Christmas Cupcakes!

Merry Christmas! I made four different types of cupcakes to create a box of cupcakes to give to everyone in my extended family. This is the first type, and personally, my favorite. It's an eggnog cake (I altered the recipe from last year - last year it didn't taste nearly enough like eggnog.) The wreath I piped on using the leaf tip. It was a little time consuming to do the white frosting and then pipe on the wreath, but definitely worth it.

This was my second type. A dark chocolate cake, with a mini peppermint patty inside, with a peppermint frosting. It's a great combination and the cupcake came out lovely. The little tree/reindeer cupcake toppers came from Joanne's.

Red Velvet! My first attempt using my grandmother's recipe and it came out splendidly. My sister said these were completely addicting. Such strange things in a red velvet, like buttermilk, and vinegar. The frosting is just a buttercream.

Hello gingerbread person! The gingerbread person is fittingly for a gingerbread cake. I really love gingerbread, and I used the same recipe last year. I really do love this recipe. The gingerbread topper comes from Joanne's.

And now... the entire box of cupcakes! 

Happy Birthday, Mom!

So this is my mom's birthday cake! She actually had no idea I was making this cake... I baked it while she was out to dinner with friends and then took the cake to work with me the next day and decorated it while on my lunch break. The cake is chocolate with a raspberry filling (because that's her favorite combination, and mine.) The flowers I purchased at Joanne's to save on time. And, they were adorable. This is actually probably my favorite cake I've made to date. If only I could just nail lettering, everything would be awesome. Especially the evasive letter "o." 

Good Luck Katie!

This is the "Good Luck Katie" cake. It is quite similar to the Swirly cake. Because I love swirls. The colors were of my choosing and I just love the combination. All of these colors are from Duff from Ace of Cakes. That coloring was such a good investment... Anyway, it's a chocolate cake (I make a lot of chocolate cake, don't I?), with a raspberry filling, and buttercream frosting.

Congratulations

Not my absolute favorite, but I do love the roses! I'm not a huge fan of white cakes, really. This is a red velvet cake. Oh red velvet. You are so delicious. The cake was for an Election party for someone who had run for State Representative. She's amazing, and, she won!

Super-Late Halloween Brownie Monsters

Okay, okay. I know these aren't cupcakes, or even cake, but I loved them. Not my original idea - I found these guys on a different baking website. It's a chocolate brownie, with a peanut butter frosting. The eyes are mini reese's peanut butter cups placed upside down, with white frosting and chocolate chips.

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.

The Wedding Cake

This cake is named the Wedding Cake because, as you could probably guess, it was for a wedding. :) This is a two tier cake, the bottom a 9" and the top tier 6". The cakes are lemon with a vanilla filling, and vanilla frosting.  The tops of the tier are a cross pattern, with a dot-pattern for the sides and border.

The Swirl Cake

This cake is affectionately known as "The Swirl Cake." The Swirl Cake was created mostly to see if I could. It was quite the process, let me tell you. The top picture was the cake prior to the swirl decoration, after giving it a more "polished" look so-to-speak. This was, surprisingly, only done using a non-patterned paper towel. Who would have guessed? This was a 9" vanilla cake with a raspberry filling. The frosting is an orange buttercream, though I wish I had used a darker color for the decoration. 

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.

Beach Cake

Here is my lovely beach cake. The beach is a little empty, yes, but I didn't want it to look crowded! And it leaves it open to change the cake - there is plenty to do with a beach scene. For my first one, I didn't try anything overly complicated. The cake is funfetti, with a plain vanilla frosting covered in crushed graham cracker, and a vanilla frosting dyed blue with food coloring for the water. The umbrellas are simply cocktail umbrellas, and the beach towels are sour airheads. The fish are swedish.

Fish cake

Here is my lovely fish cake that I created for my dad's birthday.  The cake is just regular vanilla cake from an 8" pan, with buttercream tinted green with green food coloring. The scales are necco wafers, the eye is a junior mint, and the mouth is a bit of starburst. Perhaps next time I would make the tail a little bit smaller, but all in all he's pretty cute. I certainly make a lot of animal shaped cakes, don't I? 

Sheep cake

This lovely sheep cake was time consuming, but worth it. The body of the sheep is a lemon cake,the head is was made using a small oven proof bowl, consisting of chocolate cake, and then there are 3 cupcakes making up the feet and ears. There is white frosting covering the body, and then chocolate frosting using a tip to create the feet, ears, face. The marshmallows (sadly) were put on one by one! The didn't want to stick otherwise. :)

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.