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.

Pink Birthday Cupcakes

My free samples for my husband's colleagues paid off :) One of his co-workers ordered 2 dozen chocolate cupcakes with pink frosting for her daughter's birthday. Pretty easy, think I can handle that. Once I got them decorated I thought they needed a bit more so I put some pretty little yellow flowers on them and I think they turned out perfect :)

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.

More Flowers

I've been on sort of a flower kick lately. I made some really pretty yellow daisies and some more little yellow flowers like the blue forget-me-nots. They are so fun to make, although a bit time consuming when you make in batches of 500 :)

Jori's Wedding Cake

In addition to the 120 cupcakes Jori wanted we also did a three tier funfetti cake with buttercream frosting and fondant. It was an outdoor wedding late in the afternoon and so of course my first concern was how the cake and frosting would hold up in the heat. I never bake my cakes ahead of time and freeze them because I want them to be as fresh as possible, but I was tempted this time simply to help keep them cold in the heat. Instead of freezing them, though, I just kept them refrigerated unless I was actively working on that individual cake. Unfortunately, the heat still got to the cakes and they started to droop a little. I had put wooden dowels in each layer to help support it but they still leaned some. These pictures are before I fixed the leaning.

This is a picture of all of the cakes and cupcakes awaiting frosting.

This is a picture of the whole cake before I fixed the leaning. You can also see the cupcakes scattered around the cake table.

The bottom layer had light and dark blue fondant stripes with a shell border on the bottom and royal icing flowers the same as on the cupcakes.



The middle layer had a layer of dark blue fondant cut into the shape of waves with a smaller layer of light blue fondant waves put on top. Again we put the same shell border with royal icing flowers.


The top layer was the same as the bottom using light and dark blue fondant stripes with the same border.

Jori's Wedding Cupcakes

Cupcakes are definitely the hot item for weddings right now. Jori wanted a three tier wedding cake with cupcakes to make up the difference to feed her guests. Jori requested Funfetti cake with buttercream frosting and then we added royal icing flowers to the tops of the cupcakes.

We did light and dark blue Forget-me-nots. We put three on each cupcake so I made about 500 flowers total. We also put some on the cake. I made them about a week ahead of time so they would have time to dry and also so I wouldn't be so busy the week of the cake.

This is what 500 forget-me-nots looked like on my kitchen table. It was all I could do to keep my family from eating them.

This is the end result of the cupcakes. I painstakingly smooth frosted each cupcake because Jori liked the smooth look of fondant but didn't want that on her cupcakes. I made sure my icing was thin so it would be sure and smooth out nicely. And within a couple of hours the frosting had a nice hardened top on it and they looked perfect and smooth with the flowers on top.

50th Wedding Anniversary

This is a tiered cake I did for my great grandparents 50th wedding anniversary. It was in December so the colors were red and gold with poinsettias. I made poinsettias out of royal icing but was very displeased with the way they turned out. It is so hard to achieve "red" flowers in frosting. I did some embroidery designs on the sides and used red ribbon with gold accents. I used the wilton candle cake holder but instead of using candles I put big bows out of matching ribbons on each of the 4 candle holders. Since the cake stand sits about 4 inches above the table I put white Christmas lights wrapped in gold toulle under it and it had a beautiful glowing effect.