More Cupcake Fun

I keep thinking that life is going to slow down, but it never seems to!  I made 3 cakes last weekend that I am looking forward to posting.  In addition, I started the busiest part of my summer this week!

With my leftover batter, I made some cupcakes.  For the graduation cake on May 18, I purchased bake-stable dulce de leche filling.  Since it was bake-stable (meaning that you could cook with it in your cake batter), I decided to bake some into a cupcake to see just how well it worked!  Here is a cross-section of the cupcakes:

Dulce de Leche Cupcakes with Whipped Frosting

I placed the filling in the middle of the cupcake batter, and it sunk all the way to the bottom, so the next time around, I dropped it right on top of the cake batter before baking.

Dozen Dulce de Leche filled cupcakes: $24

Since the Dulce de Leche was labeled as bake-stable, I decided to see what would happen if I baked the other fillings right into the cupcakes.  They turned out great as well!  This time the filling was dropped on top of the batter, and they looked beautiful.

Rich Chocolate-Filled Cupcake with Buttercream Frosting and Fondant Decoration

 Dozen filled cupcake cost: $24     Photo credit: Rhythm Photography

A very satisfied customer!  Photo credit: Rhythm Photography

Strawberry Paradise Cupcakes with Strawberry Whipped Frosting

 

Dozen filled cupcake cost: $24      Photo credit: Rhythm Photography

Dozen filled happy hour (Daiquiri or Pina Colada) cupcake cost: $30

Another satisfied customer!   Photo credit: Rhythm Photography

 Photo credit: Rhythm Photography

Happy Hour Just Got Happier

I found a recipe for Double Chocolate Kahlua Cake.  I just had to try it!  The recipe had a corresponding recipe for "fluffy" chocolate frosting.  In reality, it made a chocolate glaze.  It worked fine for the cake, but I think it would be even better with cupcakes!

8-inch round cake cost: $35
Dozen cupcake cost: $24

Feeling Tangled?

The second cake that I made for Saturday was for a(n almost) 4-year-old's Tangled-themed birthday party.  They gave me free reign to make whatever I wanted, and they were not expecting me to show up on their door step with a tower on the cake!

This entire thing is cake (except for the structural components.  It starts with a 10" square single-layer chocolate cake with strawberry filling, whipped frosting, and fondant flowers.  The tower is make of 4" and 6" round almond cakes covered in fondant.  Even the spire on the top of the tower is edible!  In addition, I included floating "lights" made of fondant.

Custom cake cost: $75   Photo credit: Rhythm Photography

Graduation Time

It has been a busy weekend for Sweet Pea Gourmet Treats.  I had 2 cakes to make this weekend for the same day!

The first one was for a high school graduate who is moving on to film school.  The cake is 13x9" chocolate with dulce de leche filling.  I covered the entire cake in red fondant, to not only symbolize a red carpet but also one of the school colors.  On top is a graduation cake and a reel of film.  Around the sides of the cake I wrapped strips of "film."

 Custom cake cost: $75   Photo credit: Rhythm Photography

I also made cupcakes for their party.  The cupcakes are Dulce de Leche cupcakes, with butter cake, dulce de leche filling, whipped frosting and a fondant decoration.

Dozen cupcake cost: $24   Photo credit: Rhythm Photography

Baby Bump

A couple of years ago another friend of mine asked me to make a cake for her friend's baby shower.  I saw this cake idea online.  Some people thought it was creepy to have a headless pregnant body, but I thought it was really cute...

Ahoy There, Matey!

Two years ago a friend of mine asked me to make a pirate cake for her son's birthday party.  She sent me a picture of a carved pirate ship, but I had not yet done a carved cake (I still have only done one, I think).  I came up with a still rather ambitious plan, and set out to make Diogo a wonderful pirate cake.  The finished product:

The "water" was covered in whipped frosting with fondant decorations.

The ship was all chocolate!  Chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and chocolate fondant making the wooden slats.  The pirates are made of brownies and fondant.

A Colorful Birthday

Two-year-olds love to do pretty much anything and everything, including coloring.  So this 2-year-old had a coloring birthday party.

The cake was an 8-inch round cake with whipped frosting and fondant decorations.

There were also solid color cake and cookie pops.

Sticking with the theme, there was a buffet of colorful food, mock Sangria, M&Ms, and lots of crayons!.

Cupcakes

Cupcakes are fun for any occasion, because they are easy to grab and eat.  I made these cupcakes just for fun.  I cannot remember any more if I used buttercream or whipped frosting, but the roses are buttercream.

Dozen buttercream rose cupcake cost: $24

These were for a friend's son's first birthday party.

Dozen unfilled cupcakes with whipped frosting only: $15
Dozen unfilled cupcakes with whipped frosting and fondant decorations: $18


These fun little cupcakes were to celebrate a friend's engagement.  The bows are fondant and the flowers are royal icing.

Dozen unfilled cupcakes with premium decoration: $30

These "hamburgers" were to celebrate my husband's birthday.  I forgot to take a picture before the party, and these were all that were left by the time I remembered!

Dozen hamburger cupcakes: $18

April Showers Bring May Flowers!

So, we don't really get a lot of April showers here in Phoenix, but May flowers have been appearing in my kitchen this week!  Friday was my little one's last day of day care, so I made cake pops.  They are slightly time consuming, so I made some flowers and left the rest plain (for the kids).

The staff at her center loved them, and the center director asked me if I could make her some more for Saturday.  The lesson that I learned from that is that 2 dozen is the most that I can make in one day (without totally neglecting my family and/ or staying up all night).

Who wouldn't love a dozen roses for Mother's Day, Valentine's Day, or just because?

I had a couple fall of their sticks.  What a beautiful "reject!"

Flower cake pops: $3 each (with or without a stick)

Cookies!

I spent last weekend making cookies.  They did not all turn out like I was hoping, but there were some delicious cookies!  I was trying to make sugar cookies, but they did not roll out well.  I guess I will go back to my "original" recipes that I used to make the monkey and flower cookies when I want shaped cookies.

The peanut butter cookies were too dry.  I will definitely have to try a different recipe.

These cookies, however, were fabulous!  They are almond sugar cookies.  They did the best job with rolling out for cookie cutters.  I also made chocolate sugar cookies, which did not roll out well at all, and they did not photograph well, either.

There cookies were great as well.  They are Mexican hot chocolate chip cookies.

Here they are all packaged up for my hubby to take to work.

And here they are after traveling to St. Louis.  I sent one package to my dad and "bonus" mom, and another to one of my favorite college professors.  Too bad they crumbled on their journey!