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. :) 

Danny and Anya's Wedding Cake

This was wedding cake #3 for two of my best friends who got married yesterday. It was a hawaiian luau theme, so they requested a coconut cake with pineapple filling. As neither of them are huge fans of frosting, I went with a very light whipped cream cheese frosting which complimented the cake perfectly. We went with three tiers - 10", 8", and 6". While I had a few moments concerned about the frosting due to the warm weather, it really did come out how I had envisioned it. Also, the couple seemed quite happy with it, and that, after all, was the entire point.

Alicia's Wedding

This was my second wedding that I baked for. (Next weekend I have #3!)

All of the cake were coconut. (My favorite cake recipe right now! It was given to me as a lemon recipe, but I just "coconut-ified" it.) The frosting had hints of vanilla and almond. The flowers were made of royal icing for me.)  There were 50 cupcakes.

This was the 6" cake for the top of the cupcake tower. Same cake/frosting. I tried not to go overboard since there was something else they were using for the top of the cake. I tried to match the colors of the flowers for the colors I used for the piping/flowers.

This side is one instance in which I almost got carried away. 

Here is the tower completed! I was provided the "S" and we just placed it in the center of the cake. I think the finished result was fantastic!

Dad's Birthday Cake!

I do a lot of birthday cake, it seems.

My dad is a huge fan of whipped cream and fruit. So! I did a dark chocolate cake. In between the cake layers there is a layer of ganache, sliced strawberries, and whipped cream frosting. The top is just whipped cream with strawberries. The flavors really came together - and I even managed to get the whipped cream to somewhat stabilize! It was my first attempt with whipped cream frosting, and the first  time I tried it was a complete failure (I think I overwhipped it) but my second try went much better.

Patti's Birthday Cake

Okay, okay. I know I'm a little behind on posts. But this cake I made a a few months ago for my beautiful cousin Patti's birthday.

Unfortunately the box I put the big cake in wasn't quite high enough so the flowers were slightly squished, but it still looked really pretty. I loved the ivory with the pink and green! And the ruffles along the bottom edge were definitely the perfect detail. (PS - the cake was vanilla, the cupcakes chocolate, with buttercream frosting.)

Easter Cupcakes

These are my Easter cupcakes. Half of them are a ruffle flower with edible pearl sprinkle centers, and the other half have chocolate shavings and mini Cadbury eggs. However, I almost did all of them with ruffle flowers because I just thought they were so pretty! Just a little time consuming.

Bridal Shower Cupcakes

These cupcakes were for a bridal shower. I actually made 80 in total, but in the two designs you see above. Two different types of cake, buttercream frosting, edible roses, and marshmallow fondant (because all fondant should be made out of marshmallow.) I was in love with these.