Country Chic Bridal Shower Cupcakes

I was asked to do more cupcakes from a former coworker for a bridal shower she was throwing.  She first came to me and asked if I could make a cake, cupcakes, and cookies for her son's first birthday.  His theme was a "Winter Onederland". You can check out that post here. 

Of course she asked me soon after his party in January if I could do 3 dozen cupcakes for her in March and I said I would love to.  Usually I don't get that much notice so I was happy to add it in to my March calendar (When March got it here my calendar was filled up and I actually had to tell someone I couldn't do a cake for them which I felt terrible about.  So I'm glad I knew in advance!)

The theme for the wedding was country chic and she told me that the bride was using coral/salmon pink in her wedding.  Along with some ideas she had suggested I got to work and came up with 3 different cupcake toppers that I thought were cute and would fit her ideas and the country chic theme.  When I first thought about pairing coral with brown I wasn't too sure that would look ok on a cake.  But I was pretty pleased how well the colors turned out together.  Makes me want to go back and use those colors in mine.  :)  Each flavor of cupcake got a different design.  She wanted red velvet with cream cheese frosting, white almond with buttercream, and the infamous cookie dough cupcake. :) 

The first picture I took at home before delivering the cupcakes.  It was only of the 3 different designs.  The second picture was one that my former coworker sent me after the shower. 

Sunshine 1st Birthday Cake

I never thought I would say this but I am starting to fall in love with fondant!!! What?! I know.  I have been against it for so long because I love the taste of buttercream better.  But that is even starting to change for me.  When I cover a cake in fondant I use a fondant made out of marshmallows which many people who make cakes refer to it as MMF.  This fondant actually has a decent taste unlike the store-bought fondant that some others use.  The reason I enjoy using it is because as a cake decorator is really helps you to achieve that smooth finish you see in so many pictures.  If you know me I can be a little OCD about how smooth my cakes are and I can never get them completely smooth which drives me crazy.  This is where my love for fondant is growing.

With all that said I did a cake a couple weeks back for a little girl's first birthday.  Her theme was going to be a sunshine theme and they asked for a cake that would look something like the picture they sent me.  I really loved how this cake turned out.  It may even go up there with one of my favorites.

I will have to tell a funny story about this cake.  When the father and mother were emailing me they asked me to do a yellow pineapple cake.   So I made a pineapple cake and decorated it in yellow. The day before the party I was looking at the finished yellow cake a thought hit me which made me panic.  "Did they want a yellow pineapple FLAVORED cake or a cake decorated with a pineapple yellow?"  I was all in a panic and immediately searched for their email to see if I was going to have to completely redo the cake I just did.  But thankfully the email read a "a pineapple flavored yellow cake."  I am so glad they put in that extra word "flavored".  It reassured me that I had done what I was suppose to do.  Oh man!  Sometimes I can be such a stress bucket. ;)

Bridal Shower Cake

 A friend from our Sunday School class was throwing a bridal shower for one of her friends and wanted a simple cake for the shower.  She told me she would like a design she had seen me do for another friend's birthday cake.  I had done this design many times and love doing it because of the simplicity of it as well as the neat look it has. 

These pictures were taken by her at the party.  She is an AMAZING photographer and if you need someone to take pictures of a special occasion she is someone to contact.  Feel free to contact me and I will get you in touch with her.

First Bridal Shower Cake

About a month or two ago, a friend we play volleyball and also go to our church approached me about making a cake for her sister-in-law's bridal shower.  Thanks to Pinterest (which I am addicted to) she was able to find an idea that she liked.   BTW I no longer Google for ideas I look through Pinterest. :) I really loved the idea she sent me and I thought a lot about what I could do to make it my own.  I spent a lot of time researching other ideas to incorporate into the cake but I just wasn't satisfied with what I was coming up with so I kept the original design the same. 

She did request that she wanted it in purple.  I played it cool when she told me that she wanted it in purple but in my head I was a little (maybe a lot) concerned.  The experience I have had with purple is that the red in the purple fades and the blue color is left.  By the time the party would roll around she would have a blue cake not a purple.  Yikes!  So I researched and read some forums that said that I should not use the purple food color but use a super red and blue to achieve the purple I wanted.  So that is what I did and I was pretty happy with the color.  I think I was trying so hard for it not to fade I may have made it a little darker than I had anticipated but I really did love the purple. 

Here is the picture that she took at the party.  Her picture really showed the purple color.  My IPhone pictures don't always give a great representation of the colors in the cake.