Cookie Monster Cupcakes

I've seen sooo many versions of these cute little cupcakes and couldn't wait to make some of my own! These were for Olivia's birthday- so adorable :) First, I made chocolate chip cookies. Then I made cupcakes. After everything was sufficiently cooled, I cut a small slit in the top of each cupcake for the mouth, and cut cookies in half-ish to put in the little cookie monsters' mouths. Next, pipe on blue icing with a 233 decorating tip (for hair/grass, etc.). I used white vanilla candy melts for the eyes, and chocolate chips for the googly pupils! The one in the middle is named dribbly pepe grown- don't question it. The others unfortunately did not live long enough to be named.

Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes.?

So I think these are worth 3 pictures :) & I took way more than that.! I have to give credit to friends Hannah & Olivia who helped make these as well. (Olivia is pictured holding her cone in the 3rd picture. She's lying on the couch in the midst of a blissful sugar coma) Another friend posted this idea from another cake blog, and we were in a creative state of mind..so voila, ice cream cone cupcakes..? were created.! For these surprisingly realistic, dangerously cute sugary confections, one most first bake vanilla cupcakes tinted the different colors of the rainbow. For example, we baked two red cupcakes, two orange, two yellow, two green, two blue, and two violet (Sorry, opted out of indigo...feel free to best me). Once the cupcakes cool, we unwrapped each cupcake and crumbled them with our hands until all the crumbs were fairly uniform and fine (Separate by color; we put the 2 red cupcakes in a bowl together, the 2 orange in a bowl together, etc.) Once this is done, hand mix in a dollop of icing to each color, and form into balls. Since each color had two cupcakes in our case, each color made two balls. Put them into a pan and stick in the freezer 10-15 mins or until slightly firm. Cut each ball into 6 strips. Assemble one strip of each color in the order of the rainbow and roll into a ball that sits on an ice cream cone. Ice around the base of the rainbow colored sphere- to secure it to the cone and give an authentic hand-scooped ice cream look. Then, spoon on/dip in melted vanilla (or chocolate) candy melts, and put sprinkles on top! :)

New Zealand Camera Cake

I made this cake for my friend James' birthday.! I was given a lot of creative control, (just told to do something with photography) and so this is what I came up with. Me and my random mind. James likes photography and recently traveled to New Zealand- so I immediately thought about replicating a DSLR and making New Zealand themed 'photographs'. For some reason I also wanted to make a green cake with white stripes...so I did. I looked at my DSLR and molded one out of rice krispy treats covered in black gumpaste. I sprayed on some cooking spray for extra shine, and piped out 'James' rather than Nikon. :P For the 'photographs' I cut out rectangles of white gumpaste, and then free hand painted the images with colored food gel.

Hunger Games Cake

I made this cake for Kelly's birthday, right after the Hunger Games movie came out.! I made an oversized mockingjay pin out of color flow icing with brushed on edible gold glitter for extra sparkle. The cake's iced bright red with red sparkles and orange and yellow flames hand piped around the sides to further portray the essence of Katniss in the books as "the girl on fire.!" I also wrote "May the odds be ever in your favor," the main quote repeated several times in the book, on the side of the cake.

Dragon & Castle Cake

For Hannah's birthday, she asked me to make her a dragon cake...and here it is.! I named him Percival :) Percival is made out of rice krispy treats and covered with green gumpaste. His glittery purple wings are my favorite part- unfortunately they're not very visible in most of my pictures though. I cut portions of the cake to make a hill, and dusted everything with cocoa powder for a more rugged look. The towers are also made out of rice krispy treats covered with gray gumpaste. I rolled the gumpaste over a brick pattern to make everything look more castley.!

Cupcake Cakepops

Red velvet and cream cheese icing cakepops in the shape of little cupcakes.! Cupcakes are adorable enough, but MINI cupcakes..!?!?

Green Day Cake

I made this Green Day cake as a surprise for Caitlin's birthday.! I made the sexy men themselves out of colorflow icing, and also made the American idiot hand and bloody grenade, kerplunk daisy (even though you can't really see it), and Green Day man with lightning bolt. I went with the theme of green, black, and white with dramatic contrasts of bright red accents.! Caitlin liked it :)

Mickey Mouse Cake

Mickey Mouse themed cake.! I knew that I wanted to make a mickey mouse hat- so I did, out of rice krispy treats. Then I made the cake red with white gumpaste button adornments like the ones mickey has on his red pants. I also made black gumpaste mickey mouse silhouettes and glittery yellow gumpaste stars for extra decoration :)

Snowmen Cakepops

This was my first attempt at making cakepops! The only drawback I can see of making cakepops is that you end up with about 25-30 of them at a time...but it's a good excuse for me to randomly treat friends with them. These little snowmen are funfetti and were super delicious as far as I'm concerned. The easiest way to make any cakepops is to bake a cake of any flavor, let it cool, and then crumble it up as evenly as you can. Mix in 3/4 a container of icing of any flavor, and roll into balls which you then place in the freezer. Then, shape the balls into the desired shape, stick on a stick, dip in melted chocolate coating and add any decorations that you'd like.! For these guys, I dipped them in melted white chocolate, used flowery sprinkles for buttons, and big orange covered chocolate bits for their noses. Chocolate jimmies were added as their arms, and I drew on eyes and mouth with edible marker. The hat of the snowman in the middle is a mini offbrand oreo that I fashioned to look like a hat.

Winnie the Pooh Cake

The theme of this baby shower (for my nephew Trey.! ...before he was born.!) was Winnie the Pooh, so I decided to make a baby Winnie the Pooh.! The 3-D bear pan was kind of a pain to use, because you have to fasten metal clips on it to make sure that it stays together while it bakes, but it turned out fine. I used a star tip to individually pipe all of the yellow of Pooh's fur. As you can see I also made and decorated little cupcakes with leftover icing- ladybugs, butterflies & bumblebees :)

Campfire Cake

This cake was for my cousin Chrissy's 21st birthday! It was sort of a joke because he had a huge party with a campfire and my stepdad got really mad at him for burning his firewood..so naturally I thought I'd commemorate that moment in cake form. :) I simply baked a 9x13 chocolate cake and cut the cake into smaller rectangles of the size I wanted. I iced said "firewood" with different shades of brown to look more realistic and textured. I made the Natty Light can out of rice krispy treats molded and covered with silver gumpaste. I used edible marker to write on the can. The campfire flames are also made out of colored gumpaste rolled out and cut into flame shapes.!

Kathy Baby Cake

I made this cake as a surprise for Kathy's 50th birthday. The backstory is a bit long, but I thought this theme would be great and went for it and she loved it.! I made a Jessica rabbit-esque body by piping out colorflow icing and brushing on extra red glitter. I then printed out a picture of Kathy's face because that would definitely look the most realistic and contrast nicely with the icing and rest of the decorations. The cake itself was tie-dye although I don't have a picture of the inside of it this time. We recorded my cousin singing "Kathy Baby" (rather than "Santa Baby") and wrapped up the recorder so it looked like a present. Every time you hit the button, his dulcet voice filled the air :P [I tried to attach the video but guess it wouldn't work :/..so you're just going to have to use your imagination]

Christmas Penguin Cake

Another Christmas coconut cake.! Granted the lettering is not the clearest...I think it's cute though :) I made a twisted gumpaste rope of red and white, and threw coconut snow on top of the contrasting icy blue icing.! I love penguins! So that's why they're on the cake. The penguins and the snowmen are all made out of gumpaste as well.

Office Space Cake

I made this cake based on the movie Office Space for my friend Devon! I made it in December since he'd be in Spain during his real birthday..and since it was three months early, he was really surprised by this random triple lemon cake.! I decided to make suspenders with assorted bits of flair, and feature the red stapler in the middle. The stapler is made out of rice krispy treats and covered with red gumpaste. The flair and staplers are also made of colored gumpaste and then I wrote quotes from the movie on the flair using edible markers. (In case you can't read it, the flair in the front says "Jump to Conclusions" :P)

Snoopy Sgt Pepper Cake

AHHH I LOVE this cake.! Snoopy AND Sgt Pepper?!?!??! Snoopy characters with mustaches as the Beatles as Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band?!?!?! :) Wonderful. I made this cake at the end of the summer as a thank you for my cousins for letting me stay with them. On top of the awesomeness of the outside of the cake- the INSIDE was pretty sweet as well! My aunt had actually just given me an article that talked about making tie-dye cake..and what better cake to try it on?! Even though the cake looks obnoxiously brightly colored, you couldn't taste the dye at all because I used food gel. What you have to do is separate out descending amounts of batter starting with purple, then blue, green, yellow, orange, and red. (**red batter has the least amount) Then, you simply layer the batters split between the two circular pans, starting with purple on the bottom. Make sure to spread each color out as fully as possible before adding the next color. I baked this cake for a longer time at a lower temperature with an aluminum foil tint to prevent browning or color mixing. If you'd like the colors to line up like mine, turn one of the cakes upside down.

Carrot Cake

This isn't super creative- but it's a nice generic carrot cake with piped on carrots...and I like that color blue :) This cake was for a woman I worked with over the summer. Carrot cake's her favorite and she had been out from work for awhile with an illness.

Yankees Cake

I made this cake to surprise my Dad for his birthday! He really likes baseball in general, especially the Yankees. Since he also enjoys coconut cake, I figured it'd be easy to make a baseball "green" of green tinted coconut grass on which to lay the color flow icing Yankees emblem I made.!

Rubber Ducky Cake

I thought it would be fun and interactive to make a bathtub cake with rubber duckies for Phillip's 1st birthday! As you can see, I also made him his own personal cake to enjoy...he enjoyed it very much.! :) To make the bathtub, I stacked two rectangular cakes and carved out the center. I made gumpaste duckies, bubbles, and faucet. I looked up different techniques and decided to use blue jello as the "bathwater"- it ended up working really well, since the bubbles and duckies bobbed around in it. When we cut the cake, the "bathwater" slowly oozed out, which was fun for all my little cousins (& big cousins) to watch!

Harry Potter Cake

I made this Harry Potter cake themed cake for a Harry Potter party my former piano teacher had.! (The party itself was so much FUN.! and my team, Slytherin, WON and got trophies..so that made it even better :) ) I replicated the Hogwarts crest using color flow icing. I made a gumpaste snowy owl and golden snitch, used alternating strips of randomly sized colored fondant to represent the four houses at Hogwarts, added some brushed on edible glitter, and a black border, and it was done.! Pretty proud of how it turned out.

Wedding Cake

I made this wedding cake for my brother's wedding. It was certainly an experience. To come up with the basic idea, I looked through books and made suggestions and this is the final result. My disclaimer is that I'm aware the topper does not match the bright red and blue roses- that was a voiced concern of mine but ultimately what they wanted. I hand made all the roses and leaves out of gum paste and brushed blue glitter on the blue roses and red glitter on the red roses.! I piped a ruffle pattern around the border of both cake bases, and added wrings of baby's breath around the cake for a natural accent and also to better tie in the topper and detract attention from the plastic cake bases.

Pink Wedding Shower Cake

This is my first ever paid cake.! A lady who works with my Mom wanted to surprise her son and future daughter-in-law with a cake that matched their decorations at their wedding shower. She gave me a napkin with the motif to model my cake after, and a topper that she wanted to use. As you can see, the finished product looked rather like the cake in the napkins and other decorations.

Potter Puppet Pals Cake

I made this Potter Puppet Pals Cake for Kelly's birthday! All of the figures are made from colorflow icing. Voldemort is on the side holding a bomb, since you can't see him very well. I also wrote "Mysterious ticking noise" around the side of the cake. If you haven't seen the video and don't at all know what this cake is supposed to be about, I suggest that you watch it now!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tx1XIm6q4r4

Flight of the Conchords Cake

I made this cake for my 21st birthday.! Yes I know, another birthday cake that I made myself..*sigh..I don't mind though :) I love the Flight of the Conchords (if you don't know them, you should look them up- they're from New Zealand and HILARIOUS!) and decided that that was the theme I wanted to use. I chose fun 70's colors that I enjoy, and added black stars because I like black accents..and stars. The image is actually Bret & Jemaine flying with their guitars, as seen on the second season's cover. (HBO show that only lasted 2 seasons) I thought the contrast between the black and white flying men and the colorful cake would be dramatic and neat. I have a confession to make however....When I was carefully removing the colorflow icing figures from the wax paper, I was not quite careful enough....In .27 seconds, the body of Jemaine's guitar lay shattered in 5 million pieces on the floor..and I didn't know what to do. Since I had extra icing of each color I used on the cake, I piped a colorful guitar body for Jemaine's black and white self. In the end, I think that aspect of color brings the cake together more anyways..not that I had the choice at that point. :P

Hannah's Spongebob Cake

I'm proud of this one.! I actually ended up scaling it back a bit from my original overambitious plans. Hannah-bee loves Spongebob, and I think I successfully made an impressive good looking fun Spongebob cake for her birthday! (The cake itself is chocolate oreo by the way!) All of the Spongebob characters are handcrafted with colored gumpaste. I used edible markers for them as well. I attached each jellyfish to a toothpick in order to give the appearance that they were swimming/floating. I used a mixture of ground up graham cracker crumbs and brown sugar to create the sand which served as the foundation of the cake. The pineapple is made of rice krispy treats with gumpaste adornments and piped icing sectioning. I bought a real pineapple and attached that topper to my rice krispy version.

GG's Snow White Cake

My Grandma, GG, absolutely loved Snow White- so I thought it fitting to make her a Snow White birthday cake! As you can see, she enjoyed it :) That's my beautiful Grandma laughing- she always got mad when I'd take candid laughing shots of her but that's when I thought she looked the most joyful. The purple background makes a nice contrast for Snow White herself, and I used red as a complimentary yet contrasting accent color. I added yellow edible glitter to Snow White's color flow icing dress and shoes, and dark blue glitter to the top of her dress.

Christmas Ornament Cupcakes

I saw these in my cupcake book and hadta make them :) Nothing too crazy- red hots, red fruit rollups, red licorice, and green sprinkles for decoration. The top ornament loop is made from upside down yellow spice drops and thin black licorice looped into an arc.

Christmas Ornament Cake

I had the idea to make Christmas ornaments in a bed of coconut snow as a different type of Christmas cake. The ornaments themselves are made out of rice krispy treats formed into ornament shapes. I then iced each ornament and decorated them using different techniques but nothing too difficult.

Turkey Cupcakes

I made these little turkey cupcakes for Thanksgiving. They turned out really cute & were easy to make! (Hint- the turkey's head is a mini cupcake on top of the larger cupcake that makes up the turkey's body. For the tail feathers, simply ice candy corn into place on a scallop edged cookie. I used halved ginger cookies.) I also piped people's names onto graham cracker rectangle so each person at the table had a turkey and rectangle combination in lieu of a more traditional place card.

Penguin Cupcakes

I found this recipe in a cupcake book- they look a little melty because it was VERY hot out when I made these..but still adorable, cause they're penguins.! :) Who doesn't love penguins?!

Smink's Cake

I quickly quickly quickly made this cake to surprise Smink at her surprise 21st birthday party.! (I had about 2 hours to make the cake, ice it, and decorate the cake and the apartment) I made the racy color flow icing figures ahead of time of course.! I took inspiration from some of Smink's favorite historical men..including of course Stonewall Jackson. Smink also loves the Phillies and barely clothed men..so I combined those loves in cake form. :P I also made color flow lips, lingerie, and martini glasses covered with different colored sprinkles.

The Princess and the Frog Cake

Yes, I know this looks like a five year old's cake :P especially if you could see the pink princess crowns on the sides. However, I thought Sara might enjoy it given her affinity for Disney princesses. I drew the princess from the movie then traced it with color flow icing. After it dried, I brushed on colored glitter to enhance the glamorous, beautiful princess feel. I piped on a hanging border around the top of the cake, and added more sparkles to the surface of the cake.!

Halloween

I'm aware that these do not collectively make a cake. And they don't really showcase my skill or originality either. I just enjoy Halloween & sharing treats with friends :)

Let it Be- Jeff's Beatles Cake

Yay! I love this cake!!! I made it for Jeff's Birthday as a surprise- Jeff my Beatles best friend.! I knew that I wanted to make a black and white outline of the Let it Be album cover..and so I did! I sketched out the outlines of each Beatle, and then traced over it on wax paper with color flow icing. I used the Bootle Beatles font again to make color flow letters of "They say it's your birthday Jeff"! I also made a color flow yellow submarine and George's guitar again (as I already had the template I made for my own birthday months before). The colors make me think of Scooby Doo :) I'm going to add a few more pictures since it was hard to take one that perfectly captured each aspect of the cake. Jeff loved it so much that I hadta take a video of all of the angles of the cake while he excitedly looked on and gave the camera a thumbs up!

4th of July Cake

This cake was made for a Pool Party held right before the 4th of July.! Naturally, I went with a theme of red, white & blue. I piped an alternating two-tier border of red, white & blue, and cut out mini gum paste red white and blue stars that I then dusted with sprinkles for some extra pop. I also cut out larger stars that I stuck onto toothpicks in the center of the cake.

Burgundy Rose Cake

I made this cake for my Wilton Course 3 final cake.! I picked out the basic cake design from our course book, and then adjusted the colors to my liking. I decided a burgundy pink shade would be fun and different for the roses & I'm pretty happy with the outcome of this cake. I probably could have been slightly more ambitious with my design choice..but this one's nice. The roses and leaves are made out of gumpaste. This is also my first official cake covered in fondant! Hooray!

Pool ball Cupcakes

Granted cupcakes aren't strictly "cakes," but they're basically multiple mini versions of cake which automatically make them more adorable.! I found this basic idea in a cupcake book-it was very simple and turned out well! After icing all the cupcakes, and sprinkling half of them with their respective colored sugar, I used wax paper to form straight lines for the striped pool balls and then sprinkled the exposed line of icing with colored sugar. I made the maroon sugar myself with a tiny bit of burgundy gel. I took white chocolate wafers, turned them upside down, and placed one in the middle of each pool ball (besides the cue ball of course!) and then piped on the correct number for each ball with black gel icing. I thought it would be neat to present the cupcakes in the triangle billiard rack from my pool table. I also found cheap sheets of green felt material at Michael's to set the cupcakes on as if they were actually on a pool table.