Toy Story 3 Aliens!

My kids found this idea and decided we had to make it to celebrate going to TOY STORY 3 finally! (And it was so good by the way- I didnt think it would be such a tear jerker!)

Fun day and fun cupcakes :) The eyes are homemade fondant and really I should have made the cupcakes "elmo" style and more oval but..... we loved them anyway.

Italian Cream Cupcakes

These are SOOO good! This flavor is for people who like a little something extra in their cake.
It's a yellow cake that is perfectly moist and light- I think beating the egg whites and the added coconut makes all the difference. The coconut sweetens the cake and gives it great texture without making it taste coconutty. (Is that a word?) I was thinking about doing a filling but they just didn't need it.
There was no piping this frosting, I needed a spoon! It is a whipped cream cheese frosting with chopped walnuts and a little more coconut. This combo reminds me of a vanilla version of german chocolate cake in a way. One of my new favorites. I think it is "Italian" cream cake because it really does taste like something you would pick up in an Italian bakery :)

I am working on getting a list of "flavors" on the blog- hopefully soon!

Pool Cake

So here are the finished product pictures of the cake in the last post. I realized though that next time I make a cake I am making a mini one- cause we want to eat it too!

This guy wanted to be nice and safe- inner tube, life jacket and fins but they wont save him! :) My kids thought this was hilarious and I do need to add the disclaimer that sharks generally do not find their way into American Pools.

What a fun cake to make! I think specialty cakes are such a great way to make the occasion jsut a little more special :) I think a fun option for a swim party would be having a jumbo cupcake with the innertube guy/girl and then a bunch of regular sized ones with fins all pointing towards the swimmer :)

Beginnings of a pool party!

Cupcakes are my first love but I have really been enjoying doing specialty cakes! This is one a friend asked for, she wanted a "thank you" cake for a job well done by American Pools so I tried to duplicate their logo- tricky! Getting the red and blue to blend like their logo took some practice tries and cutting and making the letters was quite a project. But I got a bee in my bonnet and really wanted to try and get it close to the real thing. ( I put the logo picture on but maybe don't compare TOO closely:)

The cake is CHOCOLATE of course and I spread each layer with a raspberry ganache that I made thicker almost pudding like, then covered with a milk chocolate meringue buttercream. Then I coated the whole thing with ganache. Tomorrow I will work on making the pool party happen on the top!

Giraffes....

My girlfriend is up at our church girls camp this year and for fun the girls are all in "tribes" and with different themes. My friend Chris's girls are in the "Giraffe" tribe so she asked if I could make some giraffes (she got the idea from the pony cupcakes- with a few alterations...!) for her to surprise the girls with. My neighbors daughter came over and with out telling her I asked if she knew what the cupcakes were- and she did! Hope you can tell too :)

The letters on the back are YCL ( I think it stands for Youth Camp Leaders) Chris also wanted me to put "love from the best girls camp leader ever" but I ran out of room :)

THANK YOU! and kitchen is closed...

Thank you so much for your interest in the "Man Cupcake" and I have to say I am sorry but I cant take any more orders. I am thrilled at how popular this cupcake is . Let me know if you would like it for another event or birthday etc. But for this Father's Day weekend I have reached my max.
Have a great weekend!!

The MAN Cupcake

For Father's Day I saw a cute idea in a magazine for a cupcake and it got my mind turning. I have been wanting to make "candy broccoli" so I made a shish kabob with broccoli, pineapple, cherry tomatoes and 'meat' to cook on the grill along side a porter house and hot dogs.
Perfect guy cupcake- the cupcake is more brownie than cake! These would be fun for ANY barbecue this summer.

These jumbo cupcakes are $5 a piece and sold in a peek-a-boo box. Have a great Father's Day weekend!

Hello Kitty

These were for my God-daughters school birthday party- Little girls love the cutest things! I used homemade fondant for the first time and was so happy with it- maybe I can try some new colors now :)

Pikachu and Pokeballs.....

This guy was so cute- maybe because he is a mouse? He is made out of gumpaste that is covered with fondan because I wanted to have a very solid base.
I made Poke-balls to go with him, not complicated, maybe just a little time consuming but a fun way to tie in with the figure. At the last minute we (my kids) decided Pikachu needed his own poke-balls too so I made some out of those dutch mint chocolates. I thought it was so cute and I hope the birthday boy Ben loved them too :) The last picture is of my consultant- giving me the "OK."

Pikachu

This is just a teaser picture... more to come when the cupcakes are done :)

Mario Cart!

This was one fun cake!! My friends son Cal is obsessed with the Wii and loves Mario Cart- so she wanted a "Mushroom Gorge" cake. (that is one of the levels on the game)
So I made a three layer rectangle cake out of chocolate buttercream and a yellow cake that leaned towards pound cake but was not quite as dense. A little cream cheese in the batter gave it a nice texture and density.

When it came to making the figures.... I felt like a kid again! This is why I played play-dough all those years- to get the practice for stuff like this :)

King Boo is a character on the game along with Mario and I just love him- all teeth and big pink tongue.... hilarious.

So here are some "Making of" pictures. Can I just say my kids think I am AWESOME when I make stuff like this!

Graduation week was fun- i loved making little armies of "graduates" and I wanted to apologize to the friends I was not able to bake for, I had a wedding in Oregon all weekend so I had to be realistic, but I do hate to say no!
Last week a cute girl (hi Jamie!) wanted some for her sorority, AGD, so she sent me a list of the words that are their sorority purpose- i cut them out and placed them at different angles on the cupcakes. The colors were red, green and yellow so I did the cupcakes yellow and green to avoid the Christmas look. A little hard to see in the picture but the motos were "friend, vigor, beauty, welcome, charity etc.

Now on to summer!!! What will be next.... oh, a Mario Cart cake! I will post some pictures this weekend.