Hot Wheels Cupcakes

Ok so bear with me as I attempt to get caught up on my blog entries.. it's been a long and busy year! {see previous post with regard to my recent blog hiatus}...

Meanwhile, back on July 5th, we celebrated Oliver's 4th Birthday! {sniff sniff} He decided on a "Hot Wheels" theme since he has a slight obsession with them right now. For his cake, we chose to do Creamsicle Cupcakes (cupcakes are always easier than a cake when I have a million other things to do for a party). He's been LOVING Creamsicle yogurt these days so the flavor decision was an easy one.

I also chose a pretty simple way to incorporate the Hot Wheels theme into his cupcakes.. via handmade cupcake toppers that I found at Over the big Moon. All I had to do was print and cut them out. Here's a pic of a couple of the toppers along with some mini water bottles I put together for his party. Super cute, right?

Here are some pics of the completed cupcakes with toppers. They are orange cake (which was a doctored vanilla cake mix).. with vanilla custard filling and whipped cream frosting. YUM! I thought "chrome" wrappers would be fitting for our theme.. even my cupcake stand had rims!  You can see more of Oliver's party details on my party page! 

The Birthday Boy blowing out his candles <3
 

Wow.. Long Time Gone!

So... as you may (or may not) have noticed, my previous post was for a cake I completed in June of last year! Yes, it's been over a year since I've done much with cakes, or anything with my blog.. but for a very good reason. I had a baby!!! That's the good part.. the bad part was that much like my first pregnancy, I was extremely sick for most of the 9 months. I had a condition with both my pregnancies known as "Hyperemesis Gravidarum".. aka HG. Without going too much into the horrific details, let me just say it effects about 2% of pregnant women (lucky me, right?) and is primarily characterized by EXTREME nausea and vomiting.. yeah.. not so much fun. In fact it is quite debilitating.. hence the extensive cake/blog hiatus. 

I now have 2 little guys keeping me on my toes every day.. Oliver (4) and Edison (5 months). And although it's quite hectic around here most days, I actually do miss caking and blogging. I will be scaling back on cakes since it's a lot for me right now with 2 little ones.. heck it was a lot with just Oliver! For the time being, I'm going to focus on my boys (they're only little once!) and family. Since I can't imagine giving up cakes completely, I'll continue to do family cake requests (hoping this will allow me to keep up my skills as well).

You may also notice my blog itself has a new look, with some additional features. I felt like it was time for some changes since life has changed a lot for me in the last year. In addition to a new design, I wanted to update the pages to reflect more of what I've been up to these days (aside from babes and cakes ;) ..including some party planning and DiY fun. Hope you like it! ..And now.. on with some cake posts! 

Strawberry Shortcake Cake

Last week I made a Strawberry Shortcake Cake for my step-daughter, Emily (she wanted it for her bf's birthday.. apparently he LOVES strawberry shortcake ;)  It's a simple cake, which I found the recipe for from the Food Librarian, but OMG, I wanted to eat this one myself so badly!  The recipe link can be found here.  It's just two (or three depending on how you make it) buttermilk cake layers (which smell just like buttermilk biscuits when they're baking.. you know the kind you have with regular SS?!  Yum!).. top the cake layers with macerated strawberries (fancy term for strawberries that have been hulled, sliced, and soaked in granulated sugar with a bit of vanilla).. finished off with some fresh whipped cream.. so simple but so de-lish!

Below are some pics of my version.  I was told the birthday boy loved it!

  

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 :)