Ice Cream Cone Theme 1st Birthday

Could the theme be any cuter?

I had so much fun with this order, maybe because it helped me get excited for my own kid's 1st Birthday which is coming up.

The Birthday Girl's mama was specific about what she wanted and sent me links to this adorable cake from One Charming Party and these adorable cupcakes from My Cake School Blog aka one of my new favorite blogs!

Once I knew of the theme, I suggested the Ice Cream Cone Cake Pops which I had made before and those were added to the order : )

Smash Cake:
6" Chocolate-Chocolate Chip Cake with Milk Chocolate Ganache Filling/Topping frosted with Strawberry Swiss Meringue Buttercream and topped with a Chocolate Buttercream "Melting" Ice Cream Cone & Sprinkles

Cupcakes:
Chocolate-Chocolate Chip & Vanilla Cupcakes frosted with Vanilla, Chocolate and Strawberry Swiss Meringue Buttercream and Milk Chocolate Ganache and topped with an assortment of Sprinkles & Nuts

I almost forgot the fondant cherry on top!

Cake Pops:
Chocolate & Vanilla Cake balls on Sugar Ice Cream Cones shaved to mini size dipped in Vanilla & Chocolate Coatings topped with Sprinkles and M&Ms (Yellow = Vanilla, Red = Chocolate)

I flipped over the box from our our cup of noodles, cut some holes in the top and it worked perfectly for the cake pops.

There was a handful of the cake ball mixture leftover, so of course I made myself some cake balls.
There's Ethan...mad that I stopped giving him cake crumbs, can you tell?

Yum!

I also put these together with some of the extra cupcakes and buttercrea, just for me and my man <3

Happy 1st Birthday Brooklyn!!!

Dear Bakerella, I don't know how you do it! Part 1

Ever since I saw these, I wanted to try them.

Try I did.

These guys were not made from scratch.
I bought a pie crust mix and canned pie fillings.

(not sure why blogger takes it upon itself to rotate my pictures)

Pie Crust...hard stuff.
It's thick, it's fragile and really hard to roll thin and that is a very important part about pie pops.
(which I did not realize until later)

I bought cherry and apple pie filling.

I used a round cookie cutter for the apple to resemble an apple pie and a heart shaped cookie cutter for the cherry because I thought it would be fitting with the red filling and all.

It was difficult to get the pops to seal, probably because my pie crust was too thick.

I didn't know exactly how to bake them...on a cookie sheet with or without parchment paper?
I love parchment paper and so I decided it couldn't hurt.
Well, it did.

My first batch came out with slightly burned bottoms and burnt parchment paper.
Okay, no big deal...my family will still eat them.
Then I picked one up and the stick fell right out....one after another.

Alrighty then.
Mini pies it is.

The cherry pies went much smoother without the sticks and no parchment paper.

In the end, these little pies were very yummy and still very cute.

I will try again someday.
Stay tuned.

Dear Bakerella, I don't know how you do it! Part 2

For this year's family Easter gathering, I was of course put in charge of bringing dessert.

I wanted to try something new, something that's been on my baking bucket list and something very yummy.

What's yummier than Cheesecake?!
I wanted to make Cheesecake Pops, like Bakerella!

I used this Martha Stewart's recipe, minus the raspberries.

I baked a 1/2 sheet cheesecake and was so impressed with how smooth the cake baked...you know, except for that jagged knife mark from me testing the center.

I let the cake sit overnight.

The next day I attempted to scoop out pretty little scoops of cheesecake for the pops...and well, it didn't go well.

The cheesecake was too soft and the crumb crust did not set, so I was left with sloppy (but delicious) blobs of cheesecake and graham cracker crumbs.

So....I put trays of those blobs in the freezer for about an hour, then pulled them out and rolled them in the graham cracker crumbs to give them a better shape.

Much better.

Then I put those back in the freezer for another hour until I was ready to dip them in chocolate.
I knew that I should just avoid the whole stick fiasco with these guys, so I made the decision to make Cheesecake Balls instead.

I dipped all the balls in Dark Chocolate and sprinkled them with Easter colored sprinkles.

They. Were. Awesome.

I will attempt the Cake Pops again, using a more original Cheesecake recipe that won't be so soft.
Stay tuned.

50 & Fabulous!

There was a 50 & Fabulous celebration this past weekend and the theme was Hot Pink & Black High Heels!

So, of course there's gotta be a Shoe Box Cake!

Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Filling and Hot Pink Vanilla Swiss Meringue Buttercream with a Black Fondant top.

This was a big celebration with a lot of guests so of course there's gotta be Cupcakes too!

All the cupcakes were Marble Cake.
This was no easy task, I ended up having to spoon both batters into the liners at the same time then swirling them to get the marble effect.

Half of them were topped with Chocolate Buttercream and the other half Hot Pink to match the cake!

I made 50 toppers with melted white chocolate for each cupcake.
I made half of them by piping the 50 backwards so the front was flat and the other half the regular way.

50 & Fabulous, no doubt.

86th Birthday Cake & Cupcakes

This cake and cupcakes were for a very special woman, Shirley.
Shirley is my brother's wife's grandmother and she turns 86 tomorrow.
Shirley's family threw her a surprise birthday party on Sunday to celebrate.

I had the honor of making a cake and some cupcakes for the occasion.

Lemon Cake with Cream Cheese Filling and Vanilla Swiss Meringue Buttercream.

Shirley loves Owls so I decided to make that the theme of the cake using homemade Marshmallow Fondant.

I made a dozen cupcakes to match the cake and filled them with the cream cheese filling.

Happy 86th Birthday Shirley!!!