Rodney's birthday: Mac Mini + Cupcakes

This was one of Rodney's birthday cakes this year - the one that went to Tango.

Stacked two 8 inch cakes, one chocolate and one vanilla wrapped in marshmallow fondant. (painted with brilliant silver luster dust)

Just about the only thing I did on this cake was make it. Rodney did the decorating on this cake because I had a girl date that evening. What a great job!



I made these cupcakes for the little get together we had the night of his birthday. He asked for chocolate with white icing...simple enough!

Mimosa flavored cupcakes

These were an experiment.

This flavor has been floating around here and there. I've heard of people making mimosa flavored cupcakes and since my friend Amy had a taste of one at a bridal show (she said she loved it), I decided I should try to make it.

This was an impromptu trial as I was in the cake shop this afternoon and decided to buy some champagne flavoring.

I added orange flavoring to a vanilla cake recipe and topped it off with champagne flavored buttercream.

I turned out pretty good. I would say it tastes like a cross between a creamsicle and a mimosa. Rodney says they taste like bubble gum. I'm not really sure that's what I was going for ...

I think for my next attempt I might try adding some orange zest to the batter - I think I might also do a creamy orange mousse filling and then top it off with the champagne flavored buttercream.

This attempt did come out pretty well though and I'm pretty sure it's Rodney's new favorite!

Easter Nests

I made these for fun and to take up to school last week. (yes I am JUST now getting around to posting, we've been busy and our internet was down for a day and a half!)

They are carrot cake cupcakes with vanilla bc dipped in toasted coconut. With jelly beans on top.

These were really easy and fun to make! And tasty!

New Crisco, I hate thee

This order was for a good friend of mine. A childhood friend of mine actually. We'd lost touch for a little while but started talking again a little over a year ago (thanks myspace!) and found out that we have the same OBGYN! These cupcakes and smash cake are for her son Nathan's, first birthday! (what a cutie by the way!) You can check him out at The Briggs Family.

The theme of this party is bugs, so I made the cupcakes and smash cake to go along with said theme. There are 50 cupcakes (half chocolate, half white) and the "smash cake" is two layers, 5 inches (white cake).

I really enjoyed making these cupcakes and thought they came out pretty well, I just didn't know how time consuming they were going to be. I literally spent from 9 am until nearly 7 pm only working on those. I finally started the smash cake at 10pm. (had to take a break!)

Any problems you ask? Why yes, there were in fact.

What's up with the new Crisco? Anyone else hate it as much as I do? I know, I know, 0 trans fat is better -- I know this. Seriously though, it's not better for my icing consistency. I've had nothing but problems since they made this switch. I use an all shortening icing recipe and now I'm not sure what I'm going to do short from ordering some expensive stuff via internet. I NEVER have any problems with my icing bleeding but that's all I had this time. The consistency has changed and it's extra greasy and it doesn't seem to hold color as well as before either. I had to fix the smash cake this morning because of some bleeding problems and some mini cupcakes I'd made for another event we went to this afternoon were SUPER greasy and almost sweating. I've also noticed that it's harder to smooth. I don't like to use the "hot knife" method unless I absolutely have to (hate waiting for the cake to dry) and I ABSOLUTELY had to. The icing was sliding off of the cake a lot too and pulling away as well. It's getting to be that time of year when it's ridiculous hot here in North Texas and because it's been raining and flooding for the last 2 months, it's unbearably humid. I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to start refrigerating all of my cakes, no matter what, during the summer and fall. (fall is hot here too) This Crisco problem is making this that much worse.

I'm so mad at Crisco right now.

Anyway, the cupcakes are cute! I hope Nathan enjoys his cake and his first birthday!

Mini Cupcakes

These were made for Tango's "Wii Party." They requested that they be decorated in spring colors with half chocolate cake and half vanilla.

I loved making these. They were pretty easy and didn't take very long at all. Perfectly sized too! You can't go wrong with mini!

(icing was vanilla bc on both types of cupcakes)