"Healthy" Cupcakes

Ok, I know I said no baking until after finals, but I couldn't resist. I made these cupcakes for my Health Law class, taught by the one and only Professor Pope. I cut the "H" for "hospital" out of fondant and I made mini aspirin tablets out of fondant too! I used Good-n-Penty's for the pink and white pills, and made band-aid flags out of stickers! I think it is a nice end to 2 semesters of a great class! Now, really, until after finals, ENJOY!

Showers of Happiness

This weekend was my good friend Jess' bridal shower. I am a bridesmaid, and I (of course) was in charge of the cake. She's doing hydrangeas at her wedding so I thought it might be nice to incorporate that into the cake. She also likes things very simple and clean. This cake is 2 tiers...the first tier is 3 layers in vanilla, chocolate, vanilla and the second tier is all chocolate. They are filled with buttercream and covered in white fondant. The purple ribbon matches the bridesmaid dresses.

The top of the cake--the hydrangea part--is made up of mini cupcakes (even smaller than the ones I used for the Easter cake. I piped them with buttercream and then used the buttercream as glue on the cake to make stacked concentric circles. Then, I filled in the areas that weren't touching with more buttercream to make it look like one big hydrangea blossom--now that's A LOT of buttercream!

The good news is that I only used 10 sticks of butter this weekend as opposed to last weekend's 20 sticks!! WHEW!

This is my best cake yet. I can't wait to keep trying new things...after finals that is!

Congrats Jess...I hope you enjoyed your shower! ...and your "Jess inspired" cake. :)

A Cake for Spring

I did this cake for a friend of mine at school. She wanted a "spring" looking cake. I think this is about as springy as it can get!! The perfect cake for a BEAUTIFUL spring day!

Playing with...Fondant?

Although I have a very open love for buttercream, I have recently been toying with the idea of trying to use fondant. I won't lie...I was against it at first...but I figured it was time to branch out. This cake was my first fondant attempt. It's a chocolate cake filled with vanilla buttercream covered in white fondant. I made mini chocolate cupcakes and piped pink and purple hydrangea-like flowers on top, then I piped a simple border on the base. It was a success! Maybe next time it will be tiers AND fondant!

Happy Easter

This Easter weekend, I had lots of baking to do! I made my kid-friendly peeps cupcakes for one of my favorite professors, Easter basket cupcakes, and rose cupcakes! After 8 hours of baking...I had some very pretty little treats! This last picture is a rare look at the process! I did birthday cupcakes, and 3 sets of Easter cupcakes. At the end of the day, I had used 5 lbs of butter and over 10lbs of powdered sugar!

Mr. Horgan's Birthday

Law school is tough...so when a birthday rolls around we try to ease the stress with lots of good food and friends. This is the cake I made for Mr. Horgan's birthday. Since Horgan is like the mayor of our law school, we had a lot of people to feed. Horgan asked for a round cake...so I figured I would try something new and build UP!

Lauren came over to help me bake. She made the flags on the top of the cake AND witnessed me break 3 cakes in the process. Our freshly cleaned carpets were full of chocolate cake!

This tiered cake (my first one EVER) has 3 layers of chocolate cake in each tier with yummy buttercream between the layers (I used 2lbs of butter in the frosting alone!). I read online how to make the tiers and how to use dowel rods to give the cake strength. Although the Food Network makes it look easy--it was quite the challenge! Nonetheless, it was a hit at the party (along with the sammies we picked up from our favorite sandwich shop)!

You will notice it's the most manly cake I've ever done--pointed out by Kelly!
It isn't often that I get to make a cake with flames and skulls on it.

Back to pretty and girly cakes for Easter this weekend!

Happy Birthday Horgan!