Icing on the cake

A Guinness World Record would be the icing on Millie Rose’s (cup)cake.
The Timaru cupcake designer drew a crowd outside her Stafford St boutique on Friday, who watched as she attempted to set a record for the fastest time to decorate
100 cupcakes, the clock stopping at just 3 minutes and 18 seconds.
The finished products disappeared equally quickly, with people offering a donation to Leukaemia & Blood Cancer New Zealand in exchange for a cupcake.
The $382.80 raised — matched dollar for dollar by Mike Pero Real Estate Timaru to make $765.60 — went to the St Andrews Volunteer Fire Brigade’s Firefighter Sky
Tower Challenge fundraising efforts. Miss Rose’s father is a member of the brigade.
‘‘It has been one of my dreams to set a world record for a long time, so I had a look, and there were so many options, including icing 100 cupcakes as fast as possible, so I
thought, ‘why not try that?’’’
Timing her attempt to coincide with Ignite Friday activities in Stafford St, she hoped to put Timaru on the Guinness World Records map, Miss Rose said.
She might have managed two records — another possibility is icing 30 cupcakes in under a minute.
‘‘It all has to be adjudicated, and that might take up to three weeks. We have to send them all the video footage. We had about three different people videoing and taking
photos, photographs of the ingredients … They have to be completely covered — that’s why I had a few spares.’’
She did not do any trial runs, Miss Rose said.
‘‘But I ice about 100 cupcakes every morning, except for Sunday and Monday.’’
With eight piping bags loaded and ready to go, accounting for about 5kg of butter, she tried to focus on the job, not the audience.
‘‘I tried not to be too aware of that, otherwise I get quite nervous in public — so that was definitely different.’’