Birthday Bash!

This weekend we celebrated my nephew Tristen's 2nd birthday.  It amazes me that he is already two!  We went to Dave & Buster's to celebrate in their party room.  I made a Cars cake.

He always goes for the frosting :)

My realtor also had a birthday.  She was turning 40 this week.  I had some leftover cake and decided to make her some cake pops :)

Happy Birthday Tiffany!!  Hope you had a great Birthday.

Hope you all have a great weekend! 

Thanks for looking

St Patrick's Day

Happy St. Patty's day everyone!

I came across these hats online one day and thought they were super cute!  You can follow the original post at http://blog.hwtm.com/2012/03/diy-tutorial-leprechaun-hat-smores/ 

They are super easy to make.  I have seen some where the whole hat is black or green.  Those color variations look just as great. 

You only need a few items: chocolate, green candy melts, green sprinkles, fudge stripe cookies and some marshmallows.  I find generic marshmallows don't have the best form. 

I first dipped the marshmallows in the chocolate and let them harden on skewers in the fridge

I also dipped the cookie to give it a uniform color

Then, dip the bottom in the green and roll in your sprinkles.  Set on the cookie to dry, and voila!

Pretty fun and simple. 

Hope you all had a great and safe St. Patrick's Day!

Thanks for looking :)

Tuscany travels :)

My mom turned 50 this weekend.  She said she wanted to go to Italy/Tuscany.  She never made it there, so we brought Tuscany to her :)
We rented a banquet room at the local hotel.  My sister Leah was in charge of the decorating.  She always does an amazing job!

She made a timeline on the sunflowers.  The bigger ones are what happened in the world.  The smaller ones are about my mom's life; when she was born, married and had all of us kids.  What a great idea it was!  So fun to look back at all the things that has happened.

I made sunflower cupcakes for the event.

I bought a stand for a wedding that I will be doing in May.  I wanted to try it out and see how well it would work.  I love my new stand :)

Overall, it was a great day!  My uncle Tom was able to fly in from Pennsylvania.  We had great food and even greater guests :)  I wish my mom a wonderful 50th Birthday!!  Thanks for being such a wonderful and caring mom throughout the years :)  I love you.

Thanks everyone and have a great week!

You are the icing on the cake

Happy Valentine's Day!!  My aunt asked me to make a cake/cupcakes for her husband and son this year.  I have always wanted to make a cupcake bouquet and thought this would be the perfect chance to.  It was going to be a small one, hold under 24 cupcakes.  I was thinking all red flowers, maybe with some greenery around.  It didn't go as I planned :)
She wanted marble cupcakes.  I didn't realize I have never made marble cupcakes before.  Turned out great.

I found a styrofoam ball at the store.  They had a small ball that would have only held about 5 cupcakes or the one I got which I thought would hold 15-20.  24 tops.  I started putting the cupcakes on and soon realized I was going to need more, a lot more cupcakes.  It turns out it held 41 cupcakes!!

They ended up getting marble, yellow and chocolate flavors.  I decided to make some flowers white and some red.  I think it turned out fabulous!!  So fabulous and big that it wouldn't fit in the box!!  I had to call my aunt to come pick me up.  Luckily she only lives a block away.  This is the first project that I have made that I couldn't transport all by myself.  I love how it turned out and so did my family.

Hope you all have a great and wonderful Valentine's Day!!

Three C's: cupcake, cake, & cake pop

I was asked to make a baptism cake and cupcakes for my cousin's baby baptism.  This is the first time I have made both for someone.  It was fun!  I made a yellow cake with chocolate cupcakes.  The cross is white chocolate.  The L blocks are candy melts.

It is Super Bowl Sunday!  I had some leftover cake so I made some cake pops.  We are having people over, so I thought I would try making footballs :)  I used chocolate and buttercream for the laces.  Love how they turned out. 

I have been using my mom's Nikon camera for the last couple weeks.  I just love how it takes a photo!  I may have to invest in a better camera.  It makes everything look so pretty :)
Hope you all have a great day watching football.
Thanks for looking.

An apple a day......

Last weekend I went to my girlfriend Katie's house to bake.  We made a new cupcake together.  It was the first time we have baked together and it was a blast!  I normally do not like to bake with anyone, have my own routine.  It was easy to do with Katie.  I think being friends for so many years we know what to do and how each other work.  We made a Carmel Apple Cupcake. 
This is the first time we have grated an apple before.  We ended up using 3 Gala apples.

We knew by tasting the batter that the cupcake was going to be delicious!

We made the carmel from scratch.  I didn't realize how long and hard it is to make. 

Katie's dog, Brooklyn, loved baking day!!  While mixing the cream cheese frosting, the powdered sugar was going everywhere.  Brooklyn thought she would help come clean the floors for us :)

The cupcakes turned out so great!!  It was a apple cake, with carmel inside and a cream cheese frosting.  Katie drizzled carmel on the top for a great touch.



It was a great day baking with Katie, and I am looking forward to the next time we get to do it again :)
Hope you all have a great week!  Thanks for looking.





Cherry on Top!

I have become a DC Cupcakes fan lately. I bought their book.  I also watched the first season and fell in love <3  My mom's girlfriend lives out east and has had cupcakes from Georgetown Cupcake.  She says they are amazing.  I was inspired after that to try a recipe.  I chose Banana Split Cupcake.  It was a good one.  There were so many different aromas in my kitchen tonight; from banana to cinnamon to chocolate.  What a great time baking. 
The cupcake is a banana cake base.  Then it has a chocolate ganache filling.  Put on a cream cheese frosting with toffee and more ganache.  And top it off with a cherry. 

The ganache was chocolate and heavy cream mixed.

I made a hole in the cupcake to put the ganache in

They look like little dishes of ice cream :)

I topped them off with some ganache, toffee, sprinkles and a cherry! 

They are very sweet.  Definitely have to have a glass of milk with it.  I am very happy with how they turned out!  My girlfriend KT and I are going to try another of their recipes this Sunday, a Carmel Apple Cupcake.  Hopefully that one turns out just as good as this one.
Hope you all have a great weekend and thanks for looking :)