Super delicious birthday cookies

Yesterday was my birthday and I made a special visit to see my Seattle cupcake friends at New York Cupcakes in Bellevue, WA!

Heather and Lisa of New York Cupcakes and Carrie Middlemiss of Bella Cupcake Couture surprised me with a 4-pack of beautiful birthday cupcakes, complete with my name on one and in my favorite flavor, chocolate peanut butter!


The ladies at New York Cupcakes really know how to make a perfect cupcake!  I mean really.... look how beautiful their cupcakes are!!

Thursday, Feb. 10, Retro Bakery in Las Vegas, NV is celebrating their 3rd birthday with a huge party!

500 cupcakes will be given out along with 50 dozen cupcakes to anyone who finds a #3 under their cupcake!

Join the fun with Kari, Brian and the entire Retro crew beginning at 8:00am on Thursday to celebrate their Bakery Birthday!

7785 N. Durango Dr. #130
Las Vegas, NV 89131
95 N Freeway/Durango Dr.
702-586-3740

Congratulations to everyone at Retro Bakery from everyone here at Cupcakes Take the Cake (JavaCupcake too!) on another fantastic year of cupcakes!!!

Naaaah ini dia birthday cake yang di pesan diefa untuk ulang tahun borongan 3 orang temannya : Gerry, Amel dan Izam
Enak yah kalau punya temen yang ulang tahunnya berdekatan, bikinin cake kayak gini aja biar ngirit beli kado.....xixixiiii.....
Satu cake buat bertiga......siiiiip !!!

Sempet gak punya ide waktu bikin cake ini, soalnya pesennya mendadak banget sih.....
Karena yang ulang tahun 3 orang, aku bikin yang meriah kayak di pesta ulang tahun, jadi harus ada balon-balonnya, kado yang banyak (kan yang ulang tahun 3 orang, xixixiiii....) daaan convety tentunya.....!!!!!
Ayo, ayoooo..... itu kadonya dibagi rata bertiga yaaah,
jangan rebutan !!!
Eh, waktu lagi edit fotonya baru nyadar, itu 15 nya kurang "st".......
Xixixiiiii........, maaf yaaaaaa........


glitter-graphics.com

Alcohol is not sounding very good for some people after New Year's Eve, but cake in the shape of alcohol, YUM!  I could lie and tell you that it's supposed to look like one of those new single serve soda cans, but honestly I just made the cake too chubby.  I was focused on how many I needed to feed and not the proportions (duh!)

For you guys looking to do cakes professionally, please know now that this is a very hard thing to balance.  You can't make a 3-D carved helmet cake to feed 10 people and you have to learn to tell people the facts. We don't have a shrink ray (maybe next Christmas)!  I used 5 8" round cake layers for this cake.  The blue is all buttercream as are the bubbles.  The spilled  beer is piping gel with a little copper color.

The logo was an edible image that I found, transferred into PowerPoint and enlarged it to the size I needed. The birthday letters, plaque the image is mounted on and lid are all Fondarific.  Honestly, this was a pretty easy cake and I don't say that much, so go get to making one!

Have a great weekend!

I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm mostly doing wedding cakes these days.  So when I get  to make a nice sized birthday cake, I seem to lose my mind! Especially when I have extra time.  This mom has being getting all of her kids birthday cakes from us for a few years now.  Those loyal customers are the ones the you want to do EXTRA for!

I was told to make a circus themed cake.  I knew it was for a girl, so I wanted to soften it a little with the pink tent and lighter blue (instead of primary colors).  I looked at some invitations on Etsy.com for inspiration.  The bottom two tiers are buttercream with fondant accents.  The tent is all fondant.  I made the roof out of cereal treats.  The the popcorn was piped with a #12 tip and dusted with yellow petal dust (flick it off of a paint brush).  The jelly beans and lollies are made of fondant with tylose powder.

If I had another day I wanted to do a circus lion, seal, clowns, etc....I left myself plenty of room on the cake board and yellow tier, but no extra time.  It's sad when you can't do all that you want, but the mommy only paid for one tier so I shouldn't feel bad.

We have many great customers, but the ones that are "in the industry" are some of my favorites.  Many times, they let you "do whatever you want" or at the very least they understand the time involved so they don't take issue when they know you give them a fair quote.

This mommy goes all out for her sweet little man.  She designs 90% of the cake and then decorates the entire party to match the cake, which I have no problem with of course!  Her idea in this design was to do each tier with something primary and familiar to a two year old.  There are several animals on the other side of the cake because it was to be displayed in the middle of the room.  My favorite is the penguins because I have been watching a lot of "Penguins of Madagascar" on Nickelodeon lately.

The cake is iced in butercream and all the decorations are fondant.  The greens on the monkey tier are very different, but it didn't show up well in this picture.  The "2" is "busting out of the top" with the fondant peeling back.  I quoted 12 hours of art on this cake and between carving the cake, mixing colors, and 14 animals, I used every bit of that time and then some.  I HAD to have all four penguins in the cartoon!

After six years of making cake, I think I'm starting to get the artwork estimates down pat.  This is what you do.....estimate how much time the cake will take you after it's all smooth and stacked THEN DOUBLE IT!  I have given a little money back when I have over estimated, but that is a rarity.  Anyone have a better idea?  Happy New Year! 

I'll admit that when Amy from I Heart Faces asked me to make some cookies for a photography workshop, I was a little, ok...a lot, intimidated.  The cookies were part of a stylized birthday party with some absolutely adorable little girls.
Amy found the inspiration for the flower cookie from this AMAZING blog from (I think) Japan, called Rosey. All of her cookies are incredible!  With that as a starting point, Amy came up with some designs for heart cookies to coordinate with them. 

Want to make the flower cookies?
You'll need royal icing in just two colors....Super Red and Super Black.

Here's a little slide show tutorial....

(Does this slide show look out of order to you guys? It's showing up out of order for me....I'll figure out how to fix it...I think. Sorry, I'm new to slide shows!)