Owl Cupcakes

These cupcakes/6" cake were for award-winning news anchor Doreen! Her lovely daughter just turned 2. There were 2 dozen vanilla cupcakes, and 2 dozen chocolate cupcakes.  The 6" cake was vanilla.  The fondant is homemade marshmallow (because I think that is the type that tastes best!) I used a circle cookie cutter that my awesome boyfriend bent into more of a tear drop shape and used that to cut out the bodies and wings.  A small circular cutter was perfect to cut out the eyes, and I have these great fondant writers that made creating the rest of the eyes a snap.  It definitely took some time just because there were so many, but I am super happy with how they turned out. :)  I was really excited that Doreen requested owls, as this was a project that I had wanted to do for a while and this was the perfect reason to.

Dracula cake for Dawn's birthday!

So my friend's Dawn's birthday was this past Monday, so I made her this adorable Dracula cake! It was a 6" lemon cake with a vanilla buttercream filling, vanilla buttercream frosting, chocolate frosting for the hair, and fondant for the eyes, nose, mouth, fangs, and ears! Whew! I used just a teeny tiny bit of ivory for the skin, and delphinium blue wilton coloring for the mouth/eyes. I used a Wilton FoodWriter marker to draw the red on the fangs.

Since it was only a 6" cake, I had some extra batter and used it up with some cute cupcakes with a neon  green frosting and some cute sprinkles. Doesn't my Dracula have the cutest little ears?!

I got this idea from Coco Cake Land. She has plenty of super adorable cake/party ideas! I may have to try her little green witch kitty...

Baby Shower

I really love when people ask me to make something that I probably wouldn't have otherwise. It just ensures that I try new things and branch out. Otherwise I would just sit here piping pretty flowers and decorating cakes with swirl designs. (Okay, probably not that bad.) This shower was for a baby boy, so the family decided to go with a sports theme!

These were red velvet with a frosting using cream cheese emulsion. It still tasted like cream cheese, but I didn't have to worry about other ingredients throwing off my consistency. This was a great way to get the flavor without doing that. I made a marshmallow fondant and piped on the stitches by hand. It was super time consuming! 

As you can probably tell, I did 8 cupcakes with red frosting, 8 cupcakes with white, and then 8 baseballs.

These were pumpkin cupcakes with more of the cream cheese emulsion frosting. More marshmallow fondant. I used the wilton coloring Copper to get that orange-but-not-overly-orange color. After consulting the internet, I determined that the best way to get the texture I wanted would be to use a very small circular decorating tip (nooo idea which one.) And then by hand slightly push into the fondant. The texture was perfect! It was also time consuming! But they came out perfectly! I just piped on the black lines by hand. 

My only concern with these was that the frosting and the basketballs would be two very-off shades of copper, but I think they turned out okay.

Chocolate cupcakes with marshmallow filling. I actually bought (::gasp::) chocolate fondant, but I had never made it before, and as fondant is still a little tricksy I decided not to try adding cocoa into the mix. I had my boyfriend, Greg, help me with the football shape. I came up with a little template for myself and then used a sharp knife to get the shapes. I just piped on the stitching. 

Vanilla cupcakes with chocolate mousse filling. The soccer balls were actually the ones I had been most worried about prior to starting this project, and turned out to be the easiest. I got the Wilton FoodWriter markers and just drew on the black patches.

My other concern was that with the other cupcakes I did matching colors for the frosting. However... with soccer, it's really black and white. I don't like using all black frosting, but the half&half was a great compromise!

All in all a great project and I was really happy with the results. So was the mom-to-be, and she was what mattered!

Anniversary Party

Yes, I know. I am totally awful at updating this in a timely fashion. Seriously. It's awful. But usually I'm complacent with just posting my pictures to Facebook. Anddd then a few months later, get around to posting them to this adorable blog I have! In any case, over the summer a good friend of mine asked if I would help her with her parents' anniversary party. Of course, I said yes. She came up with a color scheme and some ideas and this is what we came up with.

This is the finished product! Kathy decorated the edging with pearls (because you can never have enough pearls.)

The top of the cake didn't even take that long! I definitely loved how it looked.

We did a few different types of cupcakes. We did mint chocolate, regular chocolate, some with a chocolate mousse filling... the mousse filling was lovely! Definitely something I'll be using in the future. The only thing I wasn't super happy with was the fact that (obvs) it had to be refrigerated. Kathy piped on the green frosting while I piped the ivory flowers.

AHHH I love tiny cakes. :) 

Witch Cauldron Cupakes

This is what I hope is only the first cupcake of this lovely autumn season. These are my witch cauldron cupcakes. The idea is not my own, someone found it in a magazine for me. These were very time consuming, and the first ones I tried were a complete disaster! :) It took a number of cupcakes to actually figure out the best way to put them together, but in the end I found something that works and they came out looking pretty adorable! 

Tune in next week for some pumpkin patch cupcakes! (Hopefully.)

Golf Course Cupcakes

This golf course was so fun to make! They were for my Uncle Greg's birthday and were a lot of fun. They are a vanilla cupcake, the "sand" is a vanilla frosting with graham cracker crumbs that were rolling pinned into oblivion. The "green" is a green frosted cupcake covered in light green sanding sugar. For the rest of the course, the cupcakes were covered in light green frosting and then I piped it on to look like grass. The golf balls are actually gumballs that were first rolled in corn syrup and then white sprinkles. The hole is a junior mint, and the flag is part of a straw and then fruit leather. I found this series of cupcakes in What's New, Cupcake? Definitely a great book for ideas! 

Bumblebee Cupcakes

This was my first soiree into making my own fondant as well as using all fondant to decorate a cupcake. The fondant is actually a marshmallow fondant which turned out really well. For the black fondant I actually added half a cup of unsweetened cocoa powder, which made the black have a tougher and drier consistency, so it was a little more difficult to work with. But the yellow, which I just followed the recipe for, came out perfect. I didn't mix or knead the fondant by hand though, I threw it all in my mixer and used the kneading hook. 

The cake itself is simply a vanilla cake, and underneath the fondant is a thin layer of chocolate frosting. I rolled out the black fondant and simply used a cup to cut out the circles since I didn't have any cookie cutters on hand. The yellow fondant definitely could have been rolled out a little thinner, but it was a learning experience. The eyes are simply tiny pieces or white and black fondant, the mouths were created with a straw, and the antennae are yellow fondant and spaghetti.

Overall, I'd say as an experiment, this was a success and I'm really happy with how they turned out!

Christmas!

So I made more for Christmas than just these, but they happen to be my favorites (and the prettiest.) The top picture is of my little gingerbread cakes. I used tree silicone molds with my gingerbread cake and an eggnog frosting. I just used the star tip (possibly 18?) to pipe on the frosting. My only regret is that I didn't have any stars I could have put at the top of the tree. The bottom ones are just chocolate, the white frosting is actually peppermint and I used the leaf tip (maybe 352?) to pipe on the wreath. The others are just a variety of Christmas sprinkles. The little sugar presents I found at Walmart - they were just too cute. 

Engagement Cupcakes

So one of my dearest friends got engaged in November. Two other friends of her and I put together a small party to celebrate. They are "funfetti" cupcakes, one of her favorites, and I tried to capture that gorgeous Tiffany's blue. The bows are made out of white fondant and then I used some pearl-ized sprinkles.

Lemon Blueberry White Chocolate Cupcakes

So I realize that my lighting for all of my photos are simply awful, but! I need to get the pictures before the cupcakes are eaten, and I do my baking in afternoons/evenings. In any case, these are lemon blueberry white chocolate cupcakes, with lemon cream cheese frosting. I loved these cupcakes! The frosting is delicious and the cake is a perfect blend of all three flavors. 

The Kelly School of Irish Dance

This past weekend I made 144 cupcakes for The Kelly School of Irish Dance. Their recital was yesterday, the 19th of June. My sister is a dancer of 13 years, and for the past few she's been with this dance school and truly enjoys it. I like to do what I can, and what I can do is bake cupcakes! I had 24 boxes of 4 cupcakes in the KSID colors of bright pink and green, and 24 boxes of single cupcakes. I did vanilla and chocolate. I had the wonderful assistance of my mother and Gregory assembling boxes, sprinkling sprinkles on cupcakes, boxing cupcakes, and tying them up with the ribbon. I think the came out wonderfully, and we actually managed to sell every box. 

Peanut-Butter Filled Chocolate Cupcakes

These were delicious.  Dark chocolate cupcake with a peanut butter filling, dark chocolate frosting, and to top it off half of a mini peanut butter cup. I just used a 1M pastry tip to frost them.

Cupcakes!

This is a chocolate cupcake with a two-toned frosting. I used one pastry bag and attempted to put half violet frosting and half green frosting.

Red velvet cupcakes with whipped frosting and an adorable cupcake sugar topping.

Chocolate cupcake with the purple frosting and some really cute sprinkles.

Chocolate cupcake with two-toned frosting.

Operation Use-Remaining-Frosting: Success!

Vanilla cupcake filled with strawberry jam... who doesn't enjoy strawberry jam?!

Birthday Cupcakes

Here is a commission for birthday cupcakes to look like one cake. All of the cupcakes were vanilla with tin foil wrappers, the frosting are all buttercream and tinted using Duff's Electric Color Gels, though the purple cupcakes were also a blend with Wilton Icing Coloring as well. All the cupcakes were frosted using a round pastry tip. The flowers are completely beautiful as well as edible, made out of sugar and crafted by Mochasof, and then the sprinkles are silver and pearlized. 

Super-Late Halloween Cupcakes

Here are my super-late Halloween cupcakes. The top ones were an adorable little kit acquired from Joanne's that came with the cupcake wrappers and the little moons/haunted houses with some black and orange sprinkles for good measure - chocolate cupcake with a vanilla frosting. The bottom ones were vanilla with vanilla frosting with adorable little bone sprinkles. For the frosting for both I used Duff's (from the Ace of Cakes!) coloring.

Adorable-ness in Cupcake Form

These were created for Thanksgiving, because I came to the conclusion that there was no good way to create a cute Thanksgiving-themed cupcake. So I decided just to go with something pretty, instead. They came out so much differently than I had pictured in my head when I began making them, but I loved the end result all the same. Chocolate cupcake, buttercream frosting, pearlesque sprinkes.

Gingerbread People.

Why, hello, cute and adorable gingerbread people. These cute and adorable gingerbread people sit on top of a gingerbread cupcake with a lovely cinnamon frosting that I have been eating by spoon. And of course, some lovely sprinkles just for some atmosphere. I think they really add something... Also, I love sprinkles.

Blue & Green Cupcakes

Cupcakes are an adorable thing. I really think that no one can really not enjoy a cupcake. The perfect amount of cake with some frosting. Who can say no to that, really? These cupcakes are a vanilla cake, with damaske patterened wrappers, buttercream frosting, and sugar sprinkles.

Turtle Cupcake Cake

Here is a cake that I made for a fellow coworker. I know I'm terrible at food photography, but the back legs actually match the front ones - they aren't actually white. The turtle is composed of 12 cupcakes. The cake is "funfetti", with chocolate frosting for the shell and a vanilla frosting with green food coloring for the head and feet. The face is made of M&Ms and licorice, as is the tail.