Duckie Baby Shower

Happy New Year! 

Recently, we had a chance to bake a cake for another double baby shower! This time the moms were excited to have a very baby-centric shower. We racked our brains for ideas and finally decided to create an adorable rubber duckie cake with matching cupcakes!

The cake was a deliciously rich chocolate cake with mocha cream. The cupcakes were vanilla bean orange topped with buttercream. 

Ryan's cake (by Amanda)

The same weekend as Bridget's baby shower cake, my mom wanted me to make a cake for my brother.  It was the weekend before he moved to Arizona for school, as well as the weekend before his 30th birthday.  Since I had to bake 2 cakes in 2 days, I suggested to my mom that she help me decorate my brother's cake, and she was happy to help.  So, after the baby shower, I went home and baked a carrot cake and then drove it 2 hours to my mom's house along with a duffle bag full of cake decorating tools.  It was my mom's first time using fondant, so I taught her what I knew and she was a pro off the bat.  We collaborated on ideas, and came up with the cake below.  My brother loved it and even said that it was the best carrot cake he's ever had!

Pink Ladybug Baby Shower (by Amanda)

My co-worker, Bridget, asked me if I would make a small cake for her baby shower.  The only specifications she gave were that it be strawberry cake, had the colors brown, pink and blue, and that it had pink lady bugs on it.  So, I made a 6" strawberry cake with cream cheese frosting and covered in chocolate fondant.  The blue fondant flowers have sugar pearls in the middle, and the pink lady bugs are fondant as well.  Here is the finished result:

Happy Halloween

Halloween was just around the corner so we gathered up some friends for a pumpkin carving potluck. We of course brought along something baked... this time we tried something new-- sugar cookies. These were really fun to make and even more fun to eat!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Pumpkin Cake

Fall's here and has brought with it fall flavors. For my mom's birthday cake I decided to try something a little different and tested out a recipe for a pumpkin cake which I found in Cooking Light (with a few ingredient modifications). The cake was topped with orange cream cheese frosting, pomegranate seeds and mandarin oranges--- sounds odd but the flavors and textures were amazing.

Hamburger Cupcakes (by Amanda)

Three of our guy friends moved into an apartment together and they were throwing a housewarming party. Tina asked me if I was going to the party, and I said yes. Since Tina was also planning on going, she said, "We should have made them a cake." To this I replied, "It's not too late."

Since we decided to make them a cake last minute, we felt that cupcakes would be the quicker and easier treat to make. However, most of the decorations we had on hand were flowers and hearts, so we weren't quite sure how we were going to decorate them for a group of guys.

For no real reason other than that they weren't too girly, we decided to make cupcakes that looked like hamburgers. They were fairly simple to make. The "buns" are the tops and bottoms of white cupcakes. The "patties" are the bottom parts of chocolate cupcakes. The "mayonnaise" is coconut cream cheese frosting. The "lettuce" is dyed green coconut shreds. The "ketchup and mustard" is dyed red and yellow coconut cream cheese frosting. We stuck the traditional hamburger toothpick through them and then dotted the top "bun" with coconut cream cheese frosting to make the "sesame seeds."

The party seemed to really enjoy them, and Tina and I were really happy with how they turned out!

Vegan

These tasty treats were a new challenge... they were vegan! I have to admit I was nervous that they would turn out terrible. I thought how can a cupcake bake up moist and delicious without eggs, butter or milk, but they turned out fantastic! They had a moist, tender crumb and tasted delicious.