Friday, May 27, 2011

Marathon Cupcakes

Marathon Cupcakes


This week was the wind-up for my running group. This group has been unreal. Everyone got along so well and always made me feel so welcome, even though I wasn't able to continue on with full marathon training.

Bill was our clinic instructor and he was amazing. He went well above and beyond, even hosting a breakfast and a wine and cheese potluck at his own house!

For the potluck I decided to bring some cupcakes, of course!

I started with beautiful lemon cupcakes and filled them with delicious fresh lemon curd (forgot to take a photo).
Then I frosted them with a light purple vanilla buttercream.

Then I made some tiny little medals based on the medals from the Fargo Marathon.

And these are the little cuties that I brought to the party :)

I wish I would have taken a photo of all the amazing food that people brought. It was an awesome way to wrap up a great running season.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Happy Retirement!

A couple of weeks ago a friend contacted me about making the retirement cake for the principal of my former school. They were hoping for a cake with a shoe on it and those just happen to be one of my favourite things to make.

My plan was to create a shoe box with a high heel shoe sitting on top. The colour scheme of the party was shades of purple.

In the winter months I use our balcony as a huge walk-in freezer. Unfortunately in the summer I don't have that luxury so it's harder to work on cakes in advance. 
This is the chaos that happens when I'm working on a cake.
So, on Tuesday night I started baking cakes and and sculpting them into the shape of a shoe box. This is the one area of cake decorating that I desperately want to be better at! I never feel like my cakes are as crisp and clean as I want them to be.



That same night I also constructed the shoe. This HAS to be done well in advance as it will take several days to dry. This is what I had done by the end of the evening.


You have to get creative, those are coasters propping up the bottom of the shoe.
Wednesday I had school till 8:30 then rushed home to finish up the cake. This is my favourite part! I love doing all the little details!!! This is when a cake finally starts to come together.

When I got the order I was told the cake would be for about 30 people. Now, there is a significant difference between how you cut a regular dessert cake and how you cut a cake for a special event or wedding. The pieces are much smaller! Even so, I felt like the cake would be a little small for their event. I ended up offering to include a dozen cupcakes. Then I found out their guest list had changed and now included closer to 90 people!!! 



So, one cake and two dozen cupcakes in the trunk of my car later I was off to school to drop off the cakes. Thank you so much Linwood for giving me this opportunity. Glad to hear Ms. S. was happy!

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Welcome!

About two years ago I made the cupcakes for our wedding. It was a super fun project and at some point my sister asked me to make the cake for her wedding.

When she got engaged I decided I had better figure out how to do this for real. I took some classes at Michael's and FELL IN LOVE!

I've been decorating cakes and cupcakes for friends and family ever since!

People often ask me if I have a website where they can see my work but I definitely have no skills in the IT dept. Blogging though, this I can do. This way I'll be able to keep you posted on my projects as I do them :)

  
Cupcakes for my sister's wedding!