One thing that made me happy today (other than the fact that it is Friday) is the post about these cupcakes. As you already know, I love crumbs and doilies blog. Here are cupcakes they did for a green, gold, and cream wedding. When I think of these colors, I think of leprechauns, but these cupcakes make the color combo gorgeous!
Here’s a cake I did two … three years ago. I was pretty impressed with myself at the time… The cake was chocolate and vanilla marble with buttercream icing. At the time, I hadn’t mastered a buttercream recipe so I just bought several cups of it from a bakery down the street. The cap and scroll are marshmellow fondant.
Since I haven’t posted anything about the paper side of my “business,” I figured I’d share with you the paper products I created for Rachel’s wedding. She wanted to a green / natural wedding and chose green and yellow for her colors. She liked the idea of handmade paper, so we played around with the concept and here’s what I came up with:
We went with a khaki bookish format and tied together the actual invitation with some handmade paper over it with raffia.
For the bridal shower invitation, her now-mother-in-law suggested a garden theme.
And last but not least, here are the programs and thank you notes!
Crumbs and Doilies has to be one of my favorite websites/blogs. They are a cupcakery in London but they aren’t like the run of the mill cupcake shop here in the states. They are very creative. Maybe I’m obsessed with the multitude of sprinkles they use – I don’t know, but I love logging in and seeing all of the different orders they fulfil for weddings and other events. Here are some pictures of a cupcake tower they did for a wedding …
The other thing I really like is that they mix standard and mini sized cupcakes. They are just so fun!
Martha Stewart posted a “chrysanthemum cupcake” recipe on her website and I LOVE them! So I am going to try it out…
… but instead of regular icing, I’m going to try to make them out of meringue. If you’ve ever had a yule log dessert with the meringue mushrooms – you know what I’m talking about. You make the meringue, create the flower and then bake. And voila! Sugar flower! It will be interesting to see how vibrant I can make the colors!
So I attended my last wilton meeting which completes the first course. Last night, we learned how to do the wilton rose. It took a little time, but I’d say I mastered it pretty well. I could make roses all night. They were so easy!
My finished product:
And in case you were wondering how my clowns turned out… they were pretty cute. But I chose to put flowers on my cake instead.
Since I had a few flower punch outs left over, I figured I’d make a few cupcakes for the funding officers on the desk at work that were so kind as to let me sit with them and absorb everything they do. Plus, I could photograph them to show as examples for wedding cupcakes!
And since I have yet to purchase a full sized sifter… here’s the BF working his sifting magic with my handheld sifter and a screwdriver (ha). Thanks Brandon!
So I promised my aunt a birthday cake awhile before her birthday and wasn’t able to make it to Virginia Beach for the Fourth of July (her birthday was the 5th) so I told her I owed her one the next time I came to visit. I was there last weekend and immediately got to work. I’d never worked with fondant flowers before, so I decided to do a little experimenting. Instead of making my own fondant, I bought Wilton’s version. (which tastes like tasteless dough btw). I picked a few colors and started punching out flowers. It worked out pretty well and the punches actually harden pretty quickly.
I decided on a chocolate cake with raspberry filling. This gave me a chance to try out the chocolate version of my almond sour cream wedding cake.
Then last but not least, I decorated using those colorful fondant flowers!
The top read “Happy Belated Birthday” but I didn’t like my choice of light pink icing. Oh well. I was pleased with the finished product and so was my aunt : )
So I’ve decided that if I want any respect as a cake decorator, I might want to take some classes. Michaels stores offer a series of four classes, varying in degrees of difficulty. In order to take anything above a level 1 class, you must have taken the level 1 class (makes sense). So Tuesday night was the first night that we did any decorating. We mastered the stars and writing techniques on our practice pads and then moved on to our pre-iced cakes. I wasn’t impressed by my cake, then then again, I have to remind myself that I was limited to two piping techniques, as well as never-goes-bad icing made soley of crisco and powdered sugar. I sent it to work with Brandon because it would be a shame to waste it.. Apparently it tasted better than it looked : ) Next week – Wilton Clowns… I’m not sure how I feel about this…
