Lori's Dulce de Leche Cupcakes

It was my dear friend Lori's birthday this past weekend and her wonderful boyfriend recently purchased me some "Dulce de Leche" from Argentina to try. So why not combine the two?!?!?!

The cake was made as vanilla with a heaping spoonful of Dulce in the batter... The buttercream had about 2 tablespoons of Dulce mixed in and they were of course filled with straight up Dulce! and a little drizzle on top for the fun of it!

Dulce de Leche overload? possibly... diabetic coma?  very easily!  Delicious and the best Dulce e Leche cupcake Lori ever had?? DEFINITELY!!!!

OOOOOO... look at the middle!!!!!

Stay Tuned for an 80th birthday cake!!

A Diaper Cake - NOT Food!!

I know this blog is for my cake creations, but this particular creation was not made out of cake, but an excellent adaptation of my creations!!

Today we celebrated the future arrival of Baby Elias, and since an actual cake was not needed (already supplied), I created and crafted a diaper cake... made out of over 80 diapers, lots of string, thick ribbon, and monkey looking goodies, the cake stood 4 tiers high and smelled like a baby! :-) Her theme for the baby is monkeys, and so what better cake topper then the softest, snuggly monkey that lights up and sings Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

There were onesies with baby animals, and baby hats with animals... travel size baby essentials, Monkey neck rests for car seat straps, monkey and star rattles to hang from the seat, and in the empty diaper box a special monkey outfit and a blue Sing-a-ma-jig (if you havent seen one, i recommend you look it up, they are awesome).

So... not your typical Jeannie Cake... but I wanted to share regardless!! :-)

Natalia!!!!

Here's the baby girl loving her cake!!!!

Natalia's 1st Birthday

I was going to wait to get some pics from the mommy of the birthday girl, but I will just add them later... I had to share this cake with you all.

Baby Natalia has turned 1.  She is the sweetest, most calm and content little 1 year old I have ever met.  Her birthday party was combined with her baby cousin Gianna's making it easy for family, but with the combo, making it a HUGE party... which needed a HUGE cake!  So we decided on a half sheet... but with fondant instead of buttercream.  Natalia's mommy wanted the flavor to be different, so she came up with a "Smores" idea.  So I made chocolate cake with a marshmallow buttercream. The filling between the layers was marshmallow buttercream, graham cracker crumbs, and mini marshmallows for some extra texture.  The marshmallow buttercream might simply be the best thing I have ever tasted... I know, I could be biased... but a few people at the party agreed!!

Natalia's mommy loved the look of the ballerina cake I made for John's niece, so she wanted something similar but with a white base, purple flowers and pink polka dots!  Don't forget the scrolling and "Happy 1st Birthday Natalia"! :-)

Here is the amazing filling of the cake... so light, fluffy and yummy...

I decided to make some full daisies to accent the corners...

I made a whole bunch of baby Violets that John's mom helped with (she is a great assistant)...  Here is the cake from above!  As you can see, the violets outline the cake, with the daisies in the corners.  The lavender scrolling comes from the daisies and the writing was done in the lavender buttercream and done in free hand.

The fondant was very thick, but it was tough to roll out such a huge slab... Here is an angled shot so you can see the pink polka dot sides.

Here are a few close-ups of the violets, corners, and scrolling...

This is I did not know, but apparently babies shouldnt have chocolate at 1 year old... sooo, Natalia needed a special cake she could shove her face into.  So I made a mini round cake in white cake with vanilla buttercream.  Covered it in fondant, violets, a big daisy, scrolling and polka dots (which later got pulled off so she could do a face plant into the cake)

That mini cake might seriously be one of my favorite cakes I have made.  I put it together in no time and it came out great... Natalia and her mommy loved it.

I even got two new potential clients from these little gems!! WOOHOO! I do love when things come together!

The next cake wont be for awhile unless something comes up, but I will work on baking something soon!

Classic Pooh Baby Shower Cake

A friend/boss/teacher from college contacted via Facebook from Colorado to ask me to make a baby shower cake for a dear friend of hers.  My first thought was, YES... but how am I going to get the cake to Colorado?  When she explained that she would be coming to NY for the party, and would pick it up, my next thought was, YES... what's the theme???

Baby/Little kid cakes are becoming very fun for me... the designs and themes are fun, the colors are exciting, and in my life, there seems to be a baby being born or a kid having a birthday just about every minute of every day lately. This particular cake, though lighter in colors, was going to be an awesome design.  Classic Pooh! Timeless!  I looked around on the web and found a few references, not nearly as many as I thought I would find... but one stood out for me big time.  It was a two-tiered round cake with Pooh on top holding an umbrella, and Piglet attached to the side.  There were a few honey pots and bees.  I mixed it up a little.

First off, the cake was to be two-tiered square with vanilla cake, cherry filling and vanilla buttercream.  The main fondant color was a light pastel shade of green.  Instead of the umbrella, I concentrated on the honey pots, which I thought I could incorporate more aspects of the cake into.  And, whats Classic Pooh without ALL the characters... Sure who doesnt love Pooh and Piglet... but who doesnt love Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, AND Eeyore even more?!?!?!

I had the honey pots overflowing with allowed for the "honey" to be spilling over the sides and "collecting" as a border around the two bases on the tiers.  I prefer my cakes to have a finished edge, and look attached, rather then just one cake on top of another, seeing the seams throughout!  Call it personal preference.

Here are close-ups on the characters:

And here is another angle, which shows the fourth corner stacked with more honey pots...

The bees were 3D as well... they stuck to the sides, and I used edible markers to draw the "bee trails" on.

As a special gift to the Mommy-To-Be, my friend asked if I could also make a "take-home" mini cake for her with the same theme.  This one I left Pooh alone with his honey pots and surrounding bees.

As usual, my attention to details made the construction of the cake take a lot longer than I figured it would, but I think the late night paid off in the end... and the clients were all happy, so I that makes me happy!!

Stay Tuned for Natalia's 1st birthday cake... lots of girly colors, flowers, dots and swirls!!!

Makin' Whoopie... Pies ;-)

I saw a fellow blogger had a post about Whoopie Pies and how versatile they are and how yummy they are as well, and I felt compelled to give it a try myself.  I had some extra Peanut Butter buttercream that I was looking for an excuse to use, but wanted to make something new.  With a BBQ on the calendar, I figured why not go for the Whoopie Pies and do a flavor that I know is a favorite amongst my friends.  Chocolate and Peanut Butter... I know, I know, I do that post a lot, but it really does go over well with my group of friends, and I fear if I did anything different I would get cut out of the group ;-)

The batter was that of a wonderful airy chocolate cake... but a little thicker than plain cake batter...

One thing that I know I will need to do next time is to put the batter in a piping bag and pipe out the round "blobs" of batter, if you will, in order to keep some uniformity. Mine came out in many different shapes and sizes, which, in a way, gave them some character.

After finding the ones that matched as best as possible, I whipped the left over Peanut Butter Buttercream to be a bit thinner and creamier and piped them on in...

They came out pretty delicious, and I think the best part about it was how quick I was able to make them... and they made so many pies.  It was like mini cakes... I highly recommend them if you are thinking about making them.  I plan on trying different varieties and flavors, and when I do, you will certainly see them!