Cupcake Frosting & Cake Icing Warning

[Steven Thompson]

Having worked for over 7 years in recovery Aftercare with about 250 nurses, physicians and pharmacists across the country, do you want to know the major culprit that I've seen far....far more likely to trigger a false positive alcohol test? It's not a female UTI. It's cake icing/frosting and cupcake icing due to vanilla extract containing 35 percent alcohol.

Some vanilla extracts contain real alcohol, often Bourbon at 35% and some vanilla extracts contain zero alcohol. They are used for the batter, the actual cupcake which is always destroyed by heat when baking and no big deal, BUT....it's also sometimes uses for the icing/frosting that is NOT baked and the heat doesn't destroy it.

I've seen this about 12 to 14 times. It's hard to test positive, but it is possible and here is how.

1. ETG and ETS halflives are roughly 2.5 hours. Some sources show an hour for ETS and some show up to 3 hours for ETG. Let's say 2.5 hours and these are the metabolites a urine alcohol test checks for

2. A common recipe is 1 teaspoon (5ml) of 35% alcohol containing vanilla extract to make frosting for 20 cupcakes. Here's the math breakdown. A person eats 2 cupcakes Sunday evening at 830pm. This means she has ingested about 0.25 milliliters of 35 percent alcohol which is 70 mg of alcohol.

3. So, 2 cupcakes eaten means 70mg of alcohol for a very common cupcake frosting recipe. When a person drinks/ingests alcohol, 90 percent of it is metabolized by the liver and does NOT form the metabolites ETS and ETG which is what urine alcohol tests are looking for. This means, that of the 70mg of alcohol ingested, only about 7mg will become/form ETS/ETG metabolites in the urine.

4. The person tests at 9:30 am on Monday after eating the 2 cupcakes 12.5 hours prior at 9pm on Sunday night. The halflive of ETS/ETG is about 2.5 hours so this means 5 halflives of the alcohol has occurred when she tests.

5. With 7 mgs becoming ETS/ETG, we do 5 halflives. When we do the math above, we have 218 micrograms of ETS/ETG in our system at 9:30 am when we test. The urine alcohol test cutoff depends on the lab. It's commonly 200 nanograms per ml of urine up to 500 nanograms per ml of urine. If we convert 218 micrograms to nanograms, that's 218,000 nanograms in our urine and the average bladder holds about 400-500 mls of urine. So take 218,000 divided by 400 and we get 545 nanograms per ml of ETG in our urine triggering a positive test result just over the 500 nanogram per ml cutoff level and well over a 200 nanogram per ml cutoff level if we test at a lab that uses the more stringent 200 nanograms per ml cutoff.

The above is not completely unheard of and it does happen. The circumstances have to be perfect such as 2 cupcakes that happen to have been frosted with real alcohol containing vanilla extract eaten later in the evening and testing the next day before noon. It is absolutely very possible for this to trigger an alcohol positive result. If you take the above example and extend the test time by 2.5 hours which adds one more halflife, the test result is likely negative. 

Caution with cupcakes and cakes folks, especially the night before. If you eat them, eat the cake or cupcake or anything you suspect could have vanilla extract from reql alcohol before noon and if you test the next day, do it after 12 pm to give yourself 24 hours. 24 hours is More than enough time and you will test negative, assuming you don't eat more than 2 cupcakes.

[Healer555]

Thank you. I didn't think about frosting.  I avoid vanilla ice cream and rice pudding just in case either would contain vanilla extract.  I didn't even think about vanilla extract.  I'll skip this too just in case I get a hair or nail test.  I'm hungry. I avoid so many foods.