A's Mickey Mouse Birthday

As you can tell I am pretty far behind on my blogging.  Here is my daughter's birthday we had this past December.  Her theme was Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.  This one was a fun one as well and there are a lot of resources to help you plan.  Thanks to my sister for taking pictures for us.  It is always hard to be the host and take pictures, so I appreciate the help!!  (She even helped with the cupcakes and a lot of the set up!)

Cupcake Cakes

Just recently we had planned to make a quick trip home to Ohio (which is a 6 1/2 hour drive).  My grandpa was going to be turning 85 while we were there.  Since the trip really wasn't planned much in advance I didn't have time to make an elaborate cake and not have to worry about transporting it.  So I decided to try a cupcake cake.  I had seen these pop up and thought they looked pretty easy to do.  So I decided to try it.  It didn't turn out too bad considering I did it all in one day. 

A month later we were returning to Ohio for Thanksgiving and this time it was my dad's birthday.  Again I was pretty tired from being pregnant and 2 kids that I just didn't feel like making a huge cake.  (I also was assigned cooking duties this year as well. :) ) So I whipped up a cupcake cake for my dad as well.  As you can tell he loves football and OSU.  So I thought this one was appropriate it.

Cupcake cakes are a fun twist to cupcakes.  May have to keep that in mind next time I need a cake in a hurry.

J's Firetruck Birthday Party

It always makes me pleased when someone contacts me again to have something made for them.  J's mom has contacted me on several occasions and has even passed my name on to friends. She even has gotten to where she will send me photos after the party so I can update my blog.  :) Thanks for the photos because I usually either forget or my pictures never look that great.  Photography (and blogging) is not a skill I have.  Here's the pictures she sent me:

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. 

Winter Onederland

Today I delivered a fairly big amount of baked goods to a former coworker's house. She had contacted me and said she had seen my cakes on Facebook and wanted to know if I could make a smash cake, 24 cookies, and 24 cupcakes for her son's first birthday.  (It is neat to think about how easily Facebook has made a way for us to get in contact with someone we haven't spoken to in a while. :)) Of course I told her I would love to.  She had picked out the theme Winter Onederland and did a winter theme which was very cute.  Our friends from church actually did the same theme for their son's first birthday as well or I would have thought about doing it for our daughter's first birthday. :)

The smash cake was a yellow cake and iced in buttercream.  I used MMF around the edges and for the number 1 on top.  I had made royal icing snowflakes to put on top but my son bumped the container that I kept the dried snowflakes in and broke my remaining ones and I didn't have time to make more. :/ So I improvised and piped on the snowflakes which was probably better for a smash cake anyways. :)

For the cookies she asked for mittens and a number 1.  Out of all the Christmas cookie cutters I had I didn't have a mitten.  I was able to find a mitten on an after-Christmas clearance rack which was excellent.  I actually had to buy a set of about 15-20 cutters to get the one mitten.  But now I have all sorts of Christmas cookie cutters for next year.  (I will have to think about whether I should do Christmas cookies for the family next year or not.  You can check out the post about that here.)  I actually made the number 1 cookie cutter because I couldn't find one in the right size without having to order one online.

The cupcakes were white almond and cookies n cream.  The cupcakes shown were just the white almond. The decorations on top were made out of royal icing.  The big snowflakes are the ones that my son broke.  Luckily I had the last cupcake topper in my hand when he hit the container.  I lost all the extras I was going to put on the cake but it all worked out. 

My Baby Girl Turns 1!

This past December my little girl turned 1.  It is such a bitter sweet thing.  She no longer is a baby but she is developing such a little personality.

 Of course I had to throw her a party but I told myself I was going to do something small and just for family so that I could enjoy the day and not feel overwhelmed.  I must not know myself very well.  I did enjoy myself but I maybe went a little overboard. 

The theme revolved around her invitation that I created on Inkscape. Of course I incorporated a little bit of chevron as well.

Instead of doing a big cake I decided to do a smash cake and then do some fun cupcakes.  The flavors I did were banana pudding, peanut butter cup, and cookie dough.

Since there was only family I decided to serve a lunch.  We had...

 

Crockpot Mac n Cheese (always a favorite in our house) 

 

PB&J Sandwiches shaped like elephants

 

A Salad bar which was originally going to be salad on a stick but I decided to save time and energy and do it this way.

A yogurt bar.  You filled your waffle bowls with yogut, mixed fruit, and granola.

 

Elephant cookies.  Which I cheated and used already prepared cookie dough and I won't do that ever again.  Or at least not use the brand I used.  They did not hold their shape very well. :/

 

Last but not least Mexican Fiesta Bites.  These were by far the party favorite.  Everyone seemed to love them.  Even my mother-in-law who has a little stricter diet.

I also made the decorations.  Here a glimpse at some of them. As well as a few other party ones. 

 Her aunt made this adorable skirt to go with the top that I made.

NC State Cupcakes - Second Order

After doing NC State Cupcakes for my husband's now former co-worker, he contacted my husband again and asked if I could make him some more.  He ended up needing 24 cupcakes this time.

Many times I have sent leftovers into work with my husband because there are just too many to keep at our house.  On a couple of occasions I have sent in cookie dough cupcakes and my husband says they get rave reviews.  So when I received this order he asked specifically if I could make some of the cupcakes cookie dough which cookie dough frosting.  So I made 12 red velvet with cream cheese frosting again as well as 12 cookie dough cupcakes. I am sure by the picture you can tell which are which. ;)

I would have to now say my favorite is cookie dough with cookie dough frosting.

NC State Cupcakes

This was the first order from one of Billy's co-workers for NC State cupcakes for his wife.  They are red velvet with cream cheese frosting.  I was so thrilled to hear that he wanted to order more later as well.

Belated Birthday Cupcakes

A week ago Monday was my brother-in-law's birthday.  My sister had invited us over for dinner to celebrate his birthday.  She also asked if I could make him cupcakes.  Of course I said I would love to.  She had a special request for them.  She had told me that my brother-in-law had set 3 goals for the upcoming year and she would like the cupcakes to represent his goals for the year.  The three goals were to get in shape, bench press a certain amount, and bike a marathon.  I decided I would do 12 cupcakes.  I had planned to do 2 cupcakes per goal, 2 cupcakes to say "Happy Birthday", 1 cupcake to represent my brother-in-law, 1 cupcake to show how old he was turning and that left me with 2 more cupcakes to decorate.  I decided to add a few more things that would happen in the coming year.  One was they are expecting their second girl in March and then in May he will graduate from grad school.  So the last 2 represent those things.

The week before his birthday our whole family got sick with a stomach bug. We decided that it would probably be best if we put it off a week.  So yesterday we were able to get together and celebrate his birthday.  Here are some pictures of the cupcakes.

After later looking at the pictures I took I realized I probably should have taken some pictures of each individual cupcake.  I did get a close up of the little guy I made to represent my brother-in-law from my sister.  The cupcakes were red velvet and were iced with buttercream and then I used gum paste to make the pieces on top.  I probably should have used half gum paste and half fondant.  The gum paste dries very quickly making it hard to sculpt with it.

Back Into the Cake Business

Once I went off to college I stepped away from making and decorating cakes.  It wasn't until I graduated and moved to Raleigh, NC for a job opportunity in teaching that my desire for baking and decorating cakes came back. 

For my niece's first birthday I volunteered to make her cupcakes. She loved Elmo and Sesame Street so I wanted to do something along those lines.  These are the cupcakes I came up with:

I also made Big Bird but they are not shown here.  I piped the appropriate color icing on each cupcake, used an Oreo cookie for the mouth, a marshmallow cut in half for the eyes, and a M&M for Elmo's nose (This picture was taken before all the Elmos were finished.  Can you find which one is not like the others?)  For Big Bird, I used white chocolate tinted yellow to make his beak and a few feathers.  This was the first time I had any experience with chocolate.  It was fun!