…and that includes kindergarten! I really enjoyed creating school-themed decorations for this cake, as well as the cute little faces!

I used a clay extruder to squeeze out all of those colorful crayons:

One of our kindergarten friends cannot tolerate gluten, so these are some special little decorations I made for the special cupcake his mom is bringing:

:) !!

It’s been too long since I reeallly made cupcakes. Maybe that’s why I got a little carried away this time. I had so many IDEAS and pent-up creativity inside me! I wanted to try them ALL. So I did! The only encouragement I needed came the other day when I went to pick my kid up from school. A sign-up sheet near the door said BAKE SALE. Perfect excuse- here I go!

I began by making pink sugar flowers like the one you see below. The adorable cupcake wrapper happened next… and then the chocolate cake and milk chocolate ganache frosting. Kind of tropical looking…

Here’s a group photo:

Next I decided to do some banana cake with dried banana chips as a garnish.

Banana cupcake and friends:

I found these adorable mini chocolate chip cookies at Trader Joe’s, so here’s another spin on the chocolate theme:

This next cupcake is so cute! Strawberry Shortcake came to mind when I first saw it all put together:

I could imagine these being served at a little girl’s tea party

I also did some variations on the banana theme- different wrappers and vanilla bean marscapone frosting.Too bad  I forgot to take a photo of those! I’ll have to make some more! See what I mean about getting carried away? Thanks for visiting today! -C.N.

So, I’m not sure what skywriting is actually supposed to look like. I did a search on google images and am pretty certain the ones that actually looked cute were imaginary. Imaginary works for me! As long as it looks good!

Hungry Caterpillar is so perfect for a first Birthday. So happy with how this turned out!

This cake is no lie.

I made this for a Portal fanatic’s birthday. He’s played Portal for awhile now and I thought it would make a fun theme for a cake.

The top “mini” cake is a replica of “the cake is a lie” from the game. It’s a 4” milk chocolate cake with dark chocolate frosting and shaved chocolate outside. The “cherries” on top are Willy Wonka Gobstoppers.

The middle tier is made of 6” milk chocolate oreo cakes with oreo mousse filling. The outside is wrapped in grey marshmallow fondant with edible images for decoration.

Adding Tylose Powder to the fondant helped keep the walls nice and firm. They dried for 2 days before I stuck them on with buttercream. This layer was rainbow sprinkle square cakes with lots of pastry pride mousse on top.

Creamy Vanilla Frosting

1- 8 oz. pkg. cream cheese

1 stick unsalted butter, softened

1 TBSP. clear vanilla extract (regular is fine but the frosting will have a brown tinge)

2 lb. pkg. powdered sugar*

Cream butter and cream cheese in a mixer. Add vanilla. While the mixer is going on low speed, gradually add the powdered sugar, about ¼ cup at a time. Taste it after you’ve added about 2/3 of the sugar, and keep going if you want sweeter, thicker frosting.

-For stiffer, decorator frosting you may add ¼ cup shortening at the creaming stage- and 1 TBP meringue powder (optional) for even greater stability. 

*The brand of powdered sugar you use matters. I always use C&H. It contains less cornstarch than less expensive brands, and gives frosting a silky, non-gooey texture.

My posts have seriously dwindled since I became pregnant. My priorities have shifted (so excited for this baby!!) and cake sort of fell off the radar when the fatigue and morning sickness kicked in…and stayed and stayed. On very rare occasions I crawl into the kitchen to bake—and this was one of them…

 The extra tall top tier is blue velvet cake with vanilla frosting, and the bottom is milk chocolate. I made the purple and green marshmallow fondant at home and handed over a small fortune to buy a little tub of Duff black fondant (because making black fondant at home is just insane). I think it turned out pretty good!

My dear Grandma was born on July 4th. This gives me the chance to make lots of patriotic cakes.

On a hot summer day, lemon cake with vanilla mousse filling and cool fresh berries on top is just the thing! My sister found the cute decorations at Michael’s.

Here’s a the naked cake (before the decorations):

Usually when I make a cake there is some drama involved. Something almost always goes wrong. This time, it all just fell into place. The cake, fondant, and frosting behaved beautifully…. 

…like it was meant to be. The only little blip is on the “congrats”. Someone (you know who you are) made me laugh while I was writing it, and well- now it has character. Here are some photos of the creative process. 

Congrats to Hailey, and all the rest of you 2011 grads out there!