70th Birthday

I made these cupcakes for my Grandma's 70th Birthday! The theme was colorful flowers! It was perfect and so fun to make all of the flowers for the toppers.


I used the cupcake boxes to display all of the cupcakes so for the top tier I made a white cake and then did a basket weave design. I used crushed oreos for the dirt in the basket and then attached some of the cupcakes with the same colorful flowers with skewers.


Here are some views of it all put together!


There were about 9 different flavors to choose from so everyone should have been able to find something they likes :)


The flowers were all made out of fondant with royal icing centers and sprinkles.

Bunko Cupcakes

I made these cupcakes for my Bunko Group that I hosted this month! I made mint oreo cupcakes, black forest cupcakes, and chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting. The dice are made out of fondant!

Flip Flops

I've spent the last week working on this particular project. It was a lot of fun but you can only imagine my relief that it is done :) It is fun making all of the little parts, but such a sense of accomplishment when you can finally put all of the pieces together and have it all turn out just how you wanted.

This set of cupcakes/cake was for a wedding reception. It was an outdoor reception in the middle of July in Central CA! Crazy!!! But it was what it was! At least the Bride & Groom went easy on the guests and said it's casual, "Shorts & Flip Flops required"! What a life saver! That was also my cue for the theme of the cake/cupcakes.

I had never actually made flip flops before but I wanted to learn! So I researched the internet extensively and found a few sites that were quite explanatory on how they had achieved their adorable flip flops. I had several mess-ups which my son gladly helped me dispose of, and then finally I got the technique down. I was able to master the technique because I had to make 200 pairs (that's 400 individual) flip flops for the cupcakes, plus a few extras for spares. It would certainly be a lot easier if I could find a cutter in that exact shape, but for now I am content with my technique and thought they turned out quite well. I also made 2 pairs of large flip flops for the cake which sat on top of the cupcake boxes. One for groom and one for the bride!


Some flip flops :)


More flip flops!


And yet more flip flops!


After I got all of the soles cut out I had to put on the straps. I used fondant icing to do the stripes and attached a little fondant dot as an embellishment. I tried to do enough colors and alternate them so there were not too many duplicates. I was quite pleased with my 2 days work involved :)


Lots of flip flops :)

By that point it was time to make the cake and cupcakes. We did chocolate, vanilla, and marble cupcakes all with buttercream frosting. I piped the frosting on to look like green grass and then put the flip flops on with a little royal icing flower. Overall, I was extremely pleased with the end result. Rarely do I get the opportunity to attend the event I am baking for, but I was invited to this reception so I was able to see all of the reactions. It was very fun to hear how much everyone liked the cupcakes. It was even better to see them bite into the cupcake and realize that it tasted good too! That is a hard combination to come by!!!


Some cupcakes!


More cupcakes!


Bride & Groom Cake




Bottom layer of the cupcake boxes.


Middle layer of the cupcake boxes.


Top layer of cupcake boxes.

Brittany's Baby Shower

These are cupcakes I did for a baby shower. The theme was called "King of the Jungle" off of ezpartyzone.com. The products were adorable so I tried to kind of match the cupcake boxes to the theme and cupcakes. I think they turned out cute!!! I originally was going to make the buttercream frosting vanilla flavored and tint it brown, but I decided it would look too much like chocolate buttercream and so when everyone bit into it the flavor would be off because they would expect it to be chocolate. So, I just went with chocolate buttercream.

Kim's Wedding

This is the first wedding I had scheduled for this summer and originally it was going to be a three tier cake, but the bride decided she wanted cupcakes and I'm so glad she changed her mind. I think her "cake" turned out beautiful! I'm going to start encouraging the cupcakes :) If you read the previous post about the cupcake boxes and their purpose, this is the event they were created for! It was hard to get a straight on view of the cake after I had it set up so all of the pictures look like it was slanting but really it was just the angle of the camera. It was an outdoor wedding held in the middle of the afternoon so I suggested they not move the cake table outside until they were ready to serve, simply because buttercream frosting and heat do not mix.

This is the entire thing all set up. Her colors were black and white with red accents. It was a beautiful combination.

I covered the boxes in different patterns of black and white scrapbook paper and then used artificial red cherry blossoms to accent in red. I had thought about lining the bottom of each layer of boxes with red ribbon, I decided against and am so glad. I think it would have really detracted from the overall appearance and made it look to busy.

This is prior to putting the artificial flowers on. I think they really made a big difference in appearance since Kim opted for very simple appearing cupcakes.

The cupcakes: 1/3 chocolate, 1/3 vanilla, 1/3 marble. I used the silver wrappers which again I think really added a pleasing look. I used silver sugar sprinkles and then added a red royal icing flower. Much to my dismay I found out that the little silver balls are now outlawed in CA. I think they would have looked nice, however, I still think they turned out fine with the sprinkles.

This is the top of the cake. I didn't have good lighting trying to get an upclose so it is a little bright. I used the same artificial blossoms in red and white for the top of the cake and Kim had gotten the silver wedding hearts to go in the middle.

Black & White Cupcake Boxes

I started working on my cupcake boxes for my upcoming wedding this weekend. I learned a new trick and thought I would share. When cutting the paper for the sides if you cut it about a half an inch taller than the side of the wood, when you glue it down you can fold the excess over the top. When you glue the top pieces down lay them all the way to the edge of the wood and overlap the side pieces. This really helps to create a very nice clean edge on the top, which is what most people will see. Now, I'm trying to figure out how to make nice clean corners and I think I have it figured out in my mind but unfortunately I thought about it too late to try it on this set of boxes. I guess that'll just have to be another post :) I also figured out that have a base layer of paper already down really helped the second layer to stick much better.

This is a picture of the side piece of paper overlapping the top edge, and then on the sides of it you can see how clean it looks once you glue the top pieces down.

Cupcakes for Fun

I recently received my first order of wedding cupcakes as the entire cake with just one tier on the top for the bride and groom. I had looked online extensively doing research to learn how to set it up. There are several different stands and things available to display your cupcakes on. My thought was to use nesting boxes turned upside down and stacked on each other. Luckily, I decided to test out my idea well in advance of the wedding date, because my idea didn't work. The boxes did indeed stack nicely on each other however there was no room along the edges to put cupcakes. I even tried to line them all up on a corner in the back so that cupcakes would just be put along two sides but there still wasn't room for a cupcake to sit on the ledge. So, I began trying to think of another idea. I decided that my idea worked of nesting boxes, just my store bought boxes didn't allow for enough of a ledge for the cupcakes to sit on. So I decided to make my own boxes.

Of course that required the help of my favorite handy man, my dad! So we purchased a piece of plywood, heavy duty, and set about to turn it into stacking boxes. I figured I needed a 3.5" ledge all the way around the box for the cupcakes to sit on. So I started with a 5" box on the top. that would allow for approximately 3-4 cupcakes to sit on top if they were to be the topper. So if my first box was a 5"x5" my second box needed to add 3.5" all the way around, so I made a 12"x12" box. I made each box 4" tall so that you could still see about an inch or so of the box above the cupcake. My third box was 19"x19" and my fourth box was 26"x26". That created 5 layers that cupcakes could sit on. I figured that would handle plenty of cupcakes for what I needed.

After we got all of the boxes cut, glued and stapled together I sanded them and painted them. I wanted to have a finished product to start applying cupcakes to. My next idea then was to cover each side of the boxes and the ledge where the cupcakes would sit with scrapbook paper to match whatever theme/event the cupcakes were for. I was a little unsure what product would work the best to attach the scrapbook paper to painted plywood. A friend suggested Mod Podge.

By this point I had the boxes made, sanded, and painted. I had the idea for how to apply scrapbook paper and I had an event to use the boxes. However, the event was for a wedding and I really didn't think it was a good idea to wait to try out my boxes for a wedding someone was paying me to do the cupcakes for. So, I decided to have my own party and try out my cupcakes boxes :) I invited a bunch of friends over and started working on my boxes. I had a bunch of scrapbook paper already at home so I decided to make this party fun and festive. I found coordinating pieces of scrapbook paper and did each layer of my cupcake boxes in a different color. The bottom layers was in blue, the middle layer was in pink, and the top layer was in purple. Obviously I didn't need to use all the layers of my boxes to try it out so I took out the 5" layer and only used the larger 3 layers.

When I started applying the scrapbook paper I first used glue stick to get the paper to stay on the box just temporarily while I put the mod podge on. I learned a couple of things about putting on the scrapbook paper. One thing was that mod podge does not come off your table very easily so protect the surface you are working on :) The second thing was that I needed to go slowly and take my time to ensure that I didn't get wrinkles in the paper as I brushed on the mod podge. Other than that, I think things turned out fairly well. I liked the surface it created after the mod podge dried because I was able to wipe it off with a wet cloth. Here is a picture of the completed project with the cupcakes on it.


After I got my boxes all ready I realized I needed to make some cupcakes to go on top of my boxes. One of my good friends makes some of the yummiest cupcakes so I used her as inspiration and started creating cupcakes. I made four different kinds of cupcakes. This is a picture of the oreo cookie cupcake. I made chocolate cupcakes and after they cooled I scooped out the centers. Then I blended about 15 oreos into crumbly pieces in the blender. The texture was a little too dry for my liking so I add a large spoonful of french vanilla cool whip to the oreos and mixed it all up together. Then I filled each of the hollowed out cupcakes with the oreo cookie mix and let it chill in the refrigerator. After it had chilled for a couple of hours I made a chocolate cream frosting and piled it up on top and then add half of an oreo cookie as garnishment.



The second kind I made was peanut butter cookie. I love peanut butter so I had no choice but to create one with peanut butter. For this one I made a vanilla cupcake and again hollowed out the center. Then separately I made peanut butter cookies but I cooked them in little balls instead of flattening them. While the cookies were still hot from the oven I filled each cupcake with a cookie. Since they were still warm I was able to mold the cookie to fill up the whole space inside the cupcake. I frosted it with a peanut butter buttercream frosting and then crumbled cooled peanut butter cookies over the top. You definitely needed some milk with these :)



The third kind of cupcake I called Berrylicious. The berrylicious was in both chocolate and vanilla cupcakes. First, I filled the cupcakes with a mix of fresh strawberries and raspberries. Then I blended more berries together and added some powdered sugar to sweeten them. I had planned on this being the frosting but it was much too runny so I just filled the rest of the centers with this add made a smooth top across the top of the cupcake. I made some fluffy vanilla frosting and piled it high on top and added a fresh raspberry. The last kind of cupcake was limeade colada. I made coconut cupcakes and then made a whipped lime frosting with lime zest and then put a fresh lime sliver on the top. They were soooo yummy :)


I found a fun new blog called Bakerella. The web address is www.bakerella.blogspot.com. She makes these really fun things called cakepops. There are tons of different shapes and characters you can create. She had a really fun one for Mother's Day in the shape of flowers. So I decided I would try it out as the topper to my cupcake boxes. First you bake a boxed cake according to the directions. After it cools completely you crumble it all up and add one container of vanilla frosting. Then you shape it into little 1" balls and put them in the refrigerator to chill for about an hour or so. When they are done chilling you shape each ball into a cylinder shape. You stick a sucker stick into the bottom of it and then dip the cake ball into melted white candy melts. This took longer than I expected because the candy melts didn't cool very quickly so it kept running everywhere. After I dipped all of the cylinders into the candy melts I left them to cool. I decided it would speed the process up if I stuck them in the freezer. About 2 hours later I pulled them out of the freezer to begin creating my "flowers". Much to my horror as soon as I pulled them out of the freezer they began sweating as they came back to room temperature! I thought I had completely ruined them. Much to my surprise though, the candy melts stayed hardened and the sweating didn't cause any problems, other than putting me behind schedule for creating my flowers :) I let the cupcake pops return completely to room temperature then attempted creating the flowers. I had bought some Good 'n Plenty's to make the petals of the flowers and some different colored gumballs to be the centers of the flower. I had to stick each piece of candy into the melted candy melts and then hold it onto my cupcake pop and allow the candy melt to cool. This was a very tedious process. I had made about 60 cupcake pops but with the amount of time it took to apply all of the candies and such I only ended up with 12 cupcake flower pops. Here is a picture of the completed cupcake pops. I used a gree styrofoam cube and draped it with a piece of white fondant and then stuck the sucker sticks inside of the cube to keep them upright.



Here is a picture of the cupcake flower pops in progress.