Jungle Baby Shower

This weekend I was honoured to make a very special cake. You see....I'm gonna be an auntie! I was asked to make the cake for my sister-in-law's baby shower.

The theme was jungle and I was given these cute stickers for inspiration.

As usual I went online and found a whole bunch of designs for inspiration. This is a particular cake that I fell in love with. I have searched and searched and I can't find it again to include the link.  If this happens to be your work please email me so I can give you credit!

Flawless, and oh so cute!

Anyway, here's my take on it. It was my first time putting a cute little scalloped top on a cake. I really like how that part turned out.  The animals were also really fun and I loved all the little details, especially the monkey with his little banana.

The cake and party were a huge success and I am so excited for this new addition to our family!

X-Ray Cupcakes

A couple of weeks ago I got a request to make some cupcakes for a friend whose sister is graduating from x-ray technology. I told her I'd do some research and come up with something.

Usually my research starts with google images and this time I really doubted that I would find x-ray cupcakes.

Surprise! I found these, extremely well done, x-ray cupcakes!

Made by Cakeology UK

In order to make them I had to order some food colouring which I prayed would arrive in time and be the right consistency to accomplish the paintings like those in the photo above.

I order a lot of my supplies from Global Sugar Art. They have amazing products and this time it arrived quickly and just in time to make my x-ray cupcakes!

In order to get the paintings done I made the trip to the house of one of my favourite artists, MY DAD! He's got crazy skills and painted these awesome little x-rays.

I am so happy with how they turned out! I've never seen skeletons look so cheery! Dad, thanks so much for your beautiful work on these!

Baby Chicks

I meant to post this a long time ago and then completely forgot about them.
I finally got some photos of those adorable baby chick cupcakes a-la-Martha Stewart.

First I baked up some delicious coconut cupcakes. This recipe calls for ground coconut which I think is what makes them so delicious without the chewy coconut texture. If I could find the recipe I used I would post it here :(

Then I made up some vanilla buttercream with just a touch of cocoa (for colour).
I made the little nests out of toasted coconut and added three little birds with blue buttercream.

The eyes were made with just the smallest dab of melted chocolate.

These cupcakes are a little fussy to make but so cute when they're all done!

I haven't quit!

I can't believe it's been over a month since I last posted something on here! It is definitely not for lack of baking. Here's what I've been up to.

Elvis cupcakes - yep those delicious treats from this post BACON. After the post I had quite a few requests for these so I took orders and did up a big batch. It worked out really well and I'm thinking of doing a flavour of the month type deal. This would be a great excuse to try new recipes and also allows me to get creative and bake whatever my heart feels like!

Baby bird cupcakes - I made these lovely Martha Stewart Baby Bird cupcakes. In the end the order ended up so rushed that I didn't even get a chance to take a picture. But don't worry, I'll be doing another batch very soon and I promise to take lots of photos!

Here's what Martha's looked like:

source

Sports cupcakes - I made these cuties for a little guy's birthday. Jackson is a big fan of sports, especially hockey so I wanted to do something with that theme.

Well, unfortunately most cake decorating supplies come from the U.S. and they clearly do not think hockey is as important as we do here in Canada. What I finally found was a sports cookie mold made for covering Oreo type cookies in chocolate.

I skipped the cookies and just used chocolate melts to paint the mold and created these cute little hand-painted cupcake toppers.  I really liked the way they turned out.

I have some fun projects coming up in the next couple of weeks so check back soon.  I promise it won't take another month before I post again.

Motorcycle cupcakes

I always find it a little challenging to make masculine cupcakes. It's easy to stick a flower, heart or even a tiny shoe on top of a cupcake but what do you do for a dude?

Put a Harley on top!!!

I was really happy with how these little bikes turned out. They were inspired by these and the flames were inspired by these. I often find my inspiration on Cake Central or Google images.

Has anyone else made cupcakes for men? I usually try to focus more on a flavour theme for men than the decorations.

BACON!

This week was my good friend and running buddy Joanne's birthday. Joanne has a passionate love for bacon! She burns it all off by running and cycling like crazy. She also has a great blog about running that you can find here.

I decided to make some very special cupcakes for Joanne. They are called Elvis cupcakes, based on the foods that Elvis loved including bananas, peanut butter and bacon.

I started with banana cupcakes. These are more fluffy than a regular banana muffin but still have that delicious banana flavour. I found this recipe and altered it a little by using regular milk and a little less baking soda (I often find I can taste the baking soda when a recipe calls for too much).

I topped them with Peanut Butter Dream buttercream. This is one of my favourite recipes and I use it a ton!!

Finally, the best part, CANDIED BACON!!

To make it you just cover regular bacon with a thin coat of brown sugar.

Make sure to line your pan with foil or you will have a terrible mess to clean up. Put the bacon on a wire rack and bake at 350 degrees.

  I can't remember how long this took but I checked on it often and took it out when it was lightly crisped. Let it cool and then cut into small pieces.

Here's Joanne with her sweet and savory treat! Happy Birthday Joanne!!!

Experimenting!

Last week I had 3 projects that just ended up working out perfectly together!

Engagement BBQ:
1 dozen key lime

1 dozen red velvet
1 dozen my choice

Chiropractor:
1 dozen of anything I felt like making

Parents anniversay:
A surprise for my family

Since most recipes make 2 dozen cupcakes, this worked out perfectly! I decided to make the third flavour a toasted coconut creation.

I started with the red velvet. I decided to try Martha Stewart's recipe. BAD IDEA!! It took over an hour before they were ready to go in the over and when I tasted them, they were disgusting! I ended up throwing them all out! I'm pretty sure I followed the recipe exactly but they just tasted like baking soda.

Then I started again with Bakerella's recipe. This took about 10 minutes, they were a better colour and tasted delicious!

I added some classic cream cheese buttercream and fondant flowers. Voila!

Next were the key lime cupcakes. I searched through tons of recipes and finally ended up mixing and matching a number of different recipes. I also added just a touch of leaf green food colouring. I loved the colour of the cake itself.

I added some vanilla buttercream that was flavoured with key lime juice and lime zest and decorated with a wedge of lime gummy candy and some more key lime zest.

Lastly I made the coconut cupcakes. These called for reduced coconut milk which took a LONG time to make. You have to boil coconut milk on the stove for 45 minutes until it reduces and gets thick. Then it goes in the fridge for a couple of hours until it separates. What you are left with is the most rich and delicious liquid that you add to the batter and the icing. They were decorated with toasted coconut.

I ended up filling all three orders for the weekend with variety packs of cupcakes! Most people loved the red velvet and the key lime and liked the coconut. I'm gonna have to work on that one.

What is your favourite cupcake flavour/recipe??  What should I try next?