Cupcakes

A friend asked for a dozen cupcakes. He wanted chocolate with cherry or strawberry frosting. I had fun with these cupcakes. I bought a larger cupcake pan, so they aren't the itty bitty normal sized cupcakes. They are one size up. They take about 30-35 minutes to bake, rather than the 18-20 the normal size takes.

They are quite large.

These are Devil's Food cake filled with Cherry filling. They are topped with a half & half cherry and vanilla cheesecake frosting. (Using the same recipe listed in the previous post). Then, to make them cute, I topped them with a maraschino cherry.

They look like little ice cream sundaes.

You can see the size difference. The cupcake on the left is the normal size. The two in the front are the larger size.

I love the bigger cupcake pans.

21st Birthday Bash

A friend turned 21 on Tuesday. She wanted a cake to celebrate the big day.

She wanted a chocolate and red velvet two layer 9" round cake with white cream cheese frosting. She had no idea what to put on the cake for a 21st birthday, so she gave me free reign. This is what I created:

The topper is a tipped champagne glass. The "champagne" is piping gel with a tiny bit of baking soda (for "bubbles") and champagne flavoring mixed in. The baking soda added the bubbles, but it also changed the color of the piping gel to a near white. The ribbon curls and other decorations came from the dollar store.

The cake turned out really cute, and the birthday girl was really happy with it.

I'd never made the cream cheese frosting before, but it was pretty tasty. I think I'll stick with the recipe. Here's the link: http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/cream_cheese_frosting/

Pirates are cool

My Pastor's daughter was in town for a few weeks. I really miss her. She moved back to Alabama to go to college. Her birthday is at the end of this month, so we threw her a little birthday party.

She is a huge fan of Pirates of the Caribbean. I made her a Pirates cake with Captain Jack Sparrow on it. He's sitting on his little deserted island trying to rope two sea turtles.

She loved it! :D

Wedding Cake

The wedding cake was fabulous. I had the wrong date; I thought it was Saturday, but it was Friday. So, I had to put the cake together in a couple hours instead of being able to take my time and letting it chill between tasks. But, it was really pretty. 

Amazing Roses

Gumpaste roses are amazing. They are super easy to make, but very time consuming. I sat for 12 hours on Sunday and made 11 roses. I only took a few breaks, so it was pretty much constant. They turned out amazing.

Tomorrow, I will bake the cake and assemble it Friday afternoon. While the cake is baking, I will make some little white flowers to add to the rose bouquets to fill them in. Those are easy, they'll just be white, no color on them. I will also make the fondant. It needs to rest overnight and deepen the small amount of color I need to make.

Excited, this should be gorgeous.

Hmmmm. Robin's Egg Blue?

Well, I have to attempt Robin's Egg Blue. Luckily, just a small amount to drape on the wedding cake. I will be hand painting the flowers.

The flowers are going to be amazing. I've never made gumpaste flowers. But, I went to Michaels and bought a kit that teaches me step by step how to make gumpaste (or fondant) roses. I attempted one last night, and even though I made the wrong size rose base, the petals looked pretty darn good. Unfortunately, I couldn't afford to take the fondant gum paste class this summer because of finances. :( Soon though.

Tonight, I made two sizes of the Rose Base and am letting them dry. I tried to stick to the same size, but I have some that are very small and some that are quite large, but they are all very close in size.

I am making two different sizes of roses. The smaller ones will be buds or medium roses. The larger ones will be full size roses.

I may also attempt to make 3 small lilies as accent flowers. We shall see how the time consuming roses go. I wish to make one dozen with at least 2 extras per size... Then, comes the painting.

Another Wedding Cake

I promised I would never do another wedding cake, but this one is very simple. It is a two tier, white and robin's egg blue cake. White fondant and blue flowers. Roses or lilies. I'm very excited. It's a small cake, but I think it will be beautiful. And, the trials and errors of the first wedding cake have made this one much more doable.

Piggie Bank Cake

A friend from church put together a fundraiser for a young man that was hurt really badly in a car accident recently. She asked me if I would be willing to donate a cake that was pig themed.

So, I Googled Pig Cakes. I found the cutest cake that was a piggy bank with chocolate coins scattered all about.
I decided to attempt the adorable cake.

He turned out so adorable that I wanted to keep him. I went ahead and gave him to my friend, and they raised $120 on him at the Dessert Auction. I was very thrilled and completely floored.

This adorable little guy is covered in pink fondant. The best part is, the sun faded the pink during delivery. I didn't even think about that, but he faded completely perfectly. His ears were bright pink inside, and light pink on the outside. He turned out so adorable.

The photos are a little deceiving. He is made out of 4 cakes. Three flavors: chocolate, yellow, and strawberry. He was about 2 feet long and 10 inches high. He was a blast to make.

Unfortunately, the fondant was a little firmer than normal. So, I had to piece him together in places, especially around his ears, and it was really difficult to smooth the fondant. So, I used the fake money from the dollar store to cover the creases and goofs. He's still a little rough around the edges, but his overall cuteness cancels all that out.