Happy Birthday Patrick

One of the adorable Bunker babies turned 1 last weekend and I was asked to make his birthday cake!

One of his favorite things is Sesame Street so I ran with that and made the Sesame Street themed cupcake tower.

I started with a 6inch chocolate cake for the top. It was frosted in white buttercream. To decorate it I cut out orange and green circles from fondant and also cut out a green "street" sign for the side of the cake. On the "street" sign cut out I wrote Patrick and the # 1. On the top edge of the cake I piped out the Happy Birthday message.



For the cupcakes I made Elmo and Cookie Monster.



The frosting was still the same buttercream just colored red and blue. I used 2 different tips to frost the cupcakes. The eyes were store bought and for Elmo I cut his mouth out of fondant and for cookie monster I used 1/2 an oreo in place of his mouth.

Here is the final product....






From what I hear Patrick loved the cake and happily destroyed 2 cupcakes!

Happy Weekend everyone!

Reid's 1st Birthday Cake

The Family I nanny for asked me to make a Cake and Cupcakes for their daughter's first birthday! They decided to go with a Lady Bug theme for her cake and I seriously had so much fun making it!

The flavors were simple... Chocolate and Vanilla with Vanilla buttercream.... the adventure was in the design.

The cupcakes were frosted with Pink and Green frosting and topped with some different fondant pieces.

On the green frosted cupcakes I had these cute little pink ladybugs!



The pink frosted cupcakes were topped with black "ladybug" dots!



For the cake it was frosted in pink and covered in black "ladybug" dots. I also wrapped it with a green ribbon. For the top of the cake I made a number 1 out of fondant and also some little flowers to stick out of the cake on wire.



For the Birthday message I cut out a flower shape from white fondant and piped on the message.

Overall I thought this was the cutest cake I have made yet and from the pictures I saw Reid enjoyed it as well!!!









I hope everyone stays dry during these rainy days and stay tuned this weekend for the 3rd cake I made this past weekend!!

Graduation Cupcake Tower

So last week I made a graduation cake for Dominique and her family to enjoy on her actual graduation... Yesterday was her AWESOME graduation party and I was privileged enough to make a cupcake tower for the occasion.

I stuck with the school colors for this cake too. The cupcakes were vanilla and chocolate. I colored the vanilla cupcakes orange and frosted the cupcakes with buttercream.

I topped the vanilla cupcakes with black stars cut from fondant and dusted with edible silver shimmer. The chocolate cupcakes were frosted in orange.



For the top of the tower I made a 6inch cake. I wanted the cake to look like a graduation cap. To do this I took a square cake board and covered it in black fondant. I made an orange tassel out of fondant and added some wording to the top of the cap. The actual cake was frosted in white buttercream and I tried coloring it black using Wilton's Color Mist spray. It didn't come out as black as I hoped but it was was serviceable.



Here is the final product all set-up at the party...








CONGRATULATIONS DOMINIQUE!!!!!!!!

Keep checking back this week for posts about 2 other cakes I made this weekend!

Graduation Cake

I had a lot of fun making this cake!
The graduate was graduating from Newton North High School and Since I am a graduate of NNHS I was happy to make a cake in the school colors.

I started with 2 10inch vanilla cakes filled with a Dulce de Leche buttercream. YUM!

The cake is frosted in a bright white buttercream and instead of piping a border I decided to use a bling-tastic ribbon around the cake to dress it up.



For the other decorations I used fondant. I cut out all of the lettering and made some accent decorations using a star cookie cutter.



My fav part were the stars "floating" above the cake. I did this by cutting out the stars and pushing thin jewelery wire through the stars and letting them dry out. I then attached the letters using just a little bit of water. I just love the dimension it adds to the cake.

Here is the final product!!!!







I hope everyone has a fabulous week and that this rain lets way to some sunshine for all of us!

2 Tier Cirlce Cake

Tonight is Newton North High School's Senior Prom and one of my favorite clients requested a cake for the occasion.

She gave me creative liberty to do whatever I wanted for the cake, she just requested the cake be in colors that coordinated with her daughter's dress.

I started with 2 cakes. An 8inch and a 6inch, both chocolate cake with peanut butter filling.
I frosted each cake with a pink Buttercream and then stacked them into 2 tiers. This is the first tiered cake I have ever made.... not too bad for my first attempt I think.



After the cake was stacked I got to working on the decorations. I colored some pink and purple fondant and cut out a couple of different sized circles. I also cut out some letters from the purple fondant to say "NNHS Prom 2011"

I strategically placed the circles, piped a white border on each tier and placed the lettering on the top of the cake. As a final touch I topped the cake off with some hot pink and brown accent feathers.

I hope all kids enjoy the cake after they dance the night away!

Cookies n' Cream Cupcakes

These are probably one of my favorite cupcakes to make! Kids and Adults seem to LOVE them!

To start, these scrumptious delights start out with a half an Oreo in the bottom of each cupcake.



The batter is very simple... it is your go to vanilla cupcakes with crumbled Oreos mixed in. (You could use box mix for this if you are in a pinch since the cookies are really the dominant part of the treat)



To frost these I use a basic vanilla buttercream. Most of the time they can just be garnished with some cookie crumbs, but because the frosting is a pure white frosting it can be colored any color and decorated to match a theme.





This past weekend I made 6 Bruins themed cupcakes and 6 fishing themed for an order.
For the Bruins cupcakes I cut circles out of fondant and piped the Bruins Logo using royal icing. The cupcakes were cute! My piping/drawing skills still need some work but for the first time I think they look ok.



For the fishing ones I colored the frosting blue and used a different tip to try and make the frosting look like waves. I garnished with Red Swedish fish and TA-DA! Fishing Themed Cupcakes!





Happy Baking everyone!

Lemon Filled Cupcakes with Raspberry Buttercream

The last time I made these cupcakes I was not totally happy with the frosting. The last time I didn't have any fresh raspberries or any seedless preserve so I made the frosting with raspberry extract.... Not impressed!

This time I was making these for a customer order and used seedless raspberry preserve for the frosting and it came out divinely!



I also changed up the cupcake batter itself. I started out with my go to vanilla cupcake and then zested an entire lemon into the batter. I seriously cannot express my love for the scent of zested lemons or limes! The citrus smell is just so bright and fresh... it makes me happy!





Ok sorry for my zest tangent.... back to the cupcakes!

Once they were baked and cooled I "cored" the cupcakes and filled them up with lemon curd.





Lastly I piped on my yummy Raspberry Buttercream!





I don't usually taste test my own finished cupcakes... but when there is lemon involved I can not resist! I found them to be mouth watering and I hope my customer feels the same way!

I hope everyone enjoys their week!

Recipe: Raspberry Buttercream

1/2 cup of butter softened
1/2 cup shortening
1 tsp clear vanilla extract
1 tsp raspberry extract
1/4 cup seedless raspberry preserve
pinch of salt
1lb confectionery sugar
water

Directions:
Cream butter and shortening with vanilla, raspberry extract and salt. Beat in raspberry preserve. Add confectionery sugar until incorporated. Add water a tsp at a time to get to desired consistency and mix on medium speed for 30-45 seconds.

Cupcakes and Raspberry Buttercream

Last time I baked lemon filled cupcakes I wished I had made raspberry buttercream to frost them with. This weekend I had the opportunity to make that wish come true :)

I had an order to make 5 dozen assorted cupcakes this weekend. One of the flavors was lemon filled with raspberry buttercream.

I started with basic vanilla cupcakes and this time to fill the cupcakes I used the cone method. What is the cone method you ask? Well........

basically you cut a cone shaped piece of the cupcake out so you can fill it with filling. For these cupcakes I used lemon curd. So tart and refreshing! Once the cupcakes are filled you place the piece of cake you cut out back onto the cupcake.







Now for the frosting I had a moment of failure. I wanted to use raspberry preserves in the frosting.... however, when I bought the preserves I didn't buy seedless like I meant to. I didn't want to have a million raspberry seeds in my frosting so I went for plan B and used the raspberry extract I had and a little bit of red food coloring.



The taste of the frosting was good.... but I know with raspberry preserve it would have been better! Hopefully next time I buy the right thing at the grocery store :)

In addition to my lemon cupcakes I had some extra chocolate cupcakes so I decided to top those off with the raspberry as well!







My house was full of cupcakes this weekend! It was hard not to eat them all! hahaha
I hope everyone has a great week!

Recipe:
Raspberry Buttercream Frosting

1 Cup of softened butter
1 Cup Vegetable shortening
1 tsp vanilla
5 tbsp water
2lbs confectionery sugar
Raspberry extract (to taste)
Red food coloring (optional)

Directions:
Combine butter, shortening, vanilla and water until smooth. Add in confectionery sugar and mix until smooth. Scrape down sides at least once to incorporate all ingredients. Add raspberry extract 1 tsp at a time to get desired flavor. (you can add more water or sugar to get desired consistency) Add and stir in 2-3 drops of food coloring to get pinkish red raspberry color.

Lemon Filled Cupcakes

Lemon used to be one of those flavors I wasn't a fan of until my mid 20's. I am now IN LOVE with Lemon! The light tart taste in my favorite in cake, pie, cookies and of course CUPCAKES!

I decided to whip up a batch this weekend!

I started with a basic vanilla cupcake recipe and added a splash of lemon extract. They baked up beautiful and golden!



For the filling I mixed up some buttercream frosting with lemon curd. The mixture was creamy and tart... seriously the perfect combination!

To fill the cupcakes I used a pastry bag and filling tip. This method always works out fine but next time I think I will try out "the cone" method of filling so I can get more of that delicious lemon flavor in my cupcakes!



I didn't want to go too crazy with the flavors this time so I made a basic buttercream to frost these... next time I think I would like a light fluffy raspberry buttercream. It would be a pairing made in heaven!

To finish off these beauties, I sprinkled some granulated sugar on top and garnished with half of a "Lemonade" Girl Scout Cookie.




It is not often that I eat my finished cupcakes... well because if I did I would have some serious issues.... but this time I could not resist! They were simply marvelous! Quickly becoming a fast favorite of mine :)





I hope everyone enjoys their week!