know, since we couldn't fit em all in one pic! ~lol~ u can see it on my cake Facebook page here (scroll down a bit)...oh, & go ahead & become a fan while u're there ;0) or here's a link to the video on her page (not sure if it's private)...i'll see about getting the video uploaded here soon

Friday morning, we met at the church for delivery...it was me, Carrie & Curtis - all with our vehicles cleared out & ready for transport...it took all 3 cars full on the first trip...we only lost 2 dozen in transport (the containers slid/flipped & messed up the icing job)...but that's why we made extra ;0)

load 1...my Explorer...

load 2...Carrie's van...

load 3...Curt's Trailblazer...

& here's the caravan going up 42...very slowly, i might add ;0)

it took quite some time loading/unloading all the containers from the vehicles...the hospital had racks ready for us in their kitchen cooling area...

it took Carrie's van full one more time to get them all there...that's 4 car loads!

i let out a huge sigh of relief when i got the call from Carrie that all 420dz had been delivered safely...she said that they'd even let a few employees give em a try & so far we were getting rave reviews ;0)

but that wasn't the end for me...i still had the replica to finish!

i got busy finishing the fondant covering that afternoon...then my brother joined me after getting off work in the evening...u know how i do - we worked late into the night...Joe didn't head home until 3:30am! (thx again bro - u're such a trooper!)

i finished up the night alone, working up until the very last minute for delivery...u just don't know how long this detailed work takes!!!

once i got it there, it was quite the ordeal wheeling it thru doors that were wide enough to accommodate, to get it to a safe location! the client was very happy with the outcome (even if i did forget to add the $80 worth of miniature trees i ordered for it...oops! ~lol~)

i got some feedback on Facebook & Twitter too...here's what some of my friends had to say:

"My parents were there and LOVED the cupcakes. They thought the replica was cool too. It has a sign beside it that says "don't touch" but Mom said you can see little fingerprints on it. She kept hearing people ask what it was made of so I guess some people decided to find out for themselves!" -Mandy Whitlock

"I'm supposed to let you know that someone told us today (before letting them know that you were the one who made them) that the cupcakes for the RMH opening were the best cupcakes they have EVER had!!!" -Crystal Slater

"Just wanted to say that the cupcakes at RMH was really good! Keep up the good work!!" -Tara Charlton

"I got one, they were yummy! Everyone had wonderful things to say and were very impressed. You go girl!" -Stefanie Brock

& then yesterday, i saw this tweet come across...

"The cupcakes were a huge hit--with guests and employees alike! :)" -Holly Martin, Media Specialist for Rockingham Memorial Hospital

then this one...
"They were delicious, thanks for your hard work!" -RMH Healthcare

it feels weird to finally be done with this job...good, of course! but just weird.

i'm so happy that they were well-received & that we were able to pull it off! i seriously doubt i'll be taking on any challenges like this again in the near future...but at least i know i could if i wanted to! ;0)