Voting via Cupcake

(This is a copy of a post from my family blog from Election Day November 2008.)

My coworkers and I voted twice today - once like the rest of the country, and then again in our office in an unofficial "cupcake election".

I had some leftover red, white and blue cupcake liners and sprinkles from July 4th so I thought I would bake some cupcakes for Election Day. I wanted to get some picks to decorate the cupcakes - what I wanted were some donkey and elephant picks, which would be more specific than just, say, a flag. But I couldn't find any picks, not even at my favorite cake decorating store, Toots.

Then I got the bright idea to make tiny replicas of yard signs. I just searched the internet for pictures of the signs, printed them out and taped them to toothpicks. I had equal numbers of McCain and Obama signs.
When I set up the cupcakes on my trusty little cupcake stand, my coworkers went nuts. They thought it was very cute and clever. Eventually the cupcakes started disappearing. The unofficial tally was Obama 11, McCain 9. My specific office was split down the middle but several people from neighboring departments stole some Obama cupcakes so it tilted in the Illinois Senator's favor.

Oh, the cupcakes were yellow cake (a box mix since I was pressed for time) stuffed with diced strawberries, topped with white chocolate buttercream frosting.

And as I type this, NBC just called the election, so I guess my cupcake experiment was a good indicator of the real deal.