Tropical Stitch Cake

After seeing my cakes online, one of my friends contacted me to make a birthday cake for her niece. She loves Stitch, and she wanted to incorporate that with a tropical theme.

My friend gave me the idea for some hibiscus flowers on the cake. Mom, my flower expert, had never made these before. But with some practice and some tutorials, she made some pretty cute flowers.

Mom also made some daisies as accent pieces.

And we even added the name on the cake board with a little fondant.

Now you can't tell from outside, but this is a red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting. Amazing how a little food color can fool you. We added the Stitch toy to the top of the cake along with the flowers, and it looked pretty good.

Another cake making challenge was presented to us. And I'd consider this one another cake success!

Ruffle cake

Gotta catch you up on all of the things I've been doing lately, and I haven't stopped baking!

I love making cakes for my friend's little girl, she scours everywhere for ideas, and then with Mom's help I make them happen. For her daughter's baptism, she wanted a 2 tiered cake with ruffles and roses!

I've decided that when it comes to Sweet Angels Cupcakes (mom & my baking name), Mom is the fondant/flower expert, and I'm all about the piping and buttercream. So mom created a bunch of pink roses from fondant for the top of the cake.

This was a vanilla cake with vanilla butter cream. I piped all of the ruffles on the lower tier. And we added a ribbon to bring the 2 tiers together.

The biggest part of these 2 tier cakes is the assembly, bur we put it together at the restaurant and it looked (and tasted, from what they told me) amazing!

Just love how this cake came out. Even better than I thought it would.

Kris's 40th Birthday Party

I've gotten back on a little party roll lately, and with my bestie having a big milestone birthday this year, I knew I had to do something for her. So along with her husband, Eddie, we decided to throw Kris a big 40th party.

We decided it'd be easiest to make the party happen at Kris and Eddie's house. This way the kids could stay and play, as the adults chatted and had fun. I totally got inspired by some black and white stripes I saw online paired with bright peonies, so the theme was done. Finding the striped plates and napkins wasn't easy, but I finally found them online. Then I called in to a local florist and he was able to set aside some peonies and garden roses for me. Eddie got a few balloons and the decor was done.

Eddie had a great idea for a taco bar, since Kris loves Mexican food. It was so easy to set up. Just some crock-pot taco chicken and all the fixings. Add some chips and we were set.

Since we were having the taco bar, we had to have margaritas. I made regular and strawberry margaritas. I used a mix they recommended at Total Wine, and they were great. Plus, they looked super cute in Mom's drink dispensers.

For the strawberry margaritas, I just added some fresh strawberry puree to the mix. They were perfect and not too sweet.

I couldn't throw my bestie a party without making some cupcakes. Since we were already making strawberry margaritas, strawberry margarita cupcakes were a no brainer. I also made chocolate and vanilla cupcakes for the kids, I didn't think they'd like the strawberry tequila filling.

I also made a little cake to add to the top of the cupcake tower. I decorated it with some of the fresh flowers and it looked amazing.

The birthday girl just loved it!

This girl is one of the best friends anyone could ever have, and I was so happy to be able to throw this party for her. We all had such a great time at the party. And this girl makes 40 look good!

Pokemon Cake

Mom and I are getting better at this whole cake decorating thing. This cake only took us a few hours (some others have kept us up all night!)

Our friend's son is all about Pokemon and Pikachu right now, so we made him a Pikachu cake! It's a vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream. The real fun was the decorating. We traced a Pokemon, colored him with edible markers and put him on the cake.

Can I tell you how awesome the edible markers are? It made it so easy to give Pikachu his face. I don't know why I hadn't bought them before.

Another cake in the done column. Each cake we make has a new set of challenges and a new technique or two to try out. This one was definitely fun, especially since I got to color.

If you could get a cake with a character on it, who would you pick?

Oreo cupcakes

I love getting cupcake requests, cause it forces me to come up with new flavors of cupcakes. My friend, JP, asked for Oreo cupcakes for his birthday, and I was more than happy to oblige.

These cupcakes start with an Oreo on the bottom. Can you imagine anything yummier? Separate the Oreo and put the half with the cream on the bottom of your cupcake liners. Save the tops of your Oreos to add to your buttercream later.

I then filled my cupcake liners with the batter. I added crushed Oreo pieces to the batter. Next time I'm gonna mix them in, so you can get little Oreo pieces throughout the cupcakes.

They baked up so nice.

Now, it's time to make the buttercream. I started by making a basic vanilla buttercream. Then I took the Oreo tops that I saved from before and crushed them in my mini food processor. Make sure the Oreo crumbs are fine, so they won't be clumpy when you add them to the buttercream. (I took my Mom's suggestion and passed the crumbs through a strainer before adding them to the buttercream.) Then just add your Oreo crumbs to the buttercream and mix them in.

Then frost your Oreo cupcakes with your cookies and cream frosting and sprinkle some extra Oreo crumbs on the top.

These cupcakes were great, chocolatey and full of Oreo goodness from the frosting all the way to the cookie at the bottom. These are perfect for a choco-holic or Oreo addict!

Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone! Today is the one day a year I'm Irish (well maybe just redheaded). Since St. Patrick's Day fell on a Monday, I had time to try out a new cupcake recipe for the occasion.

I had to use some Irish spirits to make the cupcakes really scream St. Patrick's without too much green. I got some Bailey's, Guinness, and Jameson to make some Irish Car Bomb inspired cupcakes.

First I made the cupcakes, instead of the liquid needed, I substituted the same amount of Guinness. It made the cupcakes nice and fluffy.

Next I made a chocolate ganache, spiked with a little Jameson's Irish Whisky. This gave the ganache just a little kick.

I filled the cupcakes with ganache. And I would like to thank the internet for letting me in on a little secret. I used the big frosting tips that I have to cut a hole in the cupcakes for filling.  This is so much easier than using a knife.

 

I made my regular vanilla buttercream, but made it "Irish" by adding some Bailey's Irish Cream to to the mix. It gave it just the right hint. Then a few green sprinkles and they were ready to go.

I know everyone at the office will enjoy this little treat.

St. Paddy's is always such a fun holiday. I hope you're wearing your green so you won't get pinched.

Lego superhero party

My nephew, Xander, turned 7 last week, and he wanted a birthday party at home, so that's what he got. He's still all about superheroes, but we had to change it up a little (since he ALWAYS wants a superhero party). He loves his Lego video games, so Lego superheroes was a great twist on the superhero theme.

The color palette for the party was easy, red, yellow, and blue.

And then, we just added a few Lego details, and Lego superheroes, to round it all out.

I also made some cute (and super easy) Lego inspired goodie bags for the kids to take home with them.

We had a twist on pin the tail on the donkey too, we played "pin the spider on Lego Spiderman." I can't take credit for this though, that drawing was all Eddie!

 Spidey ended up with spiders in very interesting places at the end of the day.

And no birthday would be complete without cupcakes. We decorated them with cutouts of Lego superheroes.

X had a great time at his party, and the Lego superhero theme was a total hit.

Are you in on the Lego craze?

Dulce de Leche cupcakes

It's birthday time around these parts, and I knew exactly the cupcakes that I wanted to make Damaris, it had to be dulce de leche!

I whipped up this new flavor of cupcake with Damaris in mind. Anything involving dulce de leche (or leche condensada for that matter) is high on her list of loves. I made a vanilla cake, filled with dulce de leche topped with buttercream and a dulce de leche drizzle, it was just perfect for this sweets-loving girl.



I was also dying to use my new dessert ferris wheel, but alas, the cupcakes were a little too big to fit inside. I'll have to figure out something for next time.

I thought the dulce de leche filling might overwhelm the cupcake with sweetness, but it was just enough to give the dulce de leche flavor, without being cloyingly sweet. The cupcakes were a great surprise for the birthday girl and she loved her personal flavor.

Nothing says happy birthday like a cupcake. And these were a total hit!

If you could pick any cupcake flavor for your birthday, what would it be?

Cake time: Oreo cake and Chocolate Raspberry Cake

It's been a while since I've done some baking, but it was time for cake. I can't take all of the credit, mom did some of the baking too.

First was my brother, Angel's, birthday. Mom made him an "Oreo" cake. And it had a racecar theme, since he loves him some Nascar. And yes, the race track was made out of crushed up oreos.

 

Once you cut into the cake, you could really see why it was an "Oreo" cake. There were two layers of chocolate cake, and in between a layer of vanilla. It looked like a big oreo cookie. And the best part was the oreo buttercream that Mom put in between the layers. I love cookies and cream, and it was like that, but in frosting form.

It was a very yummy cake.

I couldn't let Mom do all the baking, and I also made a cake this week. I made a chocolate raspberry cake for the office.

 

It was chocolate cake filled with raspberry jam, and topped with fluffy white frosting. I used some cake crumbs on the side of the cake (this is a lot harder than it seems!), and then decorated the top with some more raspberry jam. The cake was moist and delicious.

Making cake was a nice change from making cupcakes all the time. I love cupcakes, but sometimes you just want a big fat slice of cake.

Do you like cake or cupcakes better?