Thursday, March 25, 2010

Tres Leches Cupcakes


My friend Allie had a BBQ tonight (kind of a kick off the spring/warm weather kinda thing) so I decided to make Tres Leches Cupcakes. I loooove tres leches cake as is, and I've been wanting to put it in a cupcake for awhile now. If you've never had tres leches, it is a sponge cake soaked in three different milks (hence "tres leches") which includes: heavy whipping cream, evaporated milk, and sweetened condensed milk. It's a traditional dessert from Latin America. I topped mine off with a homemade vanilla bean whipped cream. The only thing is that you have to keep them cold and top them with the whip cream when you are about to serve them, but everyone loved them :)

Monday, March 22, 2010

Let Them Eat Cake

I was at my parents house today and this was the picture for March on my Mom's calender. Of course I had to take a picture :) It's also the background on my computer now *lol*.


Hoping to do some more baking soon, but I'm kinda enjoying my "break" ;-) Just about a month til my first wedding cake!!

My First Cake Show

So this past weekend I attended my very first cake show - The Capitol Area Cake Show. It was such a learning experience!! It was so nice to meet with people who all have something in common. While there, I did take a gum paste flowers class (they looked terrible so I did not take a picture). There was a live cake challenge (you had to pay to see it though), and lots of "cake celebs" (no Duff or Buddy). I was a bit overwhelmed with all the vendors - I wanted to buy everything (why did I pick such an expensive hobby?! *lol*) but just bought a few small things - that added to about $80!

As for the cakes on display, it's just amazing what people can do with cake and cake decorating. Here are just a FEW cakes from the show that I liked. I wish I had my camera, I took these with my phone. There were tons of other cute ones - including a Filet O Fish cake! (Talkin bass and all!)
I've got a long way to go, but I'm hoping to enter something in May when the next cake show comes around here. We'll see.
I also am convinced I want a Cricut. The newest tool in cake decorating. I entered a raffle to possibly win one... I'm still waiting for the phone call ;-)

Saturday, March 13, 2010

My first wedding cake tasting!

After the engagement party cupcakes were picked up I was off to my first wedding cake tasting! I will be making my first ever wedding cake April 24th for friends of mine :) I'm so excited!! All the cakes I've been making so far are kind of like "practice" before the big day.

The bride actually wanted to try some of the same flavors I had made for the engagement party so that made baking a lot easier. (Oh yea I forgot to mention in my previous post that I had NO POWER when I woke up this morning!! I was freaking out... it came on about an hour and a half later). Any who... I also whipped up some chocolate orange cupcakes and almond raspberry cupcakes.

I have never done a tasting before so we didn't really know where to begin, so I just told them to dig in!! Talk about sweet overload *lol*. I'll know in a few weeks what flavors they choose :)

The aftermath
...and there were still more cake combos to try!!


Pink and Navy Engagement party

Today I had an order for an old friend from high school. She had her engagement party and she had asked me to help her with the cupcakes. The flavors she chose were peanut butter cup, lemon, and red velvet. The colors of her wedding are pink and navy so I just went with that for the decor. I made monogram hearts with the initial of their last name (It was also the first time I got to use my stamps on fondant!), small hearts, mini daisies, and ribbon roses, all the match the colors. I think they came out pretty well.

Red velvet cupcakes w/ vanilla bean cream cheese frosting


Vanilla cupcakes with lemon frosting

Thursday, March 11, 2010

How to... Make Zebra Stripes

I decided to post this "tutorial" here after posting it at CakeCentral. Zebra is fun and can go with so many things! It's easy to make too.

I think zebra looks more finished if you use fondant. When making zebra stripes I think of the letters l, V and Y. Take black fondant, roll it out and freehand cut them with a cutter and make them like wavy bubble letters. Then you alternate them some up and some upside down. You can fill in gaps with small wavy I's. It's hard to explain but hopefully this picture I drew can help :)

For examples of my zebra cakes you can go HERE and HERE.

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Jen's 30th Birthday

We had great time rocking out with our friends for Jen's 30th birthday. My favorite quote by Holly, "We have ace of frickin' cakes coming!!"

Here's the cake and cupcakes I put together. My only inspiration was the candles. So I went with that color palate - blue, purple, lime green and black.
For some reason zebra came to mind and this is what I came up with. All cake, frosting, and fondant used to cover the cake is homemade. I did use store bought fondant for the bow and curls because it's sturdier :)


Friday, March 5, 2010

New Flavors!


Since my friend gave me pretty much free reign over the flavors for tomorrow's party, I came up with some new flavor combos... I'm going to take the extras to work tonight and see what they think :)



Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana



Oreo Mint Chip


Chocolate Orange Creme

Getting Ready for the Weekend... Again

It is Thursday night once again (well Friday morning now as I write this) and that means cakes and cupcakes for Saturday! Just getting things ready for an order for a good friend of mine. Made some more fondant tonight...

Guess you can say I really get into my work ;-) I know, I can wear plastic gloves, but I didn't have any and by now I'm just used to having rainbow colored hands by the weekend *lol*.

Monday, March 1, 2010

What to do with the left overs?

Since I had alot of cake trimmings left over from the cake I made this weekend, I decided to try to make "cake balls" from one of my favorite websites Bakerella. She makes THE cutest cake balls and cake pops :)

This is my first attempt ever at doing this...


I definitely need some practice!! They look so messy. They taste good though - a bit of a sweet overload for me (I know kids would LOVE these). Check out Bakerella's website to see what they SHOULD look like ;-)