Cupcakes With Earl

We are in Ocean City and since Hurricane Earl was predicted to put a damper on at least one day of our vacation I brought some baking essentials with me!

I had seen some photos of rose inspired cupcakes and decided to give them a try. Since we met my Mother here in Ocean City, I decided on making chocolate cupcakes since she loves chocolate!

This project was actually really fun. I bought the pretty green pot on sale for $4 and a round foam ball at my favorite store (Ben Franklin Crafts). I covered the foam with black tissue paper and secured it inside the pot. After I made the cupcakes I used toothpicks to anchor them into the foam to create the bouquet look!

And, here they are!...

NY Giants Cake

A few weeks ago a received a reply to my ad on Craigslist asking if I could make a 3-d football helmet cake. I looked up some ideas and decided I would give it a try. It ended up being a huge project! But, in the end it came out pretty decent. There are a few thing that I would do differently if I have to make one of these again but for a first try I think it was pretty good!

Sunny Sunflowers!

Late this week I began a few different confections with a sunflower theme inspired by the beautiful sunflowers my boyfriend brought me home one day! After reading about an up-coming event benefiting a local little girl whom was recently diagnosed with cancer, I decided to make cupcakes to send to their bake sale fundraiser.

I just love sunflowers - they are such a happy flower!

I created the "flower" from bright yellow fondant cut out with two different size flower cut-outs and layered them to create depth. I also wanted to create some more interest and detail on the flowers, so I created different lines and definitions with tiny tools. All the flowers took about three hours to make!!

The actual cake portion of the cupcake was a lemon flavor and I used some yummy vanilla icing to top them off!

I added a fun, bright pink crete paper wrap and tied them all off with a cute yellow bow. Here is the end result!...

Additionally, I designed a small 6-inch round two layer chocolate cake with a similar theme. For some reason, the white fondant came out really bumpy and I was really unhappy with the end result. I thought the flower cluster was super cute and I really liked my attempt at a "modern" bow. However, the bow ended up being a little to big for the small scale cake. I guess that's why it's called a "practice cake"! Here it is...

Flowers

I tried to beat the head today by staying in my nice air conditioned apartment and used the extra fondant from my "present cake" to play around with some flowers. Now, I honestly had no idea even to go about this. So, I read up on CakeCentral.com, got some ideas, then pulled my fondant out. 

I decided to start with a very simple "rolled" rose. I give myself an 'F'.

Then, I used some flower cut outs, shaped them to give them depth, and layered. I give myself a D.

After, I played around with another rose-type flower. I ran out of the little fondant I had on this flower. I could have used a bunch more pedals. This one is my favorite of the three (which, honestly, isn't saying much). I give myself a C+. 

Looks like I definitely need some more practice!!

While the boys are away, the girls (er...girl) play!

So, I'm home alone this weekend while my boyfriend is off on a Bachelor Party Weekend down (over? up?... I have no concept of where anything is in Virginia!) at Rockahock playing on the River.

After work this morning, I decided it was time to practice another fondant cake! Eventually, I'd like to create a little portfolio for future clientele. Maybe someday...

Anyway, I just threw the actual cake together - a two layer basic vanilla with buttercream frosting - because  I was really only into it for the decorating thrill.  I did the actual "present" part of the cake in black, well, at least that's what I was aiming for. But, it turned out more of a steel grey color, which I actually liked better! I did a white bow and ribbon accent.

I cut out a ton of little hearts to assemble on the sides of the cake...

...but I ended up not even using them because I liked the simplicity of just the bow.

Here's today's masterpiece!...

Nana's Treat

I wanted to challenge myself a little and try to make a fondant bow. Seth's "Nana" was recently moved back into her own home after a lengthy stay in a Nursing Home healing from a hip replacement. Since she loves sweet treats I used her home coming as an opportunity to experiment with another fondant cake!

I made this cake REALLY quickly because I basically just wanted to practice making bows. However, I ended up not having the hardening ingredient (that and it was almost 110 degrees out) and the bow ended up softening and flattening out a little during transport. I was still pretty happy with the over all effort though!

In addition, this was my first filled cake. Seth loves bananas so I make a chocolate cake with banana filling. The filling was really quiet simple, I just mashed up some (overly) ripe bananas, lemon juice and some frosting and smoothed the mixture in between the cake layers.

Nana and everyone else seemed to really like the cake seeing as it was gone in about ten minutes. Success!!

Again, here's another phone photo...

Ellie's Birthday Cake

As a mentioned in my previous post, Seth's cousin asked me to make his daughter's cake whose birthday was a few days following Seth's. I eagerly agreed since I had so much fun making my boyfriend's cake and thought I could do something similar but more "girl-y".

The two tier cake was, again, chocolate on top with the bottom tier vanilla. I decided to go with a pink/purple/white color scheme. And, instead of polka-dots I went with cutting out pink flowers with purple centers. I think it came out super cute and Ellie loved her cake!

Once again I forgot to take picture with my actual camera, so here's some pictures I took with my cell...