Bittersweet Cupcake Saturday

So, it has been an interesting couple of weeks for me.  The culmination of the past few weeks came to me giving my two weeks notice at the toy store on Saturday.  I have a lot of mixed feelings about it.  But, at the end of the day, I deserve to make a wage that suits my abilities, experience and work ethic.  I also want a career, not a job.  So, I am moving on to bigger and better things.  I am excited, VERY excited.  I will miss the toy store.  Luckily, the new job will be right across the street so I will be in my same neighborhood.  It is a great opportunity for me and it is really where I belong at this point in my life.  I need challenges and opportunity and appreciation for my skills and abilities.  I see that happening in my new position.
So, I gave my notice first thing in the morning and could actually relax and look forward to my future!  I was hoping that the flavor of the day at Cupcake Charlie's would match my spirit...and boy, was I happy that it did!  Bittersweet, indeed! :)  The flavor of the day was Snickers!  It is a rich and moist chocolate cupcake filled with caramel and nuts!  On top is a layer of chocolate frosting, topped with a dollop of peanut butter frosting (which is the BEST frosting at Cupcake Charlie's!).  That is topped with nuts and a slice of Snickers candy bar.  This cupcake was so rich and sweet.  I really savored it.   It was the perfect ending to an up and down and then up again week. 
I start my new job mid-Oct.  I hope to continue my cupcake journey.  :)  Since I will definitely be given a bonafide lunch break every day (unlike my current situation of standing at the counter and eating my lunch between customers...ugh.), I see no reason for my sweet adventures to end!  :)  Until next week!

Fall has arrived!

This Saturday was the first official day of Autumn!  I love the fall!  I am already chomping at the bit to put up my Halloween decorations at the store....and at home!  The air is crisp, the leaves are pretty....I do have to admit that it is bittersweet though.  I had a really fantastic summer this year.  My husband and I moved right near the beach last spring and we got to take full advantage of being able to walk to the ocean all summer which was awesome.  The store was busy all summer, too...which was really nice b/c it makes work barely seem like work at all.  My summer crew is a big part of that....they make the toy store a fun place to be!  I really do miss them!  :(  Back to now....the fall.....enjoying it until the winter chill starts to arrive!
In honor of the departure of summer, my cupcake this week was a repeat offender:  orange dreamcicle.  I really love this cupcake.  Apparently, Cupcake Charlie's only serves this one in the summer and Saturday was the last day it would be available.  Who knew?  I enjoyed it thoroughly!  Orange flavored cupcake with creme in the middle...topped with orange icing with a fruit slice for garnish.  So good!  This one just puts a smile on my face looking at it....and the sugar rush makes me zippy for a good hour after I eat it!  Love, love, love. 
I am hoping that Cupcake Charlie's continues its fall themed flavors this weekend.  We have a free one coming-we completed our punch card! YAY!  Will see you next week!

Is it Autumn already? Cupcake Saturday says "yes!"

Summer is by far my favorite season.  Fall is a very close second.  Halloween.  (Anyone who knows me knows of my love of costumes and dressing up)Thanksgiving.  Leaves changing colors.  Not too cool, not too hot.  Sweaters and boots.  Pumpkins and apples.  It was a busy Saturday at the toy store but I was determined to get a celebrate Cupcake Saturday this week no matter what when I found out what the flavor of the day was!  This week Cupcake Charlie's was celebrating the fall season with this flavor of the day: Caramel Apple Pie.  Caramel is my favorite candy of all time.  I love those "bullseye" caramel creme candies and their offspring, the CowTale.  When I was little, and grocery stores did this, I would buy a small bag of caramels at the Brach display.  Later on, you could actually put a quarter in a box for just one piece of candy from the display, and I would do that as a treat when I was older.  My fave ice cream sundae is a caramel sundae.  And now, I can add, Caramel Apple Pie to my list of Caramel loves.  This cupcake was fan-fricken-tastic!! It was a slightly cinnamon-y cupcake filled with apple pie filling.  The apple pie filling actually reminded me of the Hostess apple pies that are covered in a thin layer of glaze...sugary and good!  The frosting was a cinnamon/maple frosting which was drizzled with caramel and topped with a piece of candy corn.  I can't really tell you how good this cupcake was.  The apple filling was the best part.  Anytime I can have my Cupcake Saturday and eat fruit at the same time is a good situation for me!  I really loved this cupcake and am looking forward to what the fall and winter seasons have in store. 

Summer (unofficially) comes to an end....bring on the fall!

This Saturday was the first Saturday after Labor Day.  Labor Day on Cape Cod is the end of summer, no matter what the calendar "officially" says.  The traffic gets lighter, the beaches get empty (and lose their lifeguards and ice cream trucks), the locals come out into the sunlight again after hiding from the tourists for the past three months.  It is all pretty nice.  I actually like the hustle and bustle of summer on the Cape.  I don't mind the traffic b/c I have found several different ways to get wherever I need to go.  I like the business at the store-all of the kids excited about being on vacation, all of the new faces from all over the United States-and sometimes far away places.  My days at work go by quickly.  I enjoy my beach days with all of the crowds.  With all of this being said, I have to admit, this first week after Labor Day was kind of nice and relaxing.  I could sleep in 15 minutes longer b/c there was no traffic AND no line at Dunkin' Donuts for my Vanilla Chai.  I spent the week at the store cleaning and re-arranging things.  We got a huge shipment but had plenty of room to work on it and didn't need to rush to move it out of the way. I popped open the doors and turned off the AC b/c I am fine without it and there weren't as many customers to complain about it.  :)   Nice.  I give myself one more week of solitude enjoyment before the 10-6 shift solo with no customers wears on me....but right now....I am going to enjoy the break. 
This is the first week without my summer crew and my new helper is working out well.  She is a nice girl and she really seems to like the job.  She is really great with customers, which is amazing to me b/c she barely has had time to learn where everything is, but she jumps in with a suggestion every time she is asked and has no problem chatting with people, which is important in a toy store.  Another bonus about my new helper is that she has a sweet tooth and is more than happy to embrace my Cupcake Saturday endeavor!  Yay!  I knew I was going to like her! 
A bonus of the fall/quiet season is that Cupcake Charlie's tends to offer more inventive flavors when the business is slower.  I think it is easier for them to make complicated flavors in smaller amounts.  The flavor of the day this week, which I chose, was Stuffed French Toast.  I love french toast.  It is my favorite breakfast food.  I honestly can't tell you the last time that I actually had some, but I have always loved it.  This cupcake tasted EXACTLY like french toast!  It was delicious!  I can't really tell you what flavor the cupcake itself was b/c it was overwhelmed with all of the other flavors going on, but I don't think it was a straight vanilla.  It was filled with what tasted like the cream cheese frosting that is usually on the carrot cake cupcake.  Soooo good.  On top was some drizzled maple syrup topped with a heaping dollop of maple/cinnamon flavored frosting which was sprinkled with cinnamon.  This was really surprising in how much flavor it had!  I was really thrilled with it.  It was also a comfort food kind of flavor which works well with my "heading into fall" mode....
My helper got the Carly's chocolate chip cookie, which seems to be the standby for half of the crew that works for me.  She loved it and looks forward to branching out next week.  :) 
All-in-all, a good way to end a pretty good, non-eventful week.  Let's see what this week brings, shall we?  :)

Goodbyes are easier with cupcakes!

After all of the drama of last week, I was hoping for a easy breezy kind of week at work.  Still not feeling my best, but I am sucking it up and getting through it.  :)  I had two days off to rest and then returned to work on Tues.  This was the last week that I would be working with my summer crew-my Saturday sidekick and one of my other girls were leaving for college this week.  In honor of that, we decided cupcakes were in order every day!  :)  Well, almost every day.  Not quite. 
Starting with Tuesday....which turned out to have one of our favorite flavors as flavor of the day:  Fudge Factory!  This cupcake is soooo rich and chocolately.  It is a chocoloate cupcake, which has chocolate chips throughout.  It is filled with chocolate frosting and topped with chocolate frosting, which is topped with chocolate chips and a nice piece of fudge from Ghelfi's.  I love this cupcake.  LOVE.  Me and my sidekick both got the same one and the silence while we ate them was all anyone needed to know how damn good it was.  :)
Wednesday I only worked a short night shift (because I am working 2 weeks straight without a day off.   Yep.)  No time for cupcakes.

Thursday, on the other hand, was a long shift with my sidekick.  We were not excited about the flavor of the day, which was Smores.  I don't love vanilla cupcakes and she doesn't love marshmallow.  Instead we both opted for one of our hands down fave chocolate variety:  Chocolate Peanut Butter Overload.  This one is basically the chocolate overload cupcake, chocolate cupcake with chocolate frosting center, with a big dollop of the most delicious peanut butter frosting on the planet on top, and a piece of Reese's peanut butter cup!  It was so rich and yummy.  Perfect for a Thursday.  :)  I love daily cupcakes! 
Sadness was starting to creep in on Thursday though.  Only one more day with my sidekick.  Friday.   What better way to send her off to college? 

This one was all her choice....and I agreed with it wholeheartedly:  Chocolate Raspberry Surprise.  The surprise, which I always forget about, is the raspberry filling on the inside of the delicious chocolate cupcake.  The frosting is a not-too-sweet raspberry as well, with two chocolate straws making it look pretty.  Soooooo good.  I always kind of forget about this one with all of the other dazzlers at Cupcake Charlie's, but the mix of sweet and rich is a great combination!  I was so sad to see my sidekick leave me, but it was a great note to end on.  She is such a sweetheart-she gave me a gift certificate for Cupcake Charlie's as a goodbye gift and made me promise to keep the tradition ongoing.  I will do my best!  :) 
You probably think that 3 cupcakes in a week is more than enough, right?  Well, normally that would be true.  But I still have one more chica on my staff who is leaving me for higher education and I couldn't send her off without a proper cupcake goodbye so....

Lemon Drop Cupcake Sunday it is!  My girl was given her choice and she chose this sweet treat and I was so glad that she did!  I had alot of chocolate this week...it was definitely time to change it up!  I love the Lemon Drop cupcake.  It is a light lemony cupcake filled with lemon meringue pie filling.  So good.  It is topped with a light lemon frosting and drizzled with some white chocolate.  So summery, so pretty, so sweet and sour.  Really, really good.  Again, sad to see my dragon fighting chica leave me for school, but I thanked her for all of her hard work for the past year or so.  I will definitely miss my girls.  :( 
Luckily, my new staffer seems ready to step into Cupcake Saturday with a ready love for sweets!  :)  Good thing we are both working this Saturday!  Wonder what the flavor of the day will be.......

Painful week ends with a much needed Cupcake!

I am a lover of all things sweet and fun.  This past week was neither.  Boo hiss.  I had a little bit of a medical emergency earlier in the week which put me out of commission for three days at the toy store.  I hate being sick and missing work which is why I basically never do it.  Could not be helped this week.  A nice side to the whole situation was seeing how great my staff is, which I, of course, already knew.  :)  I really cannot say enough nice things about the girls that work for me in the store.  They put up with standing on their feet all day, dealing with mean customers and crying kids, lots of deliveries and sometimes lots of downtime, but they always come through for me and do their best.  I actually called for coverage from the ER, while laying on a gurney with an IV in my arm, and my Saturday Sidekick cancelled her appointments for the day and worked the afternoon, even though it would mean working 6 out of 7 days this week.  They all rearranged their schedules to cover my absence.  Love them more than I can say.  I hope they all know it!
After three days at home I had enough and headed into work on Saturday.  I wasn't sure how I was going to feel but I really needed to get back to the store.  Saturday was my LAST Cupcake Saturday with my Saturday Sidekick.  :(  She is leaving me to go to grad school at the end of this coming week.  I knew that we both deserved cupcakes after the hellish week we both had!  Unfortunately, the dreaded Boston Creme Pie was the flavor of the day, so we decided to go Old School and get ones we both knew we enjoyed.  Mine is always Funfetti....which was soooo good and sugary.  It has a vanilla cupcake with rainbow jimmies throughout and is topped with pink strawberry frosting that is also jammed packed with jimmies.  I think I have mentioned before that I wish this one had creme in the middle, but honestly with my weakened state it might have been just too much sugar for my system!  :) Just what I needed in my worn out state.  My Sidekick got Rockin' Red Velvet, which I will assume was good since she was pretty quiet once she dug in.  :)  She also declared it delicious, which is a good sign. 
Ah, the last official Cupcake Saturday.  I am planning on continuing the tradition, but I might be working solo on Saturdays due to the slowing down of the business in the fall.  I am not sure how the hours of Cupcake Charlie's will coincide with my hours either so I might not be able to continue the tradition faithfully.  I will try my best.  My sidekick and I have promised each other to at least have some sort of Sweet Saturday across the miles (she is only in Boston, but it seems sooooo far) and we are going to email each other pics of our weekly treats.  I will keep this updated, even if it ends up being something sweet but not Cupcake Charlie's.  I think I like the idea of Sweet Saturday!  It broadens my horizons. Time to break out and try other sweet treats besides cupcakes, right?  Anyway, let's hope this week is much sweeter than the last!

Cupcake Saturday catching up to do!

Hello Cupcake Saturday fans!  I have had a busy, busy, busy past few weeks and am just now catching up on my Cupcake Saturday adventures!  Work has been busy with the tourist season kicking into high gear and my home life has been busy with lots of visitors to the beach house!  Neither of these has completely gotten in the way of Cupcake Saturday celebrations, but it has changed it a bit and has definitely gotten in the way of me writing about it!  Hopefully I can catch up with this entry and be back on track by next Saturday! :)
So, going back about three weeks, I had a surprise visitor at work!  My friend, E, had returned back to the Cape after living in another state for a few months!  I worked with him at my previous job and always love seeing him so I was glad to hear and see that he was back.  He also has been following my cupcake adventures on my Facebook page and took it upon himself to bring me a Orange Dreamcicle cupcake for my Cupcake Saturday celebration!  Yay!  The Dreamcicle is one of my faves and coming from E as a special delivery really made me smile.  It threw off the Cupcake Saturday tradition of going and picking them out, etc...but my Saturday Sidekick is pretty easy going and had no problem picking up one on her own.  When she did-added bonus-we officially completed our punch card which means that our next cupcake would be FREE!  Fantastic!  We were already planning for the next week!  :)

So, onto the next week and we were CRAZY busy at the store!  The last day that was crazy busy was July 4th weekend, which I had taken off to spend time with my visiting Mom.  This particular Saturday was a little overcast and not a beach day so we were busy, busy, busy alllllll day long.  I was craving my cupcake from the time my feet hit the floor of my bedroom that morning so I was hoping that all of the store traffic wouldn't interfere with the celebration!  I checked the Facebook page for Cupcake Charlie's all morning hoping that the Flavor of the Day would be something spectactular....and it didn't disappoint!  The Flavor of the Day, which both of us got, was Chocolate Covered Cherry.  It was sooooo delicious.  The cupcake was a deep chocolate filled with cherry filling and topped with chocolate frosting and a cherry sitting in a pool of more cherry filling.  It was decadent and very rich.  I seriously could feel the sugar coursing through my veins afterwards.  I am officially naming this my fave of the chocolate filled variety...so good.  Best part?  We used our punch card and only had to pay for ONE!  Two for one deliciousness!  Can't beat that!  :)

Okay...and onto this week!  It has been a hectic week for me at the store.  All of my girls are leaving me and returning to college by Labor Day.  I lose two girls this week and the other two next week.  The hours at the Commons change to short hours after Labor Day so I have been looking for someone to cover my days off after the summer season-basically someone to replace my Saturday Sidekick.  Sadness.  It hasn't been an easy road.  Not many applicants and those applying are not suitable for so many reasons....not enough room on a page to go into.  Finally, this week I had an application from a young woman who looked like a hopeful.  I interviewed her and liked her very much.  She got rave reviews from her references.  She started Saturday.  :)  I am optimistic that I will be all set for the fall season.  Fingers crossed.  Bonus is that she (I will call her B) mentioned her love of ice cream and sweets during our interview....Cupcake Saturday participant??  :)
Two more weeks of Cupcake Saturday with my current sidekick and I cannot tell you how much I am going to miss her, and not just because of our Cupcake Saturdays.  She is a smart and funny girl and I am going to miss chatting with her on a weekly/daily basis.   I will be sad to have my last cupcake with her next week.  :(  We both mentioned it this week and it is the main reason we decided to go for flavors that are regular flavors at Cupcake Charlie's that we haven't tried before.  She got the Carly's chocolate chip cookie, which she loved and I got Granny's Carrot Cake which was really, really good.  The frosting was a cream cheese frosting and the carrot cake was moist and delicious.  I really enjoyed it and it was really satisfying.  Glad I finally got the chance to try it.  One more Cupcake Saturday with my sidekick next week....boo hiss.  Until then...