Monogrammed Snowflake Brownie Cupcakes

So we have a family dinner every Saturday night in my family... or I should say families. We rotate every other weekend between my family and my husband's family. This weekend is my husband's family's weekend and I was asked to bring something sweet. I wanted to stay away from Valentine's Day since I already have a cake in mid-design so I decided to do one of my favorite things - snowflakes! Lana and her cousin Elise just learned all about snowmen at the library this week so I just decided to keep the theme going :) Lana and I whipped up a batch of triple chocolate brownie cupcakes. Then I cut out some snowflakes and embellished each one with the first initial of a dinner guest. The extra cupcakes were topped with a secondary snowflake. Monogramming is very in right now (especially for weddings) so I figured this would be a good thing to have in my cake portfolio :) Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow... cupcakes of course!

Let Them Eat Practice Cakes!

The practice cake has officially begun! Here are the finished roses that will be the main focus for my February practice cake! What is a practice cake? It's a cake that lets me practice all those techniques in cake decorating that I have been dying to try! Since I don't have any cake orders this month it is the perfect time to create and execute a self-designed cake. My husband has been urging me to do this for the last 6 months. Since it's the only way I'm going to advance my cake decorating skills, I have finally seized the opportunity. Back to the roses... I am really happy at how they turned out. The roses themselves were not hard to do but the stems were a completely different story! My husband challenged me to forgo the traditional green paper wrapped floral wire and instead cover the wires in gumpaste to make the flower look uniform. It took several attempts to achieve this. And I don't even want to talk about attaching the leaves! Hopefully I will either get better at it over time or discover an easier way to accomplish rose stems and leaves. Stay tuned for the finished cake later this month!

The Challenges of Gumpaste Flower-Making...

This weekend I had some time to try fashioning some gum-paste roses. I have never made them before but would like to put some on the practice cake I am planning for February. They are a lot harder than I was expecting. I have made roses before using fondant but the gum-paste just seemed to be so much harder to use! It dries out a lot faster and the "glue" to hold them together is terribly messy. Above is the end product to my first attempt. I used the single petal method to make this rose, the Wilton instructions and I weren't getting along. I liked the color that I made but wished it had leaned more to the pink rather than the purple as it dried. The end rose wasn't exactly what I was shooting for - I wanted the rose to be more open - so the next morning I did another attempt...

 

I tried a marbled delphinium blue for the second flower. I left it slightly unmixed to give it a marbled, highlighted look. Very natural affect in the end I think. I attempted the Wilton method again and this time it sort of worked. This flower unfortunately  was dropped , crushing the center, and then I smashed it trying to get the petals higher than the middle part. Although I think I figured out the Wilton method this time around, I was not happy at all in how it turned out so I tried one more time...

Third time's the charm! This is how I expected the flowers to look using the Wilton method! Although now after all the work I think I prefer the first single petal style. This method gives the rose a more natural look but the single petal method gives it that crisp look - a clean perfected flower to place on a cake. This last rose gave me enough practice to really know how to soften the petal edges though and which sides to place on the flower to have them curl towards the center or away from the center. Hopefully my flowers for my February cake will be successful!

Jungle Dirt Cups

Not only did Elise get a super awesome Go Diego cake for her birthday but I also made her some jungle themed dirt pudding cups for our family birthday celebration. I simple whipped up some dirt pudding, spooned it in between two layers of Oreo crumbs and then slid them into some jungle cupcake wrappers and topped them off with giraffe toothpick toppers. Simple and easy, yet looks like you fussed!

Go Diego Cake

My niece's third birthday party was this weekend! Where has the time gone? My sister-in-law decided to throw a jungle-themed Diego party this year and gave me a picture of a cake that she had found online that she liked. The cake that she liked featured Diego and Dora but she had decided to not include Dora since Elise isn't really a big fan of her. I altered the design a little bit to accomodate not having Dora included and this is how it turned out! The flowers of course I pictured earlier this week in all their shimmering glory. The road was made from chocolate-covered sunflower seeds and the rocks in the waterfall are actually edible chocolate candy rocks that I searched the entire area for! The kids at the party loved the cake. Happy 3rd Birthday Elise - we love you very much!

Gumpaste Flowers

It's a new year for cake decorating! My wonderful family got me all kinds of neat baking equipment to try out this year for Christmas! One of the things I couldn't wait to try out was the gumpaste flower making set that my husband got me. And since my niece's birthday cake needs to be made (and just happens to require some flowers) I jumped at the chance. These are my first gumpaste flowers. Blossoms made with an ejector set, sprinkles used for stamens and finished with a dusting of yellow pearl dust. Truly makes me want to do a faerie cake covered in "faerie dust" at some point. I think I'm going to be making a lot of gunpaste flower creations this year!

Slacking...

So I keep promising myself that I am going to take a break from cake decorating. I promised myself in October and I made a Bugs Bunny cake for my awesome cousin Kaitlyn. And a Toy Story cake for my parent's neighbor's granddaughter. And then I promised myself in November and I made Chip Lover's Cupcakes for my Dad who's birthday always falls on the week of Thanksgiving. Of course I failed to get pictures of these creations with anything but my camera phone...

So now it is December and this month I will be taking a break from cake-making. January marks my niece's 3rd birthday and my sister-in-law has a supreme party in the planning that I will be making a fantabulous cake creation for. Have a great holiday everyone and happy baking!