It's Friday Again...

...That means I'm usually baking up something for the weekend ;-) This morning I made all the cupcakes and frosting and I was up late last night, making fondant toppers for my friend and her husband's birthdays. I'm so excited to put it all together tomorrow for the party. I don't wanna give away the theme before the party, so you're just going to have to wait!

Extra mini cupcakes for work tonight.

In the mean time, check me out at Cupcake Camp DC - I'm the Baker Spot Light today! I'm so excited, but it's not until September.

Have a great weekend... I will post this weekend's pics asap AND I'm making my very first tutorial post as well :-)

Flower Garden Birthday

This weekend our family celebrated my little cousin's birthdays. I decided not to go with the princess theme - was not satisfied with the royal icing tiaras. I love being able to do whatever I want because I can really be creative. The design I came up with just kinda happened... and all the sudden it was 2:30am!! I love this color combo and so happy with the result. Flavor was vanilla cake layered with strawberry cream cheese frosting and black berry cream cheese frosting. Chocolate cupcakes were more for the adults with a Grand Mariner frosting :) Yummy!

The cake...

Up close....
Cuppies...
~* Happy Birthday Shawnee & Sienna *~

Cannoli Cupcake

I saw a really yummy cannoli cupcake on the Cupcakes Take the Cake blog the other day and got inspired to make my own. I got the ricotta cheese and everything - I planned to make a cannoli filling and hope it would be a good consistency to pipe on a cupcake. Hmmm... yea....that didn't work out! I got riccota filling soup :( Thinking on my toes, I just made a creamcheese frosting with the same flavorings instead.

I ened up with the "Cannoli" Cupcake - almond orange zest cake, dipped in Grand Mariner chocolate ganache, topped with Grand Marnier orange zest cream cheese frosting, and sprinkled with mini chocolate chips. Scrumptious!! And the boy agrees ;-) *You could add the citron pieces or even pistachios to make it more authentic.

Well for the rest of the weekend I will be woorking on the birthday cake for my two younger cousins :) Have a good one!!

Royal Icing Tiara

This weekend we are celebrating two of my cousin's birthdays (turning 5 and 9). They are two extra girly girls who love all things pink and purple. I'm trying to think of ideas for the cake I want to do... flowers and princesses come to mind. I had some extra royal icing around and I attempted to make a royal icing tiara to possibly top the cake off with... what do you think??
Haha... I know I need practice! I've only ever used royal a few times and its usually to attach something on a cake. It's already cracked and I've had to repair it. So my whole idea may change by the weekend. We shall see... I'll keep ya on your toes ;-)

Fishing Cake

Finally got to present my dad with his retirement cake yesterday. He was so impressed he did not even cut it! It was a fishing scene since he loves to fish (typical retiree eh??) Haha... I also decorated the table with a fishing net, those fishing bob things, and gummi worms (I wanted to get fake fishing worm lures he could use but apparently they contain lead so it's a good thing I read the packaging!)I used my cupcake tower and put the cake on top. The cake was a 6 inch round and a 4 inch round tiered cake. I decided I like working on a smaller scale cakes now. It was so much easier to stack and deal with. I got all the fondant decor finished during the week, covered the cake the night before and then decorated it in the morning. It was the least stressful cake I've done so far :)

Cupcake Flavors:

Strawberry Margarita - strawberry cupcake with hints of lemon and lime zest. Then topped with strawberry cream cheese frosting with hints of tequila, lemon and lime zest.
Key Lime Pie - (one of my dad's fave deserts so I put it in cupcake form) graham cracker cupcale with key lime curd in the middle. Topped with a cream cheese frosting with hints of lime zest. Garnished with a little toasted coconut.
Chocolate Stout - a chocolate stout cupcake made with a home brewed stout. Topped with Bailey's Irish Cream frosting.
I stuck a few homemade toppers I made on some of the cupcakes too - can you guess where he retired from? lol... Well I'm glad everyone enjoyed and I received so many wonderful compliments (when I left only 3 cupcakes were left). It was a definite success!

Congrats Dad!

Froggy

Here's a little sneak peak at what I'm working on for his weekend's cake. It's part of the theme for my dad's retirement cake :)


Isn't he cute?? I need some more practice with sculpting fondant but I'm happy with my lil froggy.

Vegan Strawberry Margarita Cupcakes

I finally made my first vegan cupcake! I dedicate it to one of my best friends who is a vegan. They're mini Strawberry Margarita Cupcakes topped with a tofutti strawberry cream cheese frosting with hints of lemon and lime zest AND tequila. Sugar rim and a lime zest garnish. Perfect summer time flavor combo ;-)

I'll admit - the taste of that tofutti cream cheese by itself, was not so good... but after you add the powdered sugar and everything else.... much better!

Tequila is vegan friendly right?!

Independence Day Weekend

For all the American's out there, Happy [ early ] Independence Day!!

I whipped up a true red, white and blue American cupcake for the holiday festivities I will be partaking in this weekend . It's a vanilla cupcake swirled with red and blue topped with white nonpareils. Something fun and festive :-)

Have a great weekend everyone! (And even if your not American, it's just another excuse to have a drink and BBQ right?! ;-)

Red and blue jello shots for the weekend ... Bottoms up!

pancakes!

I [ heart ] breakfast! I eat it every morning. Today I made these summery lemon blueberry pancakes for breakfast. Even though it's not a traditional cake, it has cake in the name and I don't discriminate here! haha... who knows I may even put a muffin on this blog ;-)

I used this basic recipe and kicked it up a notch. These pancakes are pretty simple and I use it often. The texture reminds me of a Bisquick pancake, but I grew up on Bisquick so I like them and you can kind of mess around with the recipe and add things in.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon white sugar
• 1 1/4 cups milk
• 1 egg
• 3 tablespoons butter, melted
• Dash of vanilla
• Mix ins: chocolate chips, bananas, peanut butter chips, nutella... the list goes on. Today I added fresh lemon zest, lemon juice and fresh blueberries.

Directions

1. In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Make a well in the center and pour in the milk, egg and melted butter; mix until smooth. Then add your mix in if you want.
   
2. Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium high heat. Pour or scoop the batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/4 cup for each pancake (I like mini pancakes so I use a 1/8 cup for each). Brown on both sides and serve hot.
   
3. Garnish with a little powdered sugar and lemon rind zest.
   

Not all my pancakes are perfect and the first one always messes up! I also use a gas stove so it's hard to get the flame the right temp on the pan, but the key is getting it to that perfect temperature and when you see air bubbles form and the sides begin to crust a bit - it's time to flip! I've also had times when it looks perfect and the middle is all gooey :( So annoying.... It just takes practice I guess.

Enjoy.