Solis Wedding 03/18/2011

My co-worker got married on Friday!

His new bride asked me to bake them some yummy cupcakes and small top tier cake for the occasion.

The colors were Horizon Blue with White and Silver accents.
Her cake topper was the silver double hearts as well as this design being accented on many other wedding items and decor.

She requested a square cake tower with a square cake on top.
She asked for blue cupcake liners, white frosting and blue flower garnishes. Originally we were going to use silver dragees for the center of the flowers but after a bit of research I learned they are not exactly considered edible or approved by the FDA - so we opted for a dab of buttercream instead just to be safe.

I decorated the cupcake tower by painting it white, lining it with matching blue ribbon and a thin string of silver pearls. I crafted some bows with the extra ribbon (totally not at work) and pinned them to each corner of the cupcake tower with small silver double heart.


The cupcakes are Devils Food cake with chocolate chunks.


They were frosted with vanilla swiss meringue buttercream and topped with small blue flowers made with vanilla fondant.


The top tier cake was two layers of the same cake, filled and frosted with the same buttercream. It was accented with a combination of the same small blue flowers and two other larger sizes.


I was so pleased to see that my blue ribbon on the tower matched the decorative cloth on the cake table perfectly and that the small double hearts sprinkled on the table were the same exact ones I used.


The cupcakes traveled perfectly, although in my rush to set-up I bumped 4 or 5 of them. The wedding started at 6:00 so I left my house for Brentwood at 3:00 but with the awful weather and traffic, it took me 2 1/2 hours to get there.
I was able to get everything set up and looking beautiful just in time :)


Congratulations to Jimmy and Brianna Solis!!!

Oakland Athletics Cake & Cupcakes

My brother's girlfriend, Julie asked me to make a special cake for her Mom's birthday...something delicious and fondant free.

Her Mom is a chocolate fan...and an Oakland A's fan.

Sports and Chocolate...smart lady.

The cake is chocolate fudge.

The filling is chocolate mousse with caramel.


The frosting is caramel swiss meringue buttercream.


I know my writing is a little off center...bummer.


At 6 months pregnant....It took everything in me not to cut a slice of this cake for myself.


I also made a dozen baseball cupcakes, some that spelled out the Birthday Girl's name.


Again, my writing is not awesome...I should have flattened the top of the buttercream first, lesson learned.


Happy Birthday Cheryl!

Yo Gabba Gabba.....Who? Yo Gabba Gabba!!!

The coolest ONE YEAR OLD I know had a birthday this weekend...and it was a big deal.

Charlotte, you know her...she orders stuff from me all the time because she is awesome - well, her son Jaxon turned ONE on Saturday and people gathered to celebrate.

Not only people came....Brobee and Foofa were there too!
Who? Brobee and Foofa!
Come on...Don't you know them?

If you have no clue who or what Yo Gabba Gabba is....then google it, like I did when Charlotte told me that was the party theme.

Meet....Yo Gabba Gabba:


Jaxon loves them!

Charlotte wanted to do cupcakes because there would be lots of children at the party. Since there were multiple characters in multiple colors...it was only fitting to make the cupcakes rainbow.


I mixed up the white cake batter and separated it into 4 containters....


Colored them Red, Yellow, Green and Blue...



Then spooned each color into a cupcake liner one at a time.



I thought this was an artistic picture for some reason.
You know you like it.


While the cupcakes were baking, I cut strings of ribbon for each character, curled them with scissors and wrapped them around the cupcakes after they had cooled.


The vanilla buttercream was colored to match each character and it's cupcake liner.


I made eyes out of vanilla fondant and added one additional characteristic for each cupcake.


That's a lot of eyeballs, yo.

Charlotte wanted a smash cake just for Jaxon.
His favorite character is Brobee, the green monster guy.
So I used my giant cupcake pan again and repeated the whole rainbow batter process.


See...Rainbow.



I used Wilton's grass tip to pipe on two shades of green colored buttercream all over the giant cupcake and I used vanilla fondant to make all the facial features.


Cute cupcake stands bring it all together.


Here's my beautiful niece Hailey with her cupcake:


Here's what the cupcakes looked like inside:


And here's the Birthday Boy enjoying his smash cake:


HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAXON!

Microphone Cake for Suprise 25th Birthday Party

One of my regular customers was planning a surprise party at Dave & Busters for her boyfriend's 25th birthday and she wanted a special cake for her musician man.

She sent me this picture and asked me to recreate with cake:


The cake is chocolate...

filled with vanilla buttercream...

carved and shaped...

then covered in more vanilla buttercream.


I colored two batches of vanilla fondant, a light gray and a dark gray and covered the entire cake. I used royal icing to add the lines on the microphone top, which is probably the only part of this cake I am not crazy about...just because it didn't come out as clean as I wanted.

I painted almost the entire cake in silver using silver pearl dust and vodka.


GS1986 is the birthday boy's initials and birth year.


I added Happy 25th to the cake board using black vanilla fondant and brushed them with a diluted mixture of the silver pearl dust and paint, just because.


Happy 25th Birthday!