Individual Cupcakes with STYLE!

It feels like such a long time since my last post! The Safari themed birthday I did in June definitely warrants an entry, as it gave me the opportunity to work with some new materials!

The client, Samira, was referred to me by my friend / co-worker / fellow cake maker, Lisa (Lisa was unable to make this cake since she gave birth to a precious baby girl only days prior!). Samira was having a safari themed event for her daughter's 1st birthday (complete with petting zoo!). S sent me several pictures of some cakes she liked, and asked if I could make other things - like cookies and lollipops! 

 

So I spent some time pulling together a proposal... and since Samira had never eaten my cupcakes before, I brought her a sample. 

We ended up doing three kinds of cupcakes, totaling 30 - black forest (so devil's food cake filled with cherry), carrot, and yellow - and Samira chose to have the light cream cheese frosting (from the carrot cake) on all of the cupcakes. We needed a topper cake for the cupcake tier, (for the 1 year candle, etc) and we decided that giraffe made the most sense (from options including leopard and zebra)... I was able to find giraffe printed paper for the cupcake wrappers and added the pop of color with pink cupcake wrappers...  I mirrored the giraffe paper as I free-hand cut the chocolate fondant for the topper cake.

For the cookies, I used royal icing to create the super smooth leapard and zebra frosting and was thrilled with the way they all turned out! The lollis - zebra, elephant, giraffe, and lion - were all delicately "built" by me too. The process involves a reverse layering of colored melted chocolates... the mold themes available are endless!

 

It was REALLY cool to see this all come together... it was even MORE cool to see how excited Samira (and her family) was when it all arrived and we put it together.... and even better when I heard from Samira the next day... 

"Thank you so much for everything yesterday everything was delicious and people couldn't stop raving about how beautiful it all was."

BACK IN MAY, Bobbi turned 1 too!  Her mom, Christy, who has ordered a few traditional cupcakes cakes in the past, decided to go with individual cupcakes for this event.  I made 70 cupcakes for this party, with 70 custom BRIGHT pink and yellow cupcake wrappers to go with the "bee" theme! What a blast and SO pretty!  (With so many cupcakes, I used two boards... which when put together say, "Happy Birthday Bobbi"...in case the photos are confusing...)

left side

right side

Puppies, Balloons, Buzz, Triathlon, Bieber... Oh My!

I've been remiss in posting my recent cupcake creations to the blog!

Early October I made a rather large puppy cake for 6 year old Brian's birthday... Because they were having about 8o at the party, I augmented the design with balloons, which were also featured on his invitation.

I left the balloon cupcakes separate (from each other, and not frosted as one mass) because I wanted to use sugars for some of the colors.... there were red balloons in the picture, and I avoid red frosting at all costs! It just tastes terrible (even with "tasteless"
color gels) and it stains mouths and most anything it touches!

About 2 weeks after the puppy, Michele had me make cakes for her niece and nephew again (last year they had the Nemo/Arial cake). I was most concerned about Buzz Lightyear, but amazingly, it wasn't as much of a challenge as I expected (once I got the skin color set... for a while it looked like Buzz had visited a spray tanning booth!). I used jelly for his head cap (which is purple.. .another tough color to make without terrible taste and staining)... but the jelly worked great! I'm guessing it tasted pretty good too. The puppy was similar to the one I made for Bryan, so I was able to relax about execution, and enjoy the process a little more.

At the end of October, Rowan turned 3! (Rowan was the recipient of the Frankenstein cake last year).

This year he had a Justin Bieber theme, so his mom requested a microphone. How cool is this? Oh, and if you don't know, Bieber is really into purple, so she also requested a purple base for the cake . I had a lot of fun with this cake and was very happy with the result. For the microphone "head" I pressed the cupcakes into pulverized chocolate wafers to give it that spongey microphone feel. As usual, Helpful Husband provided his consultation to make the cake a greater success.

This month I was asked to make a cake for the surprise party of a woman who spends the majority of her waking moments challenging the limits of her physical being. If cupcake cakes were 3D I so would have done 2 halves of a mountain ... one representing ski season, the other hiking. But I settled for a triathlon theme, as Audra is a triathlete as well! I used brown sugar to represent dirt for the running portion of the cake and pulverized chocolate wafers for the tire/spokes/cycle portion. For the swim/water portion, again wanting to avoid BAD frosting, I used blue dusting sugar ... in a moment of brilliance, Husband thought to use his creme brulee blow torch to melt the sugar into a blue sea!

Next up - Pikachu! (Coming next week.)

{In other news, plans to update the kitchen are firming up, so you won't have to see my cakes against the current finishes for much longer! I CAN'T WAIT!}

Rock Star 2 Year Old!

Precious Marco had his second birthday this weekend and his parents chose the coolest theme - Rock Star! So I created my first guitar cake. I fashioned it after the pinata (see below) that Mom chose and had a great time making stars out of the fondant-like sheets and chew candies. The black frosting was chocolate made super dark with lots of cocoa and a fair amount of black dye... Aside...Frosting colors that require a ton of dye - think red and blue - often have a chemical after-taste AND they leave mouths stained... I try to avoid them at all costs, using sprinkles and other decorative items that taste GOOD... I'm happy to report that this frosting was effectively dark AND it tasted good! "Thanks for the best cake ever, Linda... Today we put a candle in a single cupcake of yours... Thanks for bringing extras!!" - Marco's Mom, September 4, 2011 I think baby Sarah liked the cake too!

M&M/Bruins Hockey Cupcake Cake!

What great taste this kid has, eh? A Bruins Hockey Cupcake Cake! I only wish I could have gotten players with the RIGHT color jerseys ... (if anyone knows a good paint for plastic figurines, let me know!)

The birthday boy happens to also love M&Ms, so I managed to get the right M&M colors in there for the rink ... as usual, I had a total blast making a cupcake cake! Husband contends that my placement of characters could have been better ... but he was still on his way home from Korea! And is my consultant on such things...

Stay tuned for Marco's guitar cake... coming next weekend!

Wedding Cupcake Tree!

I was so thrilled last October when a friend at Beantown Bootcamp, who had heard about my cupcake cakes, asked me about the potential of doing a wedding cake! Well, 10 months later, the wedding cupcake tree came to life!

Wedding couple, Andy and Adrienne came out to Ipswich one cold February night to taste cupcakes. It was so fun! I presented my wares and we talked about tastes (aesthetic and confectionery), and I sent them away asking them to talk between themselves, and to certainly not feel pressured to hire me (or not) right then and there.

August 19, 2011 was the big day. Andy and Adrienne got married at York Beach, ME at the (beautiful) Union Bluff Hotel's Meeting House. In the hours preceding the reception, while the room was being made ready, I excitedly built the cake ... I was visited by the groom's mother, and even the groom himself!

The couple's main color was clover and theirs was a beach theme; so Andy and Adrienne decided on cupcake wrappers with a "wave" pattern in the shade of clover green. I accented the tiered structure with calla lilies (their flower of choice) and lily grass. Adrienne chose the "H" cake topper and the wonderful star fish and sea glass details lining the table.

"I just wanted to thank you again for your amazing cupcakes!!! They were a HUGE success. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! -Andy and Adrienne Haglin, August 21, 2011

This project was so incredibly fun! My mind is streaming will the many many other ways these trees will manifest themselves in the future! Please be in touch with questions about this cake, or a cake for your special event! ~Linda

Cowboy Hat & Polka Dot Elephant Ear Baby Cake!

It feels like it's been a while since I posted! We were away in UTAH for a week, (awesome vaca) but the weeks prior to and post vacation held cake making opportunities for me... Omri is the brother of the little boy who got the Frankenstein cake last October. Omri's theme choice was "Cowboy Hat" (how is it so easy for kids to know EXACTLY what theme they want?! Adults are far less certain of themselves!). Anyhoo - I think it came out pretty cool. I hope it enhanced his Chuckie Cheese party! And can you believe more baby cakes?! Congratulations to Ellen! For her cake, instead of recreating the party invitation, we looked to her bedding. It was so fun to copy!!! Elephants are the BEST and this one has the coolest polka-dotted ear. Trunks and funky ears allow me to break out the sugar cookies. Once the main cake is set (cupcakes laid out in basic shape) and after I have given it initial layer of frosting, I use foil to fashion shapes like the ear, trunk, and the band for the cowboy hat... Once the foil shape is ready, I gently set it on the rolled cookie dough, and cut around it with a pizza cutter or knife. Moving the large shapes can be precarious, but Tom's restaurant style super spatulas do the trick! Word from one of the shower hosts who commissioned the cake: "Ellen's cake was a big hit!!!! The only recommendation was to give me some business cards to pass out with serving... people loved it ... and it was the perfect size." {Business cards are on the way!} And there WILL be a wedding cupcake creation! Wedding date is August 19th. Can't wait to make the perfect creation for this awesome couple!

BABY Cakes are the Coolest!

After a rocking day at Attitash, which had just gotten a foot and a half of snow, we drove home so that I could make a cake and attend R's baby shower... and Tom was able to spend a fair amount of time on the bathroom reno...

Check out the fun of R's cake - like many of the others, this was based on her invitation (and eVite, in fact) and it was so fun! Check out the custom chocolate spokes...!.. and hubs made of minis!

Cowboy Hat Birthday Cake and another baby shower in the hopper... AND a potential wedding cupcake creation come August!

Stay tuned!