Flowering Cupcakes

This past weekend was my step-daughter, Michaela's, 'BABY BBQ' (basically a jack & jill style baby shower - though we hated to use the word "shower").. Just a casual get together for all to celebrate the arrival of her (and bf's) little princess, sometime next month!  Of course I was in charge of making dessert ;)  ..Michaela decided early on she wanted cupcakes rather than a cake.. flavors, however, came much later and after much deliberation!  She also wanted to incorporate flowers into the look of the cupcakes.  Hmmmmm..... I debated doing fondant flowers vs. frosting flowers for a bit.. then we both sort of agreed on making them out of the frosting on the cupcakes.  For flavors, we eventually settled on three.. 1) Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana, 2) Lemon Blackberry, and 3) Strawberry Cheesecake.. each flavor to be frosted with a different flower type.  

For the Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana.. I made a Banana cupcake with Peanut Butter filling, then iced it with Chocolate Buttercream in 'Rose' fashion (which is a pretty simple technique using a Wilton tip 2D, starting in the center of the cupcake and working your way outward in a counter-clockwise motion).  I have done this technique previously and it's simple yet elegant looking.

The Strawberry Cheesecakes.. a basic strawberry cupcake topped with cheesecake filling for the icing.  I again replicated a flower I have previously done, the hydrangea.  These look so realistic, I just LOVE them!

Lastly, the Lemon Blackberry.. a basic lemon cupcake topped with Blackberry buttercream (new to me and a perfect summertime frosting).  I decided to try a new flower design for this one, something I had not done previously but have seen a lot.  They sometimes refer to it as a 'fantasy flower'.. it's about 3 layers of piped petals on top of the cupcake (using a petal tip of course).  I LOVED the way this one turned out.. though my blackberry buttercream was a little soft for this design (I had to keep refrigerating it while working).. they still turned out beautiful!

Here are some pics of the completed cupcakes on my cupcake tower at the party (I wish I thought to do individual shots of each but oh well.. you get the idea)  ..Michaela loved them and I received many compliments on them as well :)

Cupcake Signage.. I find this to be very helpful when there are a lot of people at an event.. saves me (or the hosts) from having to describe flavors all day long!    

 My best close-up shot of the different 'flowers'

 The Cupcake Tower!

 

 

Gender Reveal Cake

Soooo excited that I FINALLY received a 'Gender Reveal' Cake request!!  I have been dying to do one for such a long time!  I was however surprised to discover that many don't really know what this theme is all about.. so let me explain before we go any further :)  ..It is typically a type of baby shower or gathering where the sex (gender) of the baby is revealed.  The cake is dyed pink or blue accordingly and (sometimes) nobody knows the sex until the cake is cut into.. I say 'sometimes' because in some instances the parents may already know and this is how they go about revealing it to their family and friends.  

In my case, only the couple's doctor and myself knew the baby's sex before the gender reveal party - how cool is that?!?!?!?  It was a piece of information I'm glad I didn't have to carry around for very long though.. I have been known to slip when it comes to surprises ;)  Not this time.. maybe it helped that I didn't have the gender in my hands until the week of the party (thank god!)  The other fun aspect of this cake was that the couple left their cake design entirely up to me!  I don't get this very often but do enjoy it.  It can be somewhat nerve-racking if you're not sure of the client's style or taste.  I found myself wondering if they would like the design as much as I did, but I guess that comes with the territory, and overall I like the challenge of a 'surprise' cake. 

I mulled over gender reveal designs for weeks!  Finally I settled on doing a 3-layer ombre style cake, which is simply graduating tints of the same color (pink or blue in this case).  The couple chose a confetti cake with cheesecake filling and buttercream icing.  Along with that, I chose to keep the cake simple with a bit of a rustic look.  I decided on 'cake bunting' as my main embellishment and iced the cake with a rustic finish.  I knew I wanted to do fabric pieces for the bunting, which included burlap.  I also wanted to incorporate some type of message on the bunting but that took me a little longer to settle on.  Here is how it turned out!

Here's a first look at the inside of an ombre cake!

My first 3-layer Cake.. which is pretty tall!

Rustic style buttercream..

A couple close-ups of my handmade fabric bunting.. I just adore cake bunting :)

All finished!

..just after the revealing cut!

Dad's Birthday Cake

This year Dad's Birthday actually fell on Mother's Day.  I decided to host a Mother's Day Brunch/Birthday celebration for Dad (pics to follow on my Parties page!)  ..Dad requested the same cake I made for his Birthday last year.. Citrus Scented Wine Cake with fresh berries {Previous post and recipe here}.  

I was happy that he chose this particular cake again for two reasons.. 1) it's a fairly simple (and yummy) cake to make, and with everything else I had to do for the party, at least I didn't have to work on a big extravagant cake.. 2) it went perfectly with my brunch menu!  Here is a pic of this year's version :)

Cheetah Cheesecake

Sorry this one's so late.. I tried posting a few weeks ago when I completed the cake but my blogger was having technical issues.  Since then, I've been a little busy so I'm just getting back to my blog.  This one was for our SIL, who was celebrating her son's 21st Birthday and wanted a special cake for the occasion.  As far as flavor, she knew she wanted cheesecake because her son LOVES it!  So we decided on a cheesecake flavored cake (which is a basic white cake with cheesecake flavoring added to it).  I filled the cake with actual cheesecake filling, and iced it with cheesecake flavored buttercream. 

When it came to choosing a theme for the cake, she was a bit stumped.  Initially she just wanted to keep it simple, but later decided on a cheetah print.  Why cheetah you might ask? (I know I did ;) ..because when the birthday boy was a child, he 'ran like a cheetah' and so she thought it would be fun to incorporate that into his cake.  The cheetah spots on the cake are actually chocolate buttercream.  It's pretty time consuming to complete the print in all buttercream.. I know there are fondant versions out there as well that may go quicker.  Also, this was my first attempt at it so I'm sure it went a bit slower.  I basically hand-piped all the spots and then smoothed them down as I do when I smooth my frosted cake (enter the viva paper towel method). 

This being my first cheetah print cake, I was pretty pleased with how it turned out.  It seemed to be a hit at the party as well, which always makes my day :)

   

Hoppy Easter!

At Easter time, I always like to make something light and fresh.  This year's treat.. Lemon Cupcakes with a Strawberry puree swirl.  I decided to top them with a Lemon Cream Cheese icing, which is less sweet with a slight tang.  Strawberry and Lemon together is a great flavor combination, and really just screams Springtime!  The cream cheese icing pairs wonderfully with these flavors as well.. I simply added a bit of Lemon extract to my regular cream cheese icing and it just completed this cupcake!

These were incredibly popular at our Easter gathering :)

  

Happy St Patty's Day!

In celebration of St. Patrick's Day last weekend, I decided to make a Chocolate Caramel Irish Cream Cupcake. I used my favorite chocolate cake recipe (dark chocolate fudge) dyed green of course.  For my liquid in the batter, I used Bailey's Irish Cream Coffee Creamer (which contains no alcohol).  Then I filled the baked cupcakes with a chocolate caramel ganache and topped them with an Irish cream buttercream (my regular BC recipe but again using the Irish Cream Coffee Creamer as my liquid).  To finish them off, a chocolate caramel drizzle.   These were very rich but very yum!

(green) dark chocolate fudge cupcakes

..filled with chocolate caramel ganache

And here you have it.. Chocolate Caramel Irish Cream Cupcakes :)

Cupcake Trio

Last week my sister placed a cupcake order for the health club she works at.  She wanted to surprise the staff with some Panny Cakes treats .. Yes, I said cupcakes, for a health club.. oh the irony.  Anyway, since she was sort of non-specific about flavors I took it upon myself to try out some new flavor combos.  I have a book with tons of gourmet cupcake recipes in it that I've been dying to try out!  The book is "101 Gourmet Cupcakes in 10 Minutes", by Wendy Paul.  (Here is a link to the book).

I chose a bunch of my faves from the book and then asked my sister for her input.  Finally, we narrowed it down to 3 flavors.  The first would be a French Toast Cupcake topped with Maple Buttercream + crumbled Bacon (how 'healthy' does that sound!)  The next one we chose to do was a Chocolate Cinnamon Cupcake topped with Chocolate Buttercream (at least the Cinnamon is healthy).  And for our third selection, a Lemon Blueberry Cupcake topped with Whipped Cream (I'm thinking this was probably the most healthy of the three). 

 The French Toast Cupcake was actually my favorite.. the cupcake alone was scrumptious!  Then to top it with Maple Buttercream was just amazing.. I didn't actually try the bacon topped ones (I did a few with and without bacon), but I was told they were awesome!

 I actually loved the Chocolate Cinnamon Cupcake as well.. who knew this was such a fabulous flavor combo? ..they really go very well together!

The Lemon Blueberry Cupcake was yummy, but turned out gooey and sort of messy to eat, since the blueberry filling I layered with the lemon batter didn't really 'bake'.  I'm going to work on this one.. perhaps I put too much filling in with the batter?  I definitely want to tweek the recipe because the cupcake itself was delicious.. lemon + blueberry are a tasty pair!

 

 My Cupcake Trio Plate!