Hula Cupcakes

So when my fellow preschool mom Megan asked if I had any ideas for cupcakes for her daughter's Hula themed birthday party, I was so excited to come up with some Hawaii-inspired designs. Anyone who's been to my house knows what a huge fan I am of all things Hawaii. So when Megan suggested arranging cupcakes into a "lei", I was hooked. So I set out to make plumeria flowers in frosting. But I wasn't happy with the outcome - my frosting wasn't stiff enough, and the thought of having royal icing flowers on the top didn't excite me (who wants to chip a tooth on a birthday cupcake?) So I came up with this design out of marshmallows! Each cupcake has one marshmallow's worth of slices to make a five-petal plumeria flower. I like how each of the marshmallow petals kind of turned upward when I overlapped them...I thought they looked pretty authentic. To get the colors, I hand painted the petals with luster dust in pink and yellow. The Hula Girl trio of cupcakes was inspired from my ever-popular "mermaid" cupcakes. I molded the hair out of chocolate, used peanut M&Ms for the coconut top, and the rest was piped out of frosting. She turned out pretty cute...maybe I can start a new trend for 4-year old girl birthday parties! After the hula girl and the flowers, I decided I needed one more design to break it up. So I made the palm trees by molding palm fronds out of chocolate and placing them on top of a "Rolo" tree trunk. I even threw in some M&M coconuts on the trees. All the cupcakes got a final dusting of edible sparkly "pixie dust" (a must for the 4-year old birthdays). The cupcakes were lemon and (what else?) coconut with vanilla icing. I think they turned out really fun. Happy Birthday Alana!

German Chocolate Cake

Ok, so as far as decorating goes, this cake is pretty simple. But I wanted to blog about it anyway because I was so excited to make a new flavor - German Chocolate.So it's not really "new" - I've made it before a long time ago, but I never made my own coconut pecan filling / frosting. When making it for my family, I have [gasp] bought the canned stuff! But I busted out mom's recipe and made my own filling on the stove this time. And I'm so glad I did. The recipe made a ton of filling, so I got to fill a couple cupcakes with it as well and...HEAVEN! This 8" round cake was my usual construction of 4 layers of cake with 3 layers of filling, although I topped the cake with filling as well so there were 4 layers of filling this time. Then I used my homemade light chocolate frosting to cover the sides. So I can now offer German Chocolate cake and cupcakes - light chocolate cake with homemade coconut pecan filling. Meanwhile, I am enjoying coconut pecan-topped cookies, bagels, toast, etc... Mmmmmm.

Monogram Wedding Cake

This is the biggest cake I've made so far, and my first official wedding cake. The Bride wanted a simple cake frosted in white buttercream (no fondant) to serve 100 guests for her September 26 wedding. So I created this 4 tiered cake and piped a swiss dot pattern on each layer. The Bride chose cake flavors of white cake with bavarian cream filling and cappuccino cake with cappuccino cream filling. I also made her an additional sheet cake to serve another 100 guests that was cookies & cream cake with chocolate cream filling and chocolate frosting. Once we got it to the venue, I placed her beautiful Swarovski crystal monogram on the top, an "L" for her new last name. Then I added fresh flowers: orange spray roses, deep purple lisianthus, and lime green "kermit" mums. The colors were so bright and crisp on the white frosting; I thought the cake really "popped". The reception looked beautiful when I left, and whatever the caterer was cooking smelled fantastic, so I'm sure that the night was a huge success. Congratulations Kelly and Blake! Hope your wedding was magical!

Donut Tower!

Ok, so I didn't bake donuts. But the Bride that ordered the wedding cake also had me put together a tower of donuts for her reception. She and her fiance love donuts, so they wanted to have them at the wedding. Being a huge donut fan myself, I was happy to get the project. So I hit my favorite donut shop, Royal Donuts in Mission Viejo, and ordered 6 dozen (plus some donut holes) for this impressive display. The Bride picked her favorites: apple fritters, maple bars, old fashioned, rainbow sprinkles, crumb and chocolate glazed. They were cut into smaller pieces for sampling, and they looked great on my custom cupcake tower (thanks Dad!) It was such a fun idea that I thought it deserved its own post. That's my kind of wedding dessert bar!

Bridal Shower Cake with Bow

This shower cake is one of my favorites so far. The client provided some photos of cakes that she liked, and I pulled elements from those cakes to come up with this design. The ivory and gold colors were the brides' colors for the wedding. The cake is covered in ivory fondant which I "quilted" to give some texture. The bows and roses were made of ivory fondant and hand painted with edible gold shimmer powder. I even found gold dragees (the little gold balls that have been on fancy Christmas cookies for as long as I can remember - kind of hard to find these days) and added them to the criss cross design. I piped the beaded border with buttercream icing. The cake was white cake with homemade strawberry filling. It was a fun cake to do, and I think it turned out really elegant.

Lego Cupcakes

These Lego cupcakes were for the President of my Fan Club (7-year old chapter), Joe. He begged his mom to let me make his birthday cupcakes this year, and she gave in (thanks Tina!) The birthday boy picked his favorite cake flavor, cookies and cream, with chocolate icing. I topped each cupcake with colorful sprinkles and these cool, edible "Lego" candy blocks. The candy actually stacked like real Legos too! I told Joe's mom that I would do something simple ("those are simple?!!") and they turned out really cute; perfect for the Lego Party. I'm always on the lookout for cool candy that I can incorporate into cupcakes because I have a personal rule that everything on my cakes and cupcakes be edible (I'm not sure why...I just think that's the way it should be). Happy Birthday Big Guy!

Wedding Ring Cupcakes

Diamond cupcakes are really a girl's best friend! I came up with this design for a bridal shower when I found the cool chocolate mold that made chocolate diamonds. So I molded diamonds with white chocolate, and hand-painted each gem with pearlized luster dust to give it a little sparkle. The silver rings and bands I cut from fondant and hand painted; the real "bling" came from the cool new "highlighter" luster dust that I brushed on the rings to make them shine like platinum. The diamonds rested on a swirl of pink frosting sprinkled with sparkly sugar. These little cupcakes looked fantastic on my new silver & crystal cupcake stand...so fun and feminine. I do!