Birthday Cakes & Free Cupcakes

I apologize for the lack of photos to accompany this post... but this weekend was busy, with work and an order of a cake for my favorite 4 year old and an order of 36 cupcakes.

This particular birthday cake, was my first attempt at working with fondant. I went into this project, hopeful. However, I quickly lost my patience and unfortunately, my will to photograph joined my patience in the swan dive. So, I will inform you of what went on up until and in between the photos that I could will myself to take in between the bouts of unnecessary anger towards lumps of pink sugar.

I baked a white cake in two 10" pans, which I later cut into 4 layers. At the start of this cake, my fear didn't lye in covering the cake in fondant... it was in creating a level cake! After I assembled the white cake, strawberries and strawberry filling...

I "dirty iced" the cake... see how level this baby is!? Beautiful.

I popped the cake into the fridge for the evening and got up early in the morning to start on the fondant. I dyed the white fondant three different colors, by hand. This proved to be my only misgiving of the fondant experience. Kneading the pink food dye into the white fondant leached the fondant of its moisture.. which lead to a few pesky cracks. I am told these cracks were, "unnoticeable"... I knew better! Of course, it is possible that I have a slight problem with being a perfectionist...

Cute little fondant flowers! My favorite (and easiest) part of the weekend!

This, is the final product.

I learned a few tips through my mistakes on this cake, so I'm looking forward to working with fondant again... did you hear that? I'm looking for an excuse to make a cake!

This weekend I also volunteered my time and sugar to make a batch of cupcakes for a local boutique's summer shin dig in exchange for a display of my business cards and some great referrals.

These cupcakes were simple enough... I made my usual chocolate cupcake batter then stirred in Andes candy chips and a few teaspoons of mint extract. While the cupcakes were baking, I made a mint chocolate frosting with butter, cream cheese, confectioner sugar, milk and mint extract. I topped these cuties with the left over pink fondant flowers, with a sugar pearl center.

I have affectionately named this cupcake "Love Illu-mint-ati", after the boutique's name, Love Illuminati.

I will try to make these posts more frequent.. however, with a week vacation to Ocean City Maryland and a two week vacation to California, you may not be seeing a whole lot of me until September, when I will be making all the desserts for my Graduation party! Look forward to pie flavored cupcakes like, Apple and Key Lime.. homemade cookies, along with chocolate covered oreos!

Key Lime Cupcakes

Vanilla Cupcake

with a Graham Cracker Topping

filled with Lime Curd

and Topped with Cream Cheese Icing

I started out with a regular Vanilla Cupcake batter & made a Graham Cracker Topping (Faux Crust) out of graham cracker crumbs, butter & brown sugar. I topped the raw cupcakes with what I had thought was a decent amount of the Graham cracker mixture.

Before

After

As the cupcakes baked, the topping spread out and was not as crunchy as I thought it would have been. Solution for next time: fill the cups less & add more topping.

After the cupcakes were baked and cooling, I made a batch of Lime Curd.

I cooled the lime curd, transferred it to a piping bag and filled the cupcakes.

After they were filled, I made a basic cream cheese icing with a light green tint, and piped the icing onto the cupcake.

Side Note: Overall... For a trial run, these cupcakes were very good. Can't wait to make them again to perfect the recipe.

Cupcake Sale

This is what my kitchen looked like this morning...

Had my first "cupcake sale" this weekend... So far, so good.

This weekend's flavors:

Chocolate Cupcake with Peanut Butter Filling & Peanut Butter Icing

Topped with a Peanut Butter Cup

Vanilla Cupcake with Strawberry Filling

& Whipped Cream Cream Cheese Icing

Red Velvet Cupcake with Cream Cheese Icing

Thanks to everyone who purchased cupcakes!

Nutella Cupcake

Here it is...

My first attempt at a Nutella Cupcake.

This is a Vanilla Cupcake, filled with a teaspoon or so of Nutella and topped with Nutella Icing that I improvised by combining a couple of found recipes... Next attempt, I'm going to work on creating more of a whipped fluffy icing as opposed to this icing, which turned out too "wet" for my liking. Oh well, the icing is still decent but not as pleasing to look at as my other cupcakes. Meanwhile... trial and error has never been so enjoyable.

In other news... I've stumbled across a few websites selling more attractive cupcake foils/papers so I am happy to say, this will be the last cupcake to grace this blog clothed in silver aluminum!

Coming Soon...

Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Icing

Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Filling and Peanut Butter Icing

Vanilla Cupcakes with Strawberry Filling and Buttercream Icing

...All on sale for Valentines Day to my friends & family.

Cupcakes!

Strawberry Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Icing...

Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Filling and Peanut Butter Icing,

Topped with a Peanut Butter Cup...

Chocolate Mocha Cupcake with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Icing...