Hostess Wanna Be's

Okay so the last post hinted at this..........but I didn't want to give it away too soon. When I was doing the Baby Shower Surprise cupcakes Dave was lurking around tasting things. He loved the center filling of the cucpakes and noticed that there was some left. I also had chocolate cake batter left and we were headed to a party the next day.............he asked nicely what I might be doing with all that left over stuff. And so I did this for Dave (mostly).

Baked out the batter into cupcakes - hollowed them out using my dorky makeshift tools (I did though go to the store to get a cupcake corer - apparently they are all the rage and the store sold out - can you say Christmas list?). Filled the cupcakes with the yummy goo - but I topped the hole with a tiny bit of buttercream to seal it smoothly...........because.............

I made a Chocolate Ganache and topped the cupcakes with it. The ganache becomes solid and takes on the fudgy texture similar to a Hostess cupcake. But I didn't want the ganache sinking into the hole with the filling............thus the cap.

Then I took some buttercream and made the swirlies. Perhaps I could be sued for copyright - but really isn't the saying......Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Flattery?

And OH MY GOODNESS..........I am not a huge chocolate person, but this cupcake had the perfect blend of chocolate, not too over the top sweet because of the semi sweet chocolate ganache and the creamy filling. I think we will totally be seeing these cupcakes at bake sales!!

These were a Chocolate Chocolate Chip cake with a Cream Cheese Marshmallow filling and a Chocolate Ganache top..........perfect!!

Baby Shower Surprise

Cupcakes are very wanted these days - guess is it the no fuss no mess thing they bring. You can skip plates, forks and only use a napkin for cupcakes. But sometimes the center icing melded into cake part of a cake is the BEST part - so fillings are becoming popular. Often people ask me if I have a giant syringe that I put the filling in with............nope..........I use this.........a candy thermometer sheath and a sharp stick - usually a skewer.

I take a bunch of perfect cupcakes and poke the plastic tube in, twist and pull out the cake. Then use the skewer to make the cake drop out. I get a bunch of cupcakes with holes. Then I fill the holes up.

Cover the top with some fondant and the person biting into them never knows about the surprise........until the hit it. Everyone loves a surprise right?

Now this particular set of cakes was going to a baby shower. And the mom to be had a cute idea of how to surprise the guests in telling them the sex of the baby. Only when she went to her doctors appointment the baby turned on them and hide the surprise of what he/she was. When she called to tell me that she sounded so sad and I felt kinda bad...........so I whipped up some fondant baby bottles to put on top of the cakes. Nothing overly creative - I only had 20 minutes to make 24 bottles. So they are mildly basic - but you get the idea.

So here was what the final product looked like - I didn't put the bottles on because I didn't ask her if I could. Instead I brought the bottles and gifted them to her and let her decide.

Normal cupcake right?

Surprise!!!! It's a boy cupcake!! (Yes I know stereotypes stereotypes)...........

I kept one cupcake back to taste and put a baby bottle on this one for my own use. So - again - normal cupcake.........

Surprise!!! It's a Girl!!!!

Too bad it didn't work out for her - this would have been a super cute thing to do. I hear now that it is very popular.

There were 24 cupcakes. Half were Milk Chocolate with a Chocolate Buttercream icing - the other 12 were White Silk cake with a Vanilla Buttercream icing. The filling on all of them was a Cream Cheese Marshmallow...........tasted a smidge more delicious then the center of a Hostess Cupcake.

Kaylyn's Colorful Cake

Okay this cake STARTED colorful. I mean when I finished with the Red Velvet mix it was popping out of the pan Red!! I had never really completely followed a Red Velvet recipe - always thinking that 2oz of red dye seemed over the top. This time - since it was for a friends daughter - I thought I would go the whole 9 yards. OHMYGOODNESS is this red??

So I totally doused that with some plain old Vanilla Buttercream........to temper that eye popping color. Well and also so that I could add more color that would pop off.

Because Miss Kaylyn is a very colorful and sweet girl. To match her personality it was decided that she would have various colors and a cute whimsical cake. I think we hit that - how about you?

I created a banner out of fondant - the number 14 out of fondant - and then strung some fondant beading onto wire for a kinda fun addition. Although honestly I think another tier would have matched the wire beading a smidge better. Next years birthday right?

This cake was obvious Red Velvet cake and covered in a Vanilla Buttercream and some Vanilla Fondant.

Kalee's Flowers

These cupcakes were for a neighbor. Her daughter went off to college this year and on this particular weekend she was home visiting. Molly wanted to send her off with some cute cupcakes to share with her roomies in the dorm.

She said "simple colorful flowers". At first I thought lots of different colors, but then my own daughter said I should do the "team" colors for her college. Red and White it was.

So I made a few cupcakes - popped on some cute red and white flowers (although the white ones are somewhat invisible against the buttercream) and pretty cupcakes were born.

These cupcakes were Strawberry cake with a Vanilla Buttercream icing. Yum!! If you mix a bit of strawberry puree into the buttercream these will taste almost exactly like a Strawberry shortcake!

Fall Color Cupcakes

It is FALL!! My favorite season. I think I have worn a hoodie sweat shirt every "non-I am supposed to look somewhat professional at this event" I have attended since the start of the chill. So it is fun to segue my love for fall into cupcakes. These cupcakes I made for our school districts United Way luncheon. My friend basically said, "Whatever you want to make with a fall theme". Which always freaks me out...........too much creative license...........but after asking some key questions I got an idea.

Fondant was the main ingredient for the decorations. I have been considering learning to do gum paste because I understand I can roll that out thinner. Not this day though - went with what I know. Tinted the fondant various colors of fall.

Rolled the apples out first - shaped them in an almost perfect circle and then poked a hole in the top and popped a piece of brown in for a stem.

Then the pumpkins came next - rolled the orange out........

Rolled them into big ole imperfect balls - because when have you ever seen a perfectly round pumpkin? then I used the pizza cutter you see to the right to run lines from top to bottom in no perfect order. Not deeply.

Because then I took one of my fondant tools and deepened the grove - yet at the same time it smoothed the groove - not cutting sharply into the fondant. Poked a hole in the top.

and then popped a brown piece of fondant in for the stem. No broken off pumpkin stems here baby.

For the leaves I took Green, Red, Yellow, Mustard, Orange and Brown fondant. I should have documented this, but there were kids starting to mill a bit and I was scattering them away. Forgot pics. So I rolled the colors in log shapes - lined them up next to one another - rolled them out with a rolling pin - folded them over one another - rolled them out - repeat repeat until I had the color pattern I wanted - then I used leaf shape cookie cutters.

And Tah Dah............the Apple Cupcakes turned out soooo sooo cute! I used some of the leftover leaf fondant to chop into tiny pieces. Then I scattered the small pieces onto the cupcakes without leaves.

Tah Dah...............The Pumpkin Cupcakes!! See the scattered leaves again? I thought that tied all 3 cupcakes into one another - made them look more connected.

Tah Dah.........and finally one of the Fall Leaf cupcakes. I have to admit I held my head up when I completed these.

The cupcakes were 24 - half were Chocolate Chocolate Chip with a Vanilla Buttercream icing - the other 12 were Pumpkin with a Cinnamon Buttercream icing. People actually called from the event wondering about them!!

Creation of a Cupcake

Sometimes we wonder,
'What did I do to deserve this?' or
'Why did God have to do this to me?'
Here is a wonderful explanation!

A daughter is telling her Mother how everything
is going wrong, she's failing algebra, her boyfriend broke
up with her and her best friend is moving away.
Meanwhile, her Mother is baking cupcakes and
asks her daughter if she would like a snack, and the
daughter says, 'Absolutely Mom, I love your cupcakes.'
'Here, have some cooking oil,' her Mother offers.
'Yuck' says her daughter.
'How about a couple raw eggs?' 'Gross, Mom!'
'Would you like some flour then?
Or maybe baking soda?'
'Mom, those are all yucky!'
To which the mother replies:
'Yes, all those things seem bad all by themselves.
But when they are put together in the
right way, they make a wonderfully delicious cake! '
God works the same way. Many times we wonder why
He would let us go through such bad and difficult
times. But God knows that when He puts these things
all in His order, they always work for good! We just
have to trust Him and, eventually, they will all
make something wonderful!



These cupcakes were decorated by my kiddo's, Ben and Andersen.

McKenna's Dolphin Cake

Cakes are just fun - One of Andersen's friends was having a birthday recently and we decided that part of our gift to her would be to make her a cake. She is also a Facebook Friend and one of my favorite Girl Scouts.......well former Girl Scouts (hint hint that I want her to rejoin if she reads this). So Miss McKenna's sees any cakes that I post - and she asked for me to create her a cake. This is where we started.....

A nice White Cake with a Chocolate Buttercream Icing........yummie!!! The baking was from scratch. I think I have mentioned that I am still on the search for a delicious White Cake recipe. Well, still kinda on the search. This was good, but baked out a bit dry.....and I underbaked it. Plus - honestly I should have known when they didn't instruct me to separate the whites from the yolks. No respectable white cake has yolks in it.

What surprised me was her theme. She is a sporty girl and I honestly thought she would request Soccer, Softball, Basketball........something.......but she has an Ocean Love side and she actually picked......Dolphins and the beach. Having only 1 day to create this I went with simple.

Ocean Water looking fondant.......which I must say I am getting better at placing over the top of the cake. I am also beginning to understand my fondant recipe better. If I follow the recipe exactly I believe I am using too much powdered sugar and the fondant gets too dry. Tweaking is an art and sometimes can take me forever to wrap my head around.

Tah Dah - just a tiny bunch of fondant there on the edge of one side. Better right? I am getting there - slowly but surely.

Added a little sea life.......I didn't have the time to create schools of fish like I wanted to add in - a day in the life of a mom with 3 kids doesn't always allow extra creative opportunity. But I did get a few "Star" fish - get it?? and some seaweed and such.

The most important part of the cake of course were Dolphins - and they made there way in. However, Andersen and I thought that it was equally important to make a McKenna for her cake......
So that is just what I did. McKenna topped her cake laying on the beach.

There was also a beach umbrella - although it was made and set to dry for them. We delivered it the night before the party in hopes that the umbrella would be set enough for them to put it over fondant McKenna right before the party. That hope wasn't realized. The umbrella crumbled a bit when they pulled it off the form - so the girls ate it. Still a Win Win I suppose if you can eat your mistakes!