Purple and Grey Leopard Print Shoe Cake

This one turned out really nicely.  The client showed me a photo and we took it from there.  Never realized how lovely these colors look together.

Used the My Cake School (www.mycakeschool.com) tutorial to do the leopard spots with frosting on the cake.  The shoe was made from fondant and I hand-painted the spots on.  Name plate was also hand-painted. Top tier is covered in grey pearls. Overall, a super fun cake to make!

Because I usually have more batter than I need, I make a few cupcakes to have at home.  Also did a leopard print on these. Super cute!

Ravishing Rosette Cupcakes - Chocolate Lover's Edition

Made these over the weekend.  If I'm not baking on a weekend, life just isn't the same. Wishing I had a big project for the upcoming weekend, but I've got zilch.  Guess I'll have to invent one for myself. :)

This little gem is a box chocolate cake mix with mini chocolate chips added to the batter.  I used the remainder of my Nutella buttercream disaster-turned-to-triumph icing to frost.

They were ridiculously good and SUPER chocolately. My five year old son, who is an "icing eater only" ate several in their entirety on Sunday -which was quite a shock.

Brought them to work on Monday and they are long gone.  Sigh.  They were a tasty lot.

I'm thinking raspberry filling next time, yes?

Practice Makes Perfect

I had some leftover icing so decided I would play the other day when I found myself at home for the day with a sick baby (double ear infection). : (

While he snoozed, I baked a batch of cupcakes (Pillsbury funfetti cake mix on SALE - booyah!) and used my leftover icing from the Tree frog extravangza a while ago to play and use a tip I hadn't tried before.  The tip is Wilton #104, which is a petal tip, and I used it to make flowers and ruffles.

They came out ok.  I have a long way to go, but they're not bad.

These Had Me Hoppin'

My second fondant challenge was a big one. My son's t-ball team The Treefrogs was having an end of the season party and I used it as a great excuse to work with fondant some more. I decided I wanted to make fondant tree frogs.  I don't even know why I decided to go with something so complex, but I rationalized that it really wasn't that bad - just a sum of parts.

ELEVEN parts, to be exact.

I originally thought I would make a frog for each of my 48 cupcakes, but that was a plague-like feat I simply wasn't going to be able to accomplish.  Considering that first tree frog took me about 30 minutes to complete.  And that I have a baby and a young son to tend to, etc etc  It just wasn't possible.  We ended up with 10 frogs total.  And I came up with some other ideas for the additional cupcakes, which turned out pretty great as well.

This first cupcake I called my "all-star cupcake."  The stars are 4th of July marshmallows I picked up at the grocery store on clearance.  I speared them with toothpicks, dipped them in tinted candy melts, sprinkled them with sparkling sugar and voila - sparkly stars.  Used a grass tip for the icing, which was a bit tricky to get used to.

My baseball cupcake.  These were pretty tough to get right. My first attempt looked like my baby son had done them.

And my complicated little tree frog.  Eleven parts to assemble, but well worth the time and effort.  For the pupils of his eyes, I dipped the end of a cotton swab into black food coloring (since I haven't yet purchased any edible markers.)

To make the frogs appear slimy, I sprayed a bit of butter flavored non-stick spray onto a plate and used a small paintbrush to paint each one.  I didn't want to spray them whole for fear that their pupils would run.  

Here they are on my cupcake tree at the party.

Top frog!

30th Birthday Fiesta Cupcakes

I started out with cupcakes, because I figured that cupcakes would be much easier.

HA!

Cupcakes have their pros, but the cons concerning decorating is that each cupcake needs a design.  And each design takes time to make.  But, until I conquer my fear of stacking the big cakes, I remain in my cupcake comfort zone, however time-consuming it may be.

The following cupcakes are my first work with fondant.  I made these for my sister's 30th birthday Fiesta Celebration.

But first, this is my very first fondant creation.

And the cupcakes - featuring peppers, sombreros, maracas and cacti.

The sombreros were actually made with gummi rings, but I did add fondant ties.