College Cupcakes

It's official; I'm old. I have started my first semester of college. Now I don't feel old based on this fact alone. I feel old looking back on the kids I used to babysit and the fact that they are getting the Priesthood and going to Stake Dances and starting high school and growing up. These facts make me feel old. And I realize that I'm not old at all, but I have definitely noticed that I am no longer a child. I've come to terms with this new fact of life. Sort of. The one thing that hasn't changed is my love for cake and decorating it. In fact, I feel like it has grown. That's why I was so excited when my dorm complex announced that they were doing a Bake-Off and they wanted us to do cupcakes. I immediately reached for the new cupcake recipe book Mom had gotten me for my birthday and my roommates and I got to work. We spent the morning laughing, dancing, and singing along to Pandora as we each did a different task to complete our cupcakes. It was a great bonding activity and I will cherish it always.
The recipe we decided on was a Chocolate Raspberry cupcake with raspberry frosting. We made a few alterations based on what we could or could not get our hands on and created these masterpieces:

My roommate K is really creative and suggested we melt chocolate and draw pumpkins and "BOO" to add a Halloween element. She did that and I really like how they turned out, they really added to the cupcakes. 

We may have not won first prize, but it was a really neat experience to do something I love with people I love and see it all come together. 

I really want to persuade these girlies to come work with me once I get my own bakery. Think of all the fun times we would have together! 

Hawaiian Birthday

One of my really good friends from school knows my passion for cake decorating and asked if I would make her birthday cake for her Hawaiian luau. I was stoked. She was my first real consultation. I picked her up after school and we went to Jack-in-the-Box to put some ideas on paper. This is the design we came up with (it was mostly her!)

From this design, I created a really great cake, if I do say so myself. I had so much fun trying new techniques and shaping the cake to what it ended up being.

 This was the front, with the fondant volcano and palm trees sitting on the butter cream water. The volcano was chocolate cake, the water vanilla.

 

For a while, I had no clue how I was going to go about forming the volcano part. I considered just baking a 9"x13" smushing it into the shape of a volcano, but I knew that wouldn't go over well when it came time to cut into it. I couldn't come up with anything that would be good enough. Luckily for me, Mom is great at coming up with ideas. She suggested using one of those giant cup cake pans, the ones where they make a single giant cupcake, and going from there. So I invested in a new cake pan and got a great reaction from partygoers and the birthday girl herself.  

Close ups of the butter cream waves.

 

  

 Close up of the message to the birthday girl.

  

 

I formed the palm trees around a skewer and then had to hot glue the leaves on top so they would stay. I then had to pipe green butter cream around the base of the tree to help smooth the transition from tree to cake. 

 Hand made palm fronds, drying on my cool fondant drying rack that I got to use for the first time!

 

CLASS OF 2013!!

It has finally come! After 12 long years, we have graduated high school! It's so surreal, I don't know what to do with myself. My time has always been taken up with school work, homework and after school rehearsals. I guess it's time to get a job now that I have free time.
With graduation comes graduation parties, a time to celebrate this accomplishment with friends and family. One of my good friend's parents asked me to make a cake for her graduation party. I was beyond excited to be asked to do this project. I only got one picture with my camera phone, so it's not very good quality, but here it is!

The bottom two tiers were hexagon shaped and the top tier was round, to form the cap. My friend Jos is really into music and was even Drum Major for our school's marching band senior year. I tied in her love for music by piping the notes to one of the songs they played in band onto the bottom tier. I could have done a lot better with the piping but I was trying to hurry and get the cake out the door and to the party. And the fondant could have been smoother. But all in all, I think this cake turned out pretty well and the group was pleased with what I had come up with. I love being able to work with cake and learn new techniques to use. 

Welcome Home, Elder!

My older brother was in Canada for the past two years serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints. He returned home a few weeks ago on April 25th. We had a homecoming party for him that Sunday, the 28th. I knew we would have a big crowd so I made a bigger cake than I usually do. This is an idea I got off Pinterest and modified a little bit.












 My fondant skills are really improving.
 I'm starting to get the hang of making, coloring, and rolling it out.

I was going to make a fondant tie, but I ran out of time. Then I was just going to drape one of Elder's ties around it, but the tie I grabbed had been worn a lot and not washed and Mom suggested not having a dirty tie on the cake, which is a really good idea. So I just grabbed some green cardstock and cut a quick tie. Its not like it was on their for very long anyways because everyone dug in as fast as they could.

What Happens When I'm Bored and Alone

For some reason that I can't remember, my family went out of town and left me at home alone. Now, if I were a stereotypical teenager, I would have immediately contacted all my friends and thrown a party while my parents were gone and probably destroyed the house. Lucky for my parents, I am not a stereotypical teen and they returned to a house that was still standing and not a complete disaster. Instead, I made a mess of the kitchen and created not one but two cakes. It was shortly after Mother's Day and since I didn't have the time before to make Mom a cake, I made one after. It was lemon cake with lemon flavored frosting. Both came store bought I'm pretty sure, but I made the purple frosting to practice my roses, writing and borders. The roses and writing still need a bit of work, but this cake turned out pretty good and Mom loved it. 

 

 

 

 

My brothers and my dad are picky and don't like lemon cake so I made them their own yellow cake. Being boys, and my heroes, I decorated theirs in a superhero theme. My dad and my youngest brother like Superman and my second youngest brother likes Batman. It was a simple design but I think it turned out awesome. And the boys were happy that this time the cake was for them and not leaving the house for someone else.

 

Bow Tie

Remember the friend with the top hat? For her next birthday, I made her a bow tie cake. It's always fun to make cakes for this friend. So, to do it, I took my smallest hectagon cake pan for the middle and a square pan cut diagonally to form the outsides. I ran out of time to cover with fondant, so I just frosted it with canned frosting from the store. To decorate, I placed green and purple circular sprinkles around the edge. It turned out great. I just love doing this!

Culinary Class

I'm taking culinary arts this year in high school and I am loving it. I'm learning so many new things that I can't wait to try at home. This past unit, Mrs. H. had us do cakes. I was jumping with excitement when she told us and all throughout the instruction. I did learn new tips and tricks to cake decorating, which was awesome. Though the assignment was really simple, I still had a great time with it. I passed the unit with flying colors. I wanted to do something cute and fun, so I chose to pipe a duck on my cake. Mrs. H. gave us a star tip and a circle tip to work with.