Super delicious birthday cookies

These cute tiger cupcakes, with hand-painted fondant toppers, are by PJ'S Baby Cakes in Lincoln, Nebraska, via Flickr. Visit pjsbabycakes.com for ordering information.



And unrelated but beautiful love cupcakes:

Aren't these rosebud cupcakes perfect for Valentine's Day? You can find out how to make them from our friend and food blogger Diary of a Mad Hausfrau, who can also be found on Facebook. Via Flickr.

Cake ini pesanan Ayu untuk ulang tahun Anya, puterinya yang pertama hari Sabtu 22 Januari 2011 kemarin.

Ayu minta cake dengan thema Sponge Bob pakai icing (fondant).



Base cakenya aku pakai Double Chocolate Steamed Cake ukuran 26 cm. Carving dikit kanan kiri, bikin motif polkadot di atas badannya, lalu cover dengan fondant yang sudah aku warnai malam sebelumnya.



Niat awal nggak pakai kaki atau tangan. Waktu sudah jadi aku share di group BBM Bakul Rumahan, oleh teman teman disarankan pakai kaki dan tangan..hihih...ya wis, akhirnya jadi seperti ini. Kakinya agak ndlewer karena spacenya nggak cukup. Aku berhati hati sekali membuat matanya, karena expresi Sponge Bob tertumpu di mata, begitu mata kurang pas, pasti jadinya kurang lucu.



Makasih ordernya ya, Yu, semoga Anya suka... dan selamat ulang tahun buat Anya,semoga menjadi anak yang pintar, cantik dan lembut seperti Mamanya.. :)

Ini dia My Apologies Cakes yang aku maksud kemarin.
Cake ini khusus dibuat untuk mba Vika yang kemarin cupcakesnya ada masalah waktu delivery.

Seperti yg aku ceritakan sebelumnya bahwa mba Vika ini tidak minta ganti cupcakes yang figurinenya berubah jadi si kunti (hantu yg ada pakunya di kepala....hiiiii....), tapi karena aku merasa bersalah atas kelalaianku tidak double check lagi saat cupcakes di pick up sama kurir..... jadi aku kirimkan cake ini sebagai permintaan maaf.
Oleh sebab itu di atas cake tersebut tidak ada tulisan Happy Birthday tapi yang ada tulisan "SORRY"

Rasanya masih kebayang deh kejadian kemarin......, tapi masih semangat kok untuk baking lagi.
Pengalaman kemarin bagus juga untuk pembelajaran aku ke depan supaya lebih baik lagi.
Oh yah kurir yang kemarin juga sudah minta maaf kok, dan sebagai rasa tanggung jawab mereka kali ini ongkos kirim cakenya free loh !
Aku juga minta maaf yah mas-mas semuaaaa....., yah yang namanya manusia pasti ada human errornya, yang penting kita mau memperbaiki kesalahan tersebut, betul-betul-betuuuuuulllll.......... (upin-ipin donk!)
Naaaah.... mba Vika senang sekali menerima My Apologies Cake ini...., trus dia kirimi aku fotonya si Imut Naya lagi deh :

Demikianlah teman-teman......akhirnya cerita ini Happy Ending deh...hi...hi...hiii.....
Sampai ketemu lagi yah di cerita selanjutnyaaaa......



glitter-graphics.com

I think the biggest disaster is that I always spell it "diaster."



Nah, not really. I think a volcano being attacked by a shark, giant octopus, wolf, The Cold, and an encroaching ocean is pretty disastrous. Oh! Don't forget the meteor and wrecked helicopter.



See, this is a cake that I was planning for Hillary's 19th birthday, and now it's 2 months past her 20th birthday, so to say this is belated is quite an understatement. Anyway, we love watching cheesy corny disaster movies together ("The Day After Tomorrow," "Absolute Zero," "Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus," "2012" for example) so this cake takes its inspiration from all of those movies and more.



The cake turned out a little more cartoonish--maybe it was the fondant octopus or the light blue icy lava-- than I was originally picturing in my head, but it turned out really great. The "lava" and ocean are made out of royal icing, which made cutting into the cake a little more difficult than originally planned, and the meteor, octopus, and shark fin are all made of out Wilton fondant (why Wilton? Because it's cheap and no one was going to eat the pieces anyway). The volcano is chocolate buttercream, and the cake is coffee flavored.







Shout out to Sarah! For telling me how to make coffee cake, and to pass it on, I'll tell you now! (Because have you ever tried to google "coffee flavored cake recipe?" It doesn't work, I tell you!) OK, so you take your cake recipe (or box mix) and instead of putting water or whatever liquid, use double-brewed coffee instead. And my dad says there's some secret "thing" about double brewed coffee, like it will break the coffee maker or something...so I just asked him to brew the coffee for me.



So there you have it! The Disaster Cake. While not as epic as the end of the world, this cake was pretty grand, and according to Chris, the best tasting cake I've ever made!

Thank Goodness It's Friday!  I thought I would showcase a fun little wedding cake.  This was another Chattanooga wedding cake - in fact this tall bubbly number went to the Tennessee Aquarium.

This is a pretty simple cake, just a fondant covered cake with blue and green gumpaste circles.

This cake does have a funny story to go with it.  Now I deliver cakes to the Tennessee Aquarium all the time, I even have a special little place to park around back on the loading dock.  But when I go to deliver this cake, there's a huge Bluegrass Festival going on, and the way to my safe, secure little loading dock is completely blocked off by barricades and festival goers.  So what's a girl to do??

I pulled into a little drive area that is in front of the aquarium, but still too far to carry a cake.  I wasn't even supposed to be there - it's for the carriages only.  After speaking with one of the staff, they decided that it would be best if I just popped up on the sidewalk and pull straight to the main entrance!

So I do, and as I'm riding on the sidewalk, I pass a policeman who is also on the sidewalk.  He is giving me a wild look so I roll down the window and say "I'm here with the cake."  Evidently, that was more than enough to satisfy him!!  Being that close to the door I was in and out in a flash!  I don't know if I can ever go back to the loading dock again!!

I just love it when we get to make a non traditional wedding cake!  My bride was so fantastic and let me take inspiration from another cake, an invitation, and a save the date card.

It was one of those cakes that would have been pretty if I stopped at the first stage, which was the trees.  It would have been prettier if I stopped at the next stage which was the curly vines.  That was by far the most time consuming.  Getting the little chocolate fondant snakes thin enough while staying even.  I still don't know why I didn't get my clay gun out?!  The one thing that made life easier was that after stacking I put the cake in the cooler for several hours while I worked on other projects.  When I brought it out the condensation made it just the right amount of sticky!  The trees and vines stuck on perfectly.  It was a shame when it dried up and I had to go back to attaching with water or piping gel.  I had it good for a while!

Back to the cake, I then added the leaves and it was prettier....and I could have stopped...but no!  The "Save the date" cards had Autumn colored dots so I added a few.  That is what made the cake for me!  Pop pop pop...dot dot dot!  I used the little circle cutter from Polymer Clay Express.  These will be worth every cent!  I love that site!  The impression mats are good, not to mention the extruder guns.  I liked everything about the cake except for the delivery which was 90 minutes one way and the last 2 1/2 miles was all on a gravel road that was not at all cake friendly!  It was called Laurelwood and it was a beautiful location once we got there!

This cake demonstrates something that I have seen quite a lot with a lot of the brides I have met with lately... the double border.

It's a great way to add an extra splash of color while still maintaining a clean and simple look.

By the way, even though this cake looks small (and it was), it was red velvet cake with cream cheese icing.  Add a layer of fondant to the whole thing and this was one heavy cake!!  It took both of us to carry it!!!

Also, a funny little story while we were setting up this cake:  Chad was finishing the placement on this cake, putting on the topper, and taking photos when another couple approached the cake.  The man commented "Hey, I know what that is!  That's fondue icing!! I saw it on Cake Boss!"  The woman immediately piped in with "No!  It's cream cheese icing!  The lady already said what kind of icing it was!"  A few moments of silence later and they both looked at Chad and said, "Well, who's right?"  Chad came back with, "Well, you are both correct.  There is cream cheese icing, but there's also another icing layer on top of that - and it's actually called fondant icing."  The man replies back with "See, I told you it had FONDUE icing on it - I watch Cake Boss, I know all about FONDUE icing!"

OK, so maybe it wasn't the funniest story you've ever heard, but it was the highlight of our delivery day!

This weekend we were tasked to make a HUGE package of Reese's Peanut Butter Butter Cups.  And when I say huge, I mean almost 2 feet long!  Since it was a Reese's Cup cake, it only makes sense that it was chocolate cake with peanut butter icing, right?

Nothing terribly fancy going on here - the sides of the package were made from rice crispy treats and the whole thing was covered in fondant.  The one cool thing we did on this cake was to use our Cricut Cake to cut out the logo.  Chad took the logo and somehow got into this new software we bought (called Sure Cuts a Lot) and used it to cut the logo out of modeling chocolate.  It was very cool, and if we ever do another one, we can use the same file to make it as large or small as we need!

Once it was finished I had some extra space left on my cake board so I covered most of the exposed areas of the board with ganache and then topped it with quartered peanut butter cups and Reese's Pieces!  Peanut Butter Paradise!!!

When our little dude was born, he decided to make an entrance.  An unexpected entrance via emergency c-section, 10 weeks early.  He weighed 2 pounds, 13 ounces. 


Looking at birth announcements, I found one that said "cute as a button" and it was perfect because he was about the size of a button.  I only wish I knew how to make cookies back then. :)

The buttons are made from homemade fondant.  Remember that?  They were so fun to make; I could have made hundreds of them.

Supplies for the buttons:

• fondant 
• AmeriColor Sky Blue Soft Gel Paste Food Color
• bench scraper

• tips: Wilton 4B, and #1 or #2 plain tips
• cornstarch
• rolling pin
• toothpicks
• chopstick

To make the buttons, color the fondant with gel paste food coloring, kneading until fully blended.

Dust the surface and rolling pin with cornstarch to prevent sticking, a tip Buddy gave us, and roll the fondant thin, maybe 1/8 to 1/4 of an inch. Use a bench scraper to lift the fondant off the counter if necessary.

Using the back of the Wilton 4B tip as a cutter, cut out the button shape.

Mine kept getting stuck, so I used  a chopstick to nudge them out.
{PS...I'm not going to quit blogging to be a hand model anytime soon.}

With the back of the #1 or #2 tip, add the inner circle button detail, being sure not to press all the way through.

With the tip end of the #1 or #2 tip, make button holes.
{Seriously, what are those holes called? A button hole is something you push your button through.  There must be a name of the holes in the middle of a button. Anyone? Anyone?}

Use a toothpick to poke all the way through the button.
{Again...no hand modeling.}

Let dry at room temperature.  Store in an air-tight container at room temperature.


For the cookies:

• Outline & flood the cookies with royal icing and let dry overnight.
• Pipe the dots around the border.
• With an AmeriColor Gourmet Writer Food Decorator Pen , add the wording. (AmeriColor pens are much better than the ones as the grocery store!)
• Attach the buttons with a bit of royal icing.
• Let dry several hours.