About one year ago, I made a promise to my best friend, Sean, that I would bake him special Phillies cupcakes if his beloved team ever made it to the World Series. At the time, I wasn’t a Phillies fan myself, and unfortunately, the Phils didn’t make it to the Series last year. Here we are in 2008, and I am now a die-hard fan and our team is playing Tampa Bay in the Series tonight. Funny how things change!

I want to go all out for these cupcakes, so this morning, I started the process. The cupcakes are made with the vanilla cake recipe from Magnolia Bakery– my very favorite! I also made fondant for the first time. I found the recipe from Zoe at Zoe Bakes. She provides step-by-step instructions that are very helpful for first-timers, like me.

The primary ingredient of the fondant, of course, is sugar. Tons of it!

What makes sugar into fondant? The addition of a little gelatin, water, vanilla, glycerin and corn syrup.

My KitchenAid mixer was freaking out a little because the fondant was so thick. It took some elbow grease to get all of it out of the mixer and onto the counter. Since I don’t have a silicone baking mat, I taped some parchment paper to the counter instead- I didn’t want to use my cutting boards because I knew this would be a messy job.

After lots of kneading (reminiscent of bread-making before I had my mixer), I came up with this nice little ball of fondant. Soon, this little ball of sugar will be Phillies cupcake art. The final product is coming soon- keep watching!