Coming Out of Retirement

Ok so it's been over a year since my last post. I took a brief hiatus from baking for the public eye (aka, this blog) due to a cake-tastrophe in mid February of last year. I will not go into detail, but suffice it to say I still hear the blunt splat of pound cake on linoleum in my nightmares. Fortunately for you, I neither stopped baking altogether nor stopped taking pictures of my work. Also, I'm planning on baking a lot more in the near future, because I now have an office of well over 60 financial professionals that all have birthdays and are hungry for cupcakes.

This post will be a long one, for it will consist of the cakes/cupcakes that I've made over the past year that never got the exposure that (most of them) should have.

This Happy Holidays mini cake and cupcakes was made for my Aunt Peggy's neighborhood Holiday Party (in 2009... woops). I remember this one not giving me any problems aside from the epic failure of the bow that's on top. It ended up looking like a toddler's poorly tied StrideRites, so I plopped an extra cupcake on top. The cake was sparkly, but unfortunately you can't tell because my iPhone was (and still is) a 3GS and does not have the high def-bright-vivid-staringintothefaceofgod-like camera quality that an iPhone4 has (this will be a trend throughout this post).

So this one was really fun for me aside from the fact that it was made on the same day of Cakepocalypse Twenty Ten (which again, I refuse to discuss). I made it for a friend of my Aunt's (yes, Aunt Peggy gave me a lot of business) son's (I think) 40th (maybe?) birthday. Who can remember though, it was a year ago. Anycrap, this was a marble cake with chocolate buttercream. FOUR SQUARE MARBLE CAKES because I don't own a rectangular cake pan, I find this to be ludicrous (someone please send me one). The grass was made with my handy dandy piping tip that was made specifically for creating grass. I love Wilton. The squirrel, flowers, banner and trees are all fondant. Please enjoy this close-up...

What up, squirrel?

Well, this is the teeny tiny mini cake I made for Jay for Valentine's Day. LAST Valentine's Day. It was about the size of a post-it note and its only saving grace is that little guy on top. The rest was a train wreck as you can see from the mangled lettering and paper plate cake board. I got the idea from a rubber stamp my mom has that looks like this...

(Got this image from Holley's Hobbies http://helloholley.blogspot.com/ thanks Holley, very cute card).

Anyway, I was pretty proud of the way the little raccoon came out, and as I'm always down for a good pun, the "You Stole My Heart" (get it?! Raccoons are known to be theives... STOLE my heart... Priceless.) I was generally ok with the hideousness of the rest of the cake and my poor attempt at marbeling fondant.

A P.S. on this one: this cake was ALSO made on that same fateful day. I'm beginning to think that attempting to undertake three cakes in one day contributed to "the incident".

NEXT!!!! :

Unfortunately, this is the only picture I have of these cupcakes, but there were lots. They were made for my sister-in-law Monica's friend's bridal shower. They're obviously very similar to the Mickey Mouse Baby Shower of yesteryear, only the starfish are made out of white chocolate. This was my first attempt at molding chocolate and I highly recommend it. The stars were easy to make and freaking DELICIOUS. I'd say the best part of this endeavor was the fact that I got to use my Cupcake Courier for the very first time. Bro is off the HOOOOOOOOOK. And by "bro", I mean the Cupcake Courier. It will come in handy when I try to transport large quantities of cupcakes from Hoboken to Midtown East.

And finally....

I'm very sad, because this is the only picture I have of these cupcakes. You can't really tell, but they say "Showers of Happiness, Lauren", as they were for mine and Jay's and Monica's and Tommy's (and everyone's) friend Lauren's bridal shower. There are teeeeeny tiny rose buds next to each letter, which is why I'm pretty upset I don't have a close up picture of one of them, because those stupid things were a HUGE pain in the ass to make, but they looked cute. Biggest problem for this one: Summer in New Jersey. It was freaking HOT, and those letters were originally standing at attention atop a peak of fluffy buttercream. They drooped like Christopher Walken's face skin.

I would like to add that Lauren and Chris's wedding was the bomb.

Ok, I'm done now. Hopefully I can get back to posting more regularly as I have lots of cupcake recipes that I need to try.

Haley- Out.

Alsooo....

For those of you don't know (which is most likely NOBODY). I'm an aunt!!! Grant Joshua Haley was born on January 9th. He is phenom. No child is cuter. Congratulations Eamonn and Laura!!

Cupcake Baby Shower

I made this mini cake and about 45 cupcakes for a baby shower for my aunt's friend's daughter. She's having a little boy, and his nursery is Mickey Mouse themed, so I thought I'd try to incorporate that into the cake. I made the little Mickey heads out of gumpaste, and it was surprisingly easy and fun to do :) I wanted to make a big bow for the top of the cake, but I made the mistake of trying to assemble it too early and it fell apart. Sooooo, instead I made some fondant roses and put them on top, and it ended up looking 10 times better than it would've with the bow, so there was a happy accident. The cupcakes are some vanilla and some chocolate, and the cake is pound cake, all with vanilla buttercream. I was trying out a new recipe for vanilla cupcakes... one that was SUPPOSED to yield 12 cupcakes. I doubled it because I needed 24, but it ended up making over 40. Somebody did their math wrong and I DON'T think it was me haha. I was really happy with the way this one turned out. I hope everybody at the shower liked it :) Congratulations to the soon to be Mom!! (and thanks to my "photographer", Jay :) )

Buttercream: Why They Invented Fondant

So, admittedly this cake is pretty horrendous. Buttercream is next to impossible to make smooth (especially when you don't have the correct tool, OR enough icing... I had neither). I just wanted to make a completely buttercream cake because I hadn't tried it yet. It wasn't easy, and it came out looking like... well, you've seen the pictures. But hey, it was my first try. I'm sure I'll get better with practice. The only good part of this cake is I got to use the candy pearls that Eamonn and Laura gave me :)

Laura's Baby Shower!

Laura, my sister-in-law, had her baby shower yesterday. She and my brother are expecting their first baby (a boy!) in the beginning of February!! Everybody's soooo excited and we can't wait for him to get here! In the meantime, I made the cake for the shower. I got the design idea from a rubber stamp that my mom has (which is actually what the little topper is made from). I thought the clothesline idea was different and REALLY cute. It didn't come out as perfectly as I wanted it to, but isn't that always the case? Anyway, my sister, Alison, gave me a BIG assist on this one by helping me cut the little clothes out of fondant and making the topper, so thanks Al!! Its pound cake again (and it probably will be pound cake forever, unless the person its for wants something different. Pound cake is GLORIOUS) with vanilla buttercream. I got a TON of cake stuff for Christmas, including a silicone roling mat, a silicone rolling pin, and an AWESOME tool carrier, so I had a great time playing with all of it!

Everyone at the shower seemed to really like the cake, the only problem was carrying it 3 blocks from our parking spot to the restaurant. The shower was in Hoboken, so I was afraid Buddy Valastro was gonna walk by and point out all of its flaws. Luckily that didn't happen :)

Congratulations Eamonn and Laura!! Can't wait to meet the Little Nipper!

Fa La La La La La La Snowman.

I made this snowman cake for a holiday party at my boss's house. It was my first attempt at pound cake and let me tell you, I am NEVER making a cake that ISN'T pound cake again. Its PERFECT to work with. Leveling the layers was 10 times easier than it has been with the previous cakes although I had a bit of a slip with the knife, OH and I'll remember this cake forever cuz I got a nasty burn on my elbow when I was taking it out of the oven. But battle wounds aside, I think he came out pretty cute. Its all pound cake, but the bottom tier has vanilla buttercream, the middle has chocolate buttercream, and the top has peanut butter buttercream. I am now in the market for a Scrooge McDuck vault that I can fill with peanut butter buttercream and swim in. Its delicious.

I hope everyone at the party will like it!! Merry Christmas everyone!!

Happy Birthday Mrs. H!!!

I made this cake for my boyfriend Jay's mom's birthday, which is today. Happy Birthday Mrs. Hribar!! I really wanted to use some of the fondant shape cutters that I got for my birthday, so I thought this would be a good opportunity. I decided on the daisies because they're a little more sophisticated than the "funny flower" shape cutters that I have (and love). Also, this was the first time I got to use my pearl dust, which you can see best in the closeup picture. I laughed a bit cuz I thought it made the cake look like Edward Cullen's skin, which worked out great cuz Mrs. H is a HUGE Twilight fan. Unfortunately when I was putting it into the box I was transporting it in, I smushed the letters on the top. I felt like an such a moron. The rest of it was fine and you could definitely still read what it said, but it was stupid nonetheless. So, here is what your cake was SUPPOSED to look like Mrs. Hribar :) Hope you had a great birthday!!

In other (good) news, I just got asked to make the cake (well, cupcakes) for my Aunt's neighborhood's holiday party, aaaaaannnnddd they're paying me!! (so does that make me a professional??) Very exciting stuff! I feel like a legitimate cake decorator now! Bring on The Food Network!