Saturday, August 15, 2009

Boston Cream Cupcakes


I made these for a birthday lunch for two of my friends. Yummy dense cupcakes filled with pastry cream, dipped in chocolate ganache, and topped with whipped cream and a cherry. This recipe is amazing! Well worth the effort!
Boston Cream Cupcakes From "The Best of America's Test Kitchen, The Year's Best Recipes, Equipment Reviews, and Tastings 2007"
Happy Birthday Linda and Suzan!

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Scrubs

Fondant scrub cake for my dear friends who have just completed their residency in anesthesiology. Congrats, Shupes!

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Beach Cupcakes

On my way to my son's end-of-year class beach party.These little cupcakes are so fun and easy to decorate with kids. All you need is frosting and graham cracker crumb sand......Fruit By The Foot beach towels......Teddy Grahams sunbathers...
(Icing swimsuits optional. ;-) )
...and a mini umbrella on top. (Thanks, Kimberly!)
Happy summer everybody!

Monday, May 18, 2009

Sunflower Cupcakes

We hosted a BBQ over the weekend in honor of some good friends who will be leaving us for Texas this week. I wanted to make a cake in the shape of Texas, but Hubby said I shouldn't go overboard, so we went with sunflowers instead. (They have sunflowers in Texas, right? They seemed bright and warm and sunny anyway.) I found the idea for these cupcakes in the book, Hello, Cupcake (cutest cupcakes ever!). I used chocolate cake for the dirt, green tinted buttercream for the grass, Oreos for the flower centers, and yellow tinted buttercream for the petals. In the book, they used red M&Ms for the ladybugs, but I didn't have any on hand. I tried to make my own with red candy melts but they turned out all globby, so I searched through my cupboards and luckily found half a box of Runts left over from my April Fool's Cupcakes. I loved the shape of the red Runts and thought they would make perfect ladybugs with some spots from melted chocolate chips.

You should have heard the chorus of "WOW"s from all the kids when I brought the cupcakes out. They LOVED them! These were very quick and easy. Give 'em a try!

Saturday, May 2, 2009

What does a droid taste like? R2D2 Cake

For his birthday party cake, my son asked for his favorite Star Wars character - R2D2! I've been looking at R2D2 cakes online for a couple years now, wondering if I could do it. Here was my chance.

I started with six 8-inch round cakes. I stacked four for the torso and shaped the remaining two for the head. Frosted with buttercream frosting.
I covered both pieces with white rolled fondant and painted R2's head with silver Pearl Dust. (This was the first time I've ever worked with Pearl Dust. I think I over-diluted it with lemon juice and it ran all over the place. To compensate, I added a little cornstarch, but that just made it gummy and gloppy. In the future, I will add less lemon juice or just use it dry. Pretty cool stuff though!)
R2's legs were blocks of rice crispie treats cut to shape...
...and covered with fondant.
Here's R2 stacked and getting some details with fondant tinted blue. (Please don't hate me, Star Wars fans; I know he'd not droidatomically correct! He ended up being shorter than I planned as the heavy fondant squished him down a bit. Oh well.)
Here he is finished: an R2D2 cake! He's not perfect, but my son loved him, so that's what's important!

Mmmm...sprinkle cake!

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Have A Nice Day!

I made these little guys (or gals?) as a little pick-me-up for a friend who had a bad day.
I hope they put a smile on her face.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Earth Day Cookies

I made these sweet little globes for my 4-year-old boy's preschool class. They are celebrating Earth Day this week. Sadly, he couldn't recognize what they were, but his 7-year-old brother knew what they were right away. They look like Earth, right? Hmmm...maybe if you squint and tilt your head to the side...
HAPPY EARTH DAY!!!

Friday, January 9, 2009