Trying New Things

So I've been experimenting with some new flavors, you've already seen the Guinness cupcakes. A magazine came out that has tons of flavors I've been wanting to try, including a chocolate peanut butter cup! Yummy!
I have not got that far yet, but I did try:

Orange creamsicle cupcakes.

These were for Lenae's son's birthday. I think they got the thumbs up from almost everyone, except for me and The Kid, but we're cake freaks purists, we both like plain white cake with no frosting.

And I had some leftover chocolate batter from these cupcakes.
So I tried out dark chocolate and orange cupcakes. I just added a hoop more bittersweet chocolate chunks and orange juice and zest to the batter, and used leftover orange creamsicle frosting.
Of course, since I'm an evil enabler, I took them to the gym for my workout partners to taste test.

They cursed me, but they ate them!

Also on the "To Do" list are these delicious sounding Butterbeer cupcakes from AmyBites. Cream soda and caramel...sounds like awesome!

Hello Kitty

After making cakes pretty steady for about a year I finally have my first Hello Kitty cake request. And, I actually have another Hello Kitty cake later this week as well. When it rains it pours cute little kitties.

The colors and idea was based off this napkin that I was given.
She's pretty cute for a cat with no mouth.

Here are the coordinating cupcakes that went along with the cake.


Nom, nom, nom!

Living Large

As a kid I absolutely loved Garfield comics. I think I had about 30 of those books. So, imagine my surprise when I was asked to make a Garfield themed cake for one of The Kid's BFF's birthday party. I also made her cake last year, which was an American Idol theme, but I don't think I've ever posted it here.

Anyway, Garfield, Yay!

I was lucky I also had some inspiration. Thank you Bakerella.


The cupcakes ended up being served at the party, and then they took the cake home to be eaten later.

This is the only fully fondant covered cake that I've done in a really long time.

The Big Freeze

These were kind of a last minute creation for one of The Kid's classmates. I made his cupcakes last year too, so I was more than happy to do these as well.

He wanted Ice Age cupcakes this year.

Sid and Manny were the only characters I could sculpt, the others kept coming out too blobby.

Add some snowflakes and a few acorns here and there.

Skate party

First time ever making a skateboarding themed cake. Cakes for older boys can get tricky, add too much and it gets to looking too girly. Lucky for me, this family had a pretty firm idea of what they wanted.
Originally it was going to be just a skateboard shaped cake. But we got to talking and decided on a Vans inspired red and black checkerboard with some skateboard decorations.
These skateboards are gumpaste painted with icing gell colors. I know that on a real skateboard it's the bottom of the deck that is painted and decorated, but I thought that it would look weird to have them upside down, so I painted the tops. Artistic license.
And some cupcakes to go along with it all for easy serving at the party.

Yarn Kitty

This was for a teacher's birthday. She ordered a small cake and cupcakes to share with her class.

She likes crochet, and kitties.

Here are the cupcakes that go along with these. She has a rather large class.

Hot-Cha-Cha!

Our PTSA did a Teacher Appreciation lunch this week with a spicy theme.

I'm not so much for cooking spicy foods these days (The Husband has a sensitive palate), eating spicy foods yes, cooking not so much.

I'm usually on desserts for these things, so I decided to try something new.

I hear that the chocolate/chili combo is supposed to be very nice.
So I did chocolate dipped chili peppers on regular chocolate cupcakes.

Here is The Kid's teacher after braving the first nibble.
I'm guessing it was a little hot, though she did admit that her tongue was a bit numb after the rest of her spicy lunch.

The consensus of those who braved the pepper was that it was a nice flavor combination.

Who knew?

Going to the Dogs

So, puppy dog cupcakes for a birthday.

Luckily I had just checked out this book from the library, and it had some great ideas for making dogs.

A sort of Dalmatian.

My favorite, a disapproving Scottie.

Some sort of squishy faced dog that kind of looks like Chewbaca.

And a sort of a Westie.

One little girl went around the room collecting all the dogs from classmates willing to give them up. She ended up taking about six of them home on a plate, it was kind of strange.

Paddling Away

These cupcakes were the classroom counterpart to the cake in the previous post.

Again, ducks. Hand sculpted ducks, from fondant.

I'm sure these were served at the end of the day. Can you imagine the sugar rush??