friends moving away....so let's eat a cupcake!

So we have these wonderful friends that must return to the frozen tundraness part of the world. We will miss them terribly. This is my friend who I have learned all my cake/cupcake decorating skills with! It will be sad if I do anymore cake classes and she is not with me, however they will be with family and that is worth more than cake classes! We all went to their going away party last Sunday at a park and their two little boys are huge Spiderman and Mickey Mouse fans and here is what I came up with....I found these cute little Spiderman and Mickey Mouse cupcake picks at Walmart!

Spiderman Cupcakes for.....

The cutest little Spiderman I've ever met!

Mickey Mouse Cupcakes for the cutest little Mickey Fan ever!

Chocolate Turtle Cake

I had friends in town the other week and came across this recipe....it was delish! The recipe I found was from a bakery in St. Paul, MN...just a stones throw away from where I'm from! I knew I had to try it when I came across it!! It was wonderful...the only thing I might change up is use homemade caramel vs. caramel sundae topping (still good when your in a pinch). I thought the caramel flavor got lost in the chocolate. Here is the recpie if your interested in giving it a whirl!
http://www.justapinch.com/recipe/bakersqueen/cafe-lattes-turtle-cake/cake?source=fork_FB_turtle_cake

Spring Cake 2011

So I decided to go ahead and re-do my Easter A.K.A. Spring cake....this was originally supposed to be for Easter weekend until the cake batter bowl slipped out of my hands onto the floor! OOPS! I re-made it 1 week later for a little gathering of friends we had! This cake I made white cake and chocolate cake and layered them with vanilla buttercream and chocolate ganache! It was decadent and oh so good! Here is what it looked like!

Happy Easter!

This is my Easter basket cake from Easter 2010. I was in the process of making it again this year until I decided to dump my entire cake batter on the floor! OOPS! I didn't have time to make one for this year, but this is my cake from last year! It is a lot of fun to make and if you want to make one for next year here is what you do:

1. Cake of your choice and bake in two round 8 inch pans or whatever size rounds you want!
2. Let cake completely cool and if you want to torte your cake in between layers you can!
3. Use about a cup of coconut and dye green to use as your grass for the top of the cake (carve out medium size circle on the top of your cake, but don't go to deep just enough to make an indent. Frost the entire cake. I used a pastel yellow, then put your green grass all around the top of the cake.
4. I used M&M's to decorate around the cake
5. Feel free to use jelly beans, malted milk ball eggs, chocolate eggs or whatever you want to use as "eggs" for the top of the cake! Get creative!
6. To make your basket handle use aluminum foil and fold into a handle. Use ribbon to cover your foil handle and insert into cake!

Here is what it will look like:

Easter Basket Cupcakes

These were super easy to whip up! All you need is a cake mix, frosting, licorice, candy (such as m&m's or jelly beans), green dye, and marshmallow bunnies! To make the "grass" all you need is the grass tip which is tip #133. Of course I had this idea last minute so I didn't feel like making it all from scratch! Here is how they turned out!

Cake Pops

Cake pops seem to be the new "thing" to make these days! They are very easy to make. You can make your own cake or you can do a box mix. This was my very first time making them so I did it the easy way! I used a box mix (my mix of choice was strawberry cake mix) however I did make my own strawberry frosting! Here is how to make cake pops:

1. Box cake mix (or homemade) bake in a 9x13 pan and let completely cool
2. Crumble cake completely making sure there are no large pieces of cake left
3. Use about 1/2 cup of frosting (purchased or homemade) and mix until the cake crumbs form one large ball. Your crumbled cake may need a little more frosting but start out at around 1/2 cup and simply add more if you need it to stick together. (I learned the hard way and used to much frosting and had to bake another cake to absorb all the frosting!)
4. Use a melon baller to form small cake balls (Put in freezer for about an hour)
5. Melt candy coating (I used almond bark candy coating)
6. Dip your lollipop sticks into the candy coating and insert a stick into each cake ball
7. Dip your cake ball into the melted candy coating and decorate with candies, sprinkles or whatever your heart desires!
8. Work quick as the candy coating does dry fast!
9. Insert your decorated cake pop into styrofoam so the cake pop can dry.
10. Once your cake pops are place them in an air tight container

This is really simple and really fun to make! These make a great centerpiece for birthday parties or wedding and baby showers!

Justin Bieber Birthday Bash

So Taylor requested a Justin Bieber birthday party...I didn't know how we were going to pull this one off! I decided to call a local party store near us and found out that they did have Justin Bieber party supplies! Ah ha! I'm in business!! Several dollars later on party stuff I was trying to figure out what we could do for a cake. None of the local bakeries around us could do a JB cake and the one I did find that could do it wanted to charge $65 for a small cake...um no thank you! Ebay was a great friend of mine and we were able to locate an edible image of JB! I think it turned out great and this was my very first buttercream cake! Photos to follow!

Here Are Two of My Favorite Blogs!

Ironically my two favorite blogs are about baking and from Minnesota! If you want some great tips on baking and green living visit these blogs:

http://www.mycharmingkids.net/ (the person in the photo with me is Jennifer McKinney aka MckMama from mycharmingkids.net). She was in town and did our family photos! We love Jen!

http://www.iambaker.net/

My Very First Post!

I tried doing this blogging thing a few years back and failed miserably at it. I'm hoping to be better at it this time around! So without further adu let the blogging begin! I promise to post more this weekend!