A Fashionista Birthday!

“I don’t do fashion. I am fashion.” -Coco Chanel

I was asked to make cupcakes for two sisters' birthdays. Both are into fashion and name brands so I thought what better than to put those labels right on the cupcake!

I decided to make these cupcakes from a pound cake recipe. I topped each cupcake with white buttercream icing. One of the birthday girl's favorite brands were Fendi, Dolce & Gabbana, Tiffany & Co., Chanel, Michael Kors, and Swarovski. I used fondant to create these logos and placed them ontop of the white buttercream icing.

This is the Tiffany & Co. cupcake.

I used buttercream icing tinted "robin egg blue", and sprinkled a few edible sugar pearls. The white bow was made out of fondant.

This is the Swarovski cupcake.

It was a little more challenging but I decided to go freehand and draw on their signature swan logo with an edible black marker.

This is the Michael Kors cupcake.

I cut out black M & K letters from a strip of fondant and altered them to make the Kors logo.

This is the Chanel cupcake,

I used two Cs cut from a strip of black fondant and layered them to make the logo. I then layered the thin fondant below that to create a contrasting pattern, which you'd see on many Chanel handbags.

This is the Fendi cupcake.

A lot of Fendi handbags and shoes show their logo as a never-ending sea of Fs! So that's what I tried to create for this cupcake. I dusted the underlying fondant with some brown food coloring to give it that true Fendi look.

This is the Dolce & Gabbana cupcake.

Again, I used black fondant to cut out the letters. I decided to imprint the underlying white fondant with a quilted pattern to give it a more elegant look.

The order was for mini cupcakes to spell out happy birthday, as well as six regular-sized custom cupcakes. This is what the end result was.

I really enjoyed doing something different like this. It made me think outside the box as to how to incorporate what the birthday girls liked.

From what I hear, they were a hit :)

Goblins & Ghouls

These are some cupcakes I made for a few hyperactive kids. I know..sugar probably isn't the best thing in a situation like this..but it was Halloween!!

Mummy cupcakes with chocolate M&Ms as eyes.

Eyeball cupcakes..

Open brain surgery cupcakes...

Spider web cupcakes..

A few other swirl cupcakes...

Overall, a slimey gooey hit with the kids and grown ups!

Off to Winnipeg we go!

A great friend and colleague is leaving for Winnipeg to continue his post-secondary studies. I was asked to make a cake for him for his going away party. I thought of all the Winnipeg stereotypes (mainly weather-related) in order to find a theme for this cake. Making a snowy/winter cake would've been too depressing for him, especially since winter doesn't start for another few months and he definitely wasn't a fan of cold weather!

I have wanted to try doing a suitcase cake for some time now but the chance never really came up. I started off by making a butter cake..a recipe passed around the family. I didn't want to cover the cake completely in fondant since a lot of people dont like the taste. Instead, I tinted the buttercream icing with a bit of Wilton brown gel coloring and spread it evently. After a few minutes in the fridge to harden, I took a Bounty paper towel (the kind with the quilted pockets) and laid it on top of the cake. Then I took an angled spatula and gently pressed the towel onto the icing, allowing the pattern to form on top of the icing. If you look closely in the pictures below, you can see the quilted pattern. I repeated this throughout the cake, including the sides.

I cut out white fondant letters to spell out our best wishes, rolled out and cut strips of black fondant to create the luggage straps, and molded a handle. I also cut out black fondant to create the sides and edges of the luggage and used silver luster dust to create the "screws" of the luggage.

"Up All Night" with 1D!

No, don't worry I wasn't up all night again baking! This post was a long time coming. Back in June, I was asked to do One Direction themed cupcakes!! This was for a 13-year-old One Direction fan who loves purple and specifically Niall Horan. Her aunt asked for a dozen Oreo cupcakes, with purple frosting and trusted me to come through with a 1D theme.

The first step of making the Oreo cupcakes was simple..as usual, I added half an Oreo cookie (logo side down) into the cupcake wrapper and then topped it with cake batter. I then chopped up some cookies and put chunks on top. While in the oven, these chunks will move to the middle of the cupcake. When the cupcakes are finished you can see the Oreo logo on the bottom. I then topped each with a swirl of purple buttercream icing.

The second step is decorating! To keep with the One Direction theme, I first thought to create 2" round labels on lollypop sticks that could be pushed into the top of each cupcake. But this was my opportunity to try something new and different..something I haven't done before. So I thought to try edible cake toppers! I edited and cropped the bandmate's faces onto a Word document until I was satisfied, then went to a local grocery store and had the document printed on edible paper. I had no idea if the colors would bleed, or if the images would rip before I got them on the cupcake! 

I cut out 2" round fondant circles using a scalloped cookie cutter. While these were off to a side drying, I carefully peeled away the edible paper from its backing and used kitchen scissors to cut out each image. Then with a small dab of gumpaste glue, I attached each edible image to the fondant circles and let them dry. Too much gumpaste glue would have made teh colors bleed together so I was careful to use just a dab.

I let these dry for about an hour before trying to move them. The last thing I wanted were for these to flop down around each cupcake, distorting the image. After carefully placing them on top of the cakes and seeing the final product, I thought the decision to go this route was the right one!

The birthday girl and her aunt loved these, so that makes me happy! The Oreo cucpakes are always a hit! 

I had still made labels as cupcake toppers and took a few pictures to show you what the cupcakes would've looked like had I stuck to the original plan. You be the judge..which one do you like better? I might use this kind of topper in the future..the possibilities are endless!

Ah sugar, sugar!

I made these sugar-free bluberry cupcakes for a friend's birthday recently. The recipe called for the usual ingredients as well as the sugar substitute, Splenda. The mixing process was pretty much the same as any other except instead of beating butter & sugar together, you beat the butter & splenda. I coated the blueberries in flour before stirring them into the cake batter so that they wouldn't fall to the bottom while baking. That method worked really well.
When they came out of the oven, they were more scone/biscuit-like instead of regular cupcakes which was just fine with me because it looked just like the picture from the recipe and tasted great too. To keep with sugar-free theme, I topped each cupcake with a dallop of fat-free yogurt and a blueberry. I will try this recipe again using other fruit and maybe less Splenda.

Graduation

A friend requested a few mini cupcakes to celebrate his girlfriend's graduation from law school. I had wanted to do a graduation-themed cucpake for a while now and thought this would be a good opportunity. I wanted to create graduation caps out of mini-reese cups with a thin layer of chocolate on top, like these by Bakerella, but then thought it wouldn't go well on such a small cupcake. My friend had wanted to spell out the words "Congratulations, Nooreen!" so I figured I should stick to that. I made red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese icing, and added fondant letters on top. The color theme was pink and white. I tried to give the pink fondant a marble-effect. You can somewhat see that in the picture below.

I wanted to do something different with these cupcakes and make it more law-related. I randomly found this blog called A Baked Creation and it shows you how to make books out of fondant. I thought it was the coolest little cupcake toppers and of course law students have a ton of reading to do! I was told that the graduate's favorite courses were Torts and Contracts. I couldn't fit such a big words onto the small cover using my measly edible black marker so I just managed to write "Law" on it. If I ever make a larger book, I want to use fondant letters to make the spine and cover even better and more realistic. I also decided to do an open book and created some "scribbles" with the edible marker.

I tried to make the iconic judge's wooden gavel by mixing brown fondant. As you can tell, its pretty small compared to the size of the mini cupcake.

These are pictures of the cupcakes finished and ready to be picked up.

Eggless Chocolate Cupcakes

I made these cupcakes for a family of vegetarians. I didn't even have to bring out the mixer for this one, which made for an easy clean up. The recipe asked for me to stir the ingredients together with a fork. Some eggless recipes use condensed milk while others used baking soda and vinegar. I went with the latter and found a recipe on Cooks.com since it sounded less sweet.
It came out fluffy and moist and was a hit, even with the kids! I used white buttercream icing and topped it with purple sugar sprinkles. I will definitely make these again in the future.