Romantic Robots and Brown Sugar Cake

I apologize both for my lack of posting and for the poor qualityof this post. I've been busy beyond belief, and I feel like my brain has gone stale. I have been baking, but since it's mostly at night or on rainy days (which is about every day right now), the few pictures I've taken have been miserable.
I don't normally watch the Academy Awards since we don't have TV and don't go to the movies often. Makes it a little hard to care who wins when you have no idea who the nominees are. But this year was different, Ben Burtt was nominated! What, you don't know who he is? Gasp!
Just kidding. He is famous in his field, but his field doesn't get a lot of attention generally. He is a sound designer (among many other things) and is most noted for creating the sounds of the Star Wars movies. He was nominated this year for his work on Wall-E, but sadly he lost. He did win an award at the Motion Picture Sound Editors award banquet the night before though.
His expression here is classic "Ben enjoying describing something". On top of all those achievements, he is somewhat of a surrogate father to me. During college I rented a room in his house and since they had children my age I was assimilated into the clan, so to speak. They are wonderful people who made a huge impact on my college years, and I love them dearly.
"Foreign contaminate" M-O cleaning off a brown sugar cupcake. Note the Wall-E themed cupcake liners, so cute! I have Cars ones as well, but I haven't had a good excuse to use them yet.
Gum paste Oscar like things. They look a bit like mummy's too, but you know I was making these at about 2:30 in the morning, so really they could have been worse.

The Buy and Large logo in fondant and gum paste.
Oh, and the brown sugar cakes were fantastic! I think I added some maple syrup to these, but now I can't remember for sure. Sigh. My head is a sieve.

Brown Sugar Poundcake
from Martha Stewart Living 2/09
makes approximatly 29, I halved the recipe with no problems

3 c flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 lb room temp butter
2 1/4 c packed brown sugar
4 room temp eggs
3/4 c buttermilk (I used soured milk)

Sift dry ingredients. Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs slowly and mix until light and smooth. Make sure to scrape the bowl down well. Add 1/3 of the dry ingredients and mix on slow just until combined. Add half of the liquid. Repeat. Scrap bowl and beaters well and add remaining flour. Once combined scrape the bowl down again and mix for just a few seconds more on medium speed. These rose up slightly more then my average cupcakes, so fill the cups a little less than you normally would (unless of course you like the muffin top look).
Bake at 325 for 25 minutes or until the spring back when lightly touched.

Brown Sugar Buttercream
my own concoction

4 whole eggs
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
3 sticks butter or so(I just add butter to my frostings until they look and taste right)
1/4 cup honey
Dash of vanilla
Dash of salt

Heat eggs and sugar over a water bath until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture is almost too warm to keep your hand in. Make sure to stir it occasionally so the eggs don't cook. Whip on high until very light and fluffy. Since their is fat at this point the eggs won't get stiff peaks like a normal meringue. Add very soft butter a little at a time, mixing on low until the frosting starts to take shape. Add vanilla, honey, and salt to round out the flavors. Test the consistency and flavor regularly.