A Baby Shower

I was lucky enough to be asked to make some cupcakes baby cakes and cookies for a friend's baby shower.  The theme for his shower and nursery is vintage airplanes.  I was so excited to do this for her because she just loves her some baby cakes!  I was a busy girl!  I made 5 dozen cupcakes and 4 dozen sugar cookies.  Each dozen of cupcakes were a different flavor.  The cookies were all regular sugar cookies (decoratively frosted of course).  I enjoyed making these for her because I knew she was just going to love them! 

Let's start with the sugar cookies.

I found this sugar cookie recipe.  It was perfect for what I needed!  I did tweak it just a little but by not adding the almond extract and only adding about a teaspoon of vanilla.  I also used the top of a cup to cut these cookies because my cirlce cookie cutter would not give me the space I needed for the decorations.

Sugar cookies before baking.

After I baked them I let them cool completely to be able to frost them.  Sugar cookies have always been tempermental with me.  I also looked for a good icing recipe.  It seemed like this one fit the bill!  The clouds were just regular butter cream that I had left over from the cupcakes.

I was actually very impressed with how these came out!

On to the cupcakes.  I didn't take any pictures until I was finished.  The flavors she chose were red velvet with cream cheese frosting, chocolate with chocolate frosting, vanilla with vanilla butter cream, orange with chocolate frosting and (her favorite) white chocolate with raspberry butter cream. 

Final product!

Yankees Cake- Chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream and strawberry filling

This weekend I was lucky enough to have two orders for two friends of mine.  The first on the list was a Yankees cake.  One of my friends wanted to order a cake for her boyfriend.  She did not have a specific flavor in mind but she knew that he loves chocolate covered strawberries.  Well I thought of just the cake:  a chocolate cake filled with strawberry and covered with chocolate butter cream.  He also loves the Yankees  so we combined the two.  I was really happy with they way everything came out. 

I started off with a basic chocolate cake.  I had never made a chocolate butter cream before so I went in search of a great one.  Of course, my first instinct was to search Pinterest!  I was in luck because I found the perfect recipe here.  Before stacking and frosting the cake I filled it with strawberry filling. 

I made a dark blue fondant out of marshmallows and covered the cake with a sugar sheet in the shape of the Yankee logo.  I finished it off with some white butter cream around the bottom and around the logo. 

Finished Product. (I'm still working on my photography skills.)

  

Pineapple Upside Down Cupcakes with Pineapple Cream Cheese Fosting

Please don't judge me for this next post because even Sandra Lee takes short-cuts sometimes. 

My regular normal nine-to-five crazy job is being a first grade teacher.  We were lucky enough to receive grant money for a fruit and vegetable program.  A couple of time a week we receive fruits or veggies for snack.  When children are absent we have extra and I don't like to see food go to waste so I usually incorporate it into some sort of dessert.  My colleagues (friends) also enjoy that I do this so even if I don't have extra they will send me theirs.  One day they told me that they had some extra pineapples but this time the had a request-pineapple upside down cupcakes!  I had never made these nor had I ever made a pineapple upside down cake period.  I looked online for recipes but too many called for a lot of ingredients and after a long day of teaching I did not want to stop by the store for a list of things.  I figured I could wing it.

Again, please don't judge me.



I figured "Why recreate the wheel?"  I got a boxed cake mix (I have used yellow and french vanilla).  I followed the recipe on the box except  added an extra egg and used milk instead of water. 

In the bottom of the muffin tin I put a small amount on brown sugar, a little slice of pineapple and a cherry.  Because these need to be flipped upside down, I did not use cupcake liners.  I just sprayed them very well with cooking spray.

Once these come out of the oven, I would recommend circling each cupcake with a paring knife to ensure it comes out smoothly. 

Once they are out of the muffin tins.

I figured these would not be a cupcake without some frosting but I didn't want them to be too sweet since the brown sugar was notate top of the cupcake.  I just made a regular cream cheese frosting but I added some crushed pineapple to the frosting.  If you choose this route, make sure AS MUCH JUICE AS POSSIBLE IS DRAINED!  You don't want a watery frosting.

I didn't a picture of the finish product because I forgot {oops}.  My goal is to become a better food photographer.

White Chocolate Cupcakes with Strawberry Buttercream

I have never been a big fan of white chocolate...until I made and tried these cupcakes!  They are unbelievable!  This is a very requested cupcake because the combination of cake and frosting is just perfection!  The very first time I made these I made a raspberry frosting.  I soon found out that not everyone loves raspberries.  So strawberry it was.  The recipe I used was found at Tracey's Culinary Adventures.  She added the raspberry puree to the inside of the cupcake.  This is an option.  I chose not to put it in mine just because I didn't want the flavor to be too overwhelming.  I forgot to take pictures this time around (I promise I'll get better)!  This is from the previous time with the raspberries.

White Chocolate with Raspberry Butter cream

I added just a small amount of melted chocolate chips to a Ziploc bag.  I cut a little bit from the tip and drizzled it over the cupcake. I topped it of with a raspberry.

*****If you would rather make the strawberry butter cream, just replace the raspberry jam or preserve with strawberry jam or preserve.*****

Animal Print Baby Shower

My wonderful friend, Martha Lopez, has been bringing in customers for me and I just love it!  The first one I had the pleasure of making was a precious cake for a baby shower.  They found a picture online that they liked and we made some tweaks.  This was just a vanilla cake with vanilla butter cream under the fondant.  I made a 10 inch round cake for the bottom tier and 2-8 inch cakes for the top tier.  All three cakes were frosted and covered with a pale pink fondant made from marshmallows.  You can find that recipe here.  This recipe is really sticky at first so BEWARE!



Please excuse the terrible photos from my iphone.

The 10 inch cake before adding the marshmallow fondant.

 The ten inch cake covered.

I didn't take any photos from here to the finished product but I spent a lot of time cutting flowers, leaves, letters, an stripes for the final steps.



Finished product!

Minnie Mouse: Red Velvet with Cream Cheese

Just this week a great friend asked me to make some cupcakes for a friend's birthday.  She could not remember the exact flavor of frosting but she knew who I had made them for.  Needless to say, I couldn't remember either.  So I thought a blog would be a perfect way for me to remember every one's order.  Such a great reference tool!

A few months back a friend from college contacted to me for a cake.  She needed a cake for her niece's birthday.  I was very excited because it was the first big order I had received!  It was quite a few months away so I had time to prepare.  A few month later she informed me that she also wanted to add 5 dozen cupcakes!  This was music to my ears!  I immediately started looking online for some ideas!  Oh I think I forgot to mention it was a Minnie Mouse themed party!!  I found some ideas and had her choose which ones she liked.  I am so glad she chose the ones she did because I had such an awesome time making these cute cupcakes baby cakes! 

5 dozen baby cakes frosted and ready to decorate!

Minnie Mouse decorated baby cakes!

What is a birthday party without a cake for the birthday girl/boy to dig into?  Well have no fear!

At first, I had thought about a regular round cake with a Minnie Mouse face but this one turned out much better!  Dontcha think?!

Minnie Mouse cake!