Happy Halloween!!
I made these cupcakes and took them to work. Thankfully the company is small and I only had to make 6 dozen to have enough for everyone with some extras.
I'm sad Halloween is over. But I am looking forward to coming up with ideas for Thanksgiving and Christmas. They just won't be as much fun as Bloody Red Velvet, Moldy Chocolate and Black Soul Vanilla.
Inside:
Happy Halloween! Sorry I've been lax in my updates.
Here are some pictures from an order I received for a party down in San Diego last weekend. The order was for 7 dozen in 3 flavors. The party had 40 RSVPs. At 7 dozen, that gave each guest 2 cupcakes.
And then the cupcakes were accompanied by a giant cupcake topped with a spider web and spiders and dripping cream cheese buttercream. Ewwww.
These were really fun to make. I love baking during holidays because you really have an opportunity to make something fun and different and everyone goes along.
Hope you have a Happy Halloween!
Last weekend was a BIG one. Big as in 2 weddings. Big as in 38 dozen mini cupcakes plus 4 dozen regular cupcakes PLUS two cutting cakes. It was exhausting. And I was under the weather. Oy.
But everything went great! I was on time even though one event was in Irvine and the other was 30 mins later in Santa Ana. The traffic gods were on my side.
I am taking 2 days off this weekend to make a special trip to Las Vegas to visit Kari and her crew at Retro Bakery AND meet IN PERSON Carrie Fields from Fields of Cake. Folks - Carrie is not a only a baker, she is an ARTIST. Check out her work. It's humbling. I felt a wave of stress peel off me as I squealed on the phone with her this afternoon on my way home from work.
We are planning on a baykah's (as Kari would say it) night out tomorrow at Serendipity 3 by Caesars Palace. CANNOT WAIT. The drive tomorrow is going to be longest!
I cannot stress enough how important blogging and twittering have been for me in this baking adventure. I've found that having confidants in the same biz locally is not possible. Too much cattiness and too much competitiveness to really help each other. So through twitter and blogging, I've been able to connect with women who hold the same interests as me from all over the US and even Canada (Hi Clever Cupcakes and Sugar Baking!). One day I hope that we can all meet. Maybe hold our own form of a BlogHer. Maybe we'll call it BakHer.
Lots of birthday orders last weekend -
This was for a little girls 1st birthday. The parents requested this as her smash cake. I hope she had fun!
Birthday mini cupcakes for a girls 8th from her aunt
More mini cupcakes. There were from a daughter to her mom. There were 4 doz mini's total but I forgot to take a picture of the other dozen. You can't see from the picture but I made embossed fondant discs accented with sugar pearls and disco dust. The lettering was also brushed with disco dust.
Lots of orders for mini cupcakes lately. And this weekend, I have two weddings on Saturday where one is for 450 mini cupcakes. Yowza.
I also had a tasting on Sunday for a little girl's upcoming 4th birthday.
The little girl was a DOLL. Her favorite was the groovy with pink buttercream. And her mom liked the fauxstess. The birthday party theme is going to be Jasmine from Aladdin. I am going to make a giant cupcake that will look like a tower on an arabian castle and accompanying mini cupcakes with Jasmine crowns.
I have to share with you something I just got that I am IN LOVE with...
Aren't they awesome!! AH! Forget diamonds. Cupcakes are a girls best friend! LOL
My friend Shari from Bonnin Designs (www.bonnindesigns.com) made these for me. They are based on her fabulous rings she makes with cupcakes on them. I'd been eyeing them for a while but since I'm a baker, it's hard to wear rings without mucking them up. So she came up with alternative. And they are FABULOUS!!
So hey - the holidays are coming up. Christmas and Hanukkah are coming up. It's only 84 days until Christmas. I know right?? I can't think about that right now. BUT you can get a jump on your shopping by heading over to Bonnin Designs and taking a look at all her other creations. Shari is such a talented person. Not only does she make jewelry, she also makes flamenco flowers and paintings. And she is a huge supporter of other artists which is obvious if you ever visit her home.
Check out her new mixed media pieces:
She also makes really glam flowers for your hand and head:
So turning a giant cupcakes into a Cheshire cat was harder than I thought it would be. In hindsight, I think I should have used a different tip, like a star, to hide any hiccups. But I was trying to go for the striped look. Or next time, after I pipe, I'll smooth it out with an angled spatula. I don't know.
Anyhow, it's done and here you go:
And the client wanted some mini cupcakes with red roses on them as well as some white roses with red on them, ala "painting the roses red" get it?? ah ha!
For these, I ordered gum paste red and white roses from Wholesale Sugar Flowers and some Wilton red decorating spray and went to town. It was really fun spraying those roses! Now I'm itching to get an airbrush set. HAHA.
The Cheshire Cat was my Queen of Hearts flavor, the rose cupcakes were vanilla with vanilla buttercream and the tea cakes (not pictured) were Campfire.
I had the pleasure of crafting cupcakes for a wedding taking place at the Birch Aquarium in La Jolla a few weekends ago. The bride and groom requested that all the cupcakes be made with natural and organic ingredients, no fondant. It was a challenge but thankfully we have places like Whole Foods, Trader Joes and the internet to help me find organic versions of the products I use. By the way, there are organic versions of almost everything now! Powdered sugar, cinnamon, chocolate, sugar, flour, eggs, milk, butter, and more!
The bride and groom ordered A Kid Again, Tea Time, All American and a custom flavor of chocolate stout cupcake topped with cream cheese buttercream. The groom loves Guinness and was happy when I told him that I could make a chocolate cake with his favorite stout.
I apologize for the picture quality. A photographer I am not and the semi-dark lighting inside the aquarium made picture taking a challenge.
Their centerpieces:
Their cake topper:
The bride snuck out to take a look while I was setting up the table and she was very happy and couldn't wait to bite into a cupcake.
Congratulations to Kate and Steve!
