Summer Day Cupcakes

So lately my mom has been bugging me to bake up some cupcakes! Yesterday I decided to satisfy her wishes. I made some cupcakes! I mixed up a batter for a Basic Yellow Cake Mix taken from http://www.wilton.com.

Here's the recipe if you're interested:

• 3 cups sifted cake flour
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 3/4 cups sugar
• 2/3 cups butter or margarine
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1 1/4 cups milk

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease bottom of two round cake pans and line with waxed paper or parchment paper. Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt or dry ingredients and set aside. Cream together sugar and butter until light. Add eggs and vanilla to creamed mixture and beat until thoroughly mixed. Add flour mixture to creamed mixture alternating with milk, beating well after each addition. Continue beating one minute. After beating the mixture, I poured it into the cupcake liners and got them ready to bake, I added nonpareil sprinkles to give my cupcakes a little pizzazz and flair! ;) 

Before their trip to the oven! =)

After their journey! I decided to leave them un frosted since they were so pretty already! For the love of summer! =)

Tennis Cake

If you read my previous blog, you would know that I have been very busy around the first week of June, I had two orders to undertake, this is the second one! My first tennis fondant cake! :)

I bought a Duncan Hines French Vanilla Cake Mix and altered it like I always do! This time I added a half cup of flour and a teaspoon of lemon extract. This cake had a tangy, lemony kick to it!

I then greased and floured two loaf pans and added the batter to it. Sorry, but I didn't take pictures of the batter this time :( While the cakes were in the oven, I started making my famous marshmallow fondant! You could check out http://www.megzcakes.ca to find the recipe. I colored it green, since grass is green and left it in the refrigerator to chill. In the mean time, I crumb coated the cakes with a Triple Chocolate Chip Frosting I had. Then it was time to cover the cake with the fondant, I was so nervous :|

I used some of my left over flowers I had from my previous Hello Kitty cupcakes around the border of the tennis court :)

Then it was time to make the tennis racket, the cake was left covered with wax paper while the racket was being created. For the tennis racket, I used the left over orange fondant I had and a chocolate wafer for the handle. The fondant was added to the handle and the accents were piped around the borders of the racket and the name of the customer was written. The racket was then added to the cake and the "net" piped across the racket, bringing it to life!



Another batch of marshmallow fondant was made to pipe the borders of the cake and to represent the tennis court. My cake was beginning to come to life. I was so proud! :)

After the piping was done, I decided to make a tennis ball to go along with the cake and the racket, so I took some white fondant I made, colored it light green and rolled it in my hands until it obtained a round colour, then I wrote the word 'Tennis' on it.







Then I wrote the words 'Happy Birthday' across the cake and packed it up for delivery:

Hello Kitty Cupcakes

I got an order for a dozen Hello Kitty cupcakes a while back, like the first week in June, excuse me for being so late but I had exams and then I have just been lazy to upload the pictures from my camera. Anyways, here goes!

I used a Betty Crocker Butter Yellow Recipe Cake Mix and altered it a bit, I added a half cup of flour and a teaspoon of vanilla extract! Then I mixed it all together and then lined my cupcake pans... I used the foil cupcake liners because they were more sturdy than the paper liners and they hold the cake much better anyway.    

                                                                                                                
These were the photos of the cupcake liners before they were filled and the photo of the batter added to the liners.
Then it was time to bake these babies, this is the photo after they were finished baking :)

 I made a dozen and a couple extras for my family to sample!

Since it was so hot, I decided to wait until it was cooler in the night to start decorating my cupcakes... Before I forget, I used an ice-cream scoop to fill the liners with the batter so all of my cupcakes were the same height and adding to that, they were puffy and looked delicious ;)

I had a container of Betty Crocker Lemon Frosting and decided to colour it red to match the Hello Kitty theme. The frosting also had a tangy taste to it ;)

While the frosting was chilling in the refrigerator, I decided to make some marshmallow fondant using a recipe I snatched from http://www.megzcakes.ca.   I used my mini flower cookie cutter to cut shapes from the newly rolled fondant. After frosting the cupcakes, I added some nonpareil sprinkles and then the flowers!

I printed some Hello Kitty faces I found online and cut them out while my cupcakes were chilling in the refrigerator. I cut out the Hello Kitty shapes and pasted them onto the back of some toothpicks.

These were the finished product. Simple, cute and very easy to make! :) I hope the little girl enjoyed them as much as I enjoyed making them!

Cupcake Delivery

So yesterday I got an order for a dozen cupcakes for a 30th birthday party! So I set to work, I bought a French Vanilla cake mix and mixed in some red food coloring to get a pink color, I divided the batter and made one batter lighter than the other! I decorated those cupcakes with Dutch Cocoa Chocolate Frosting and sprinkled some edible shimmer dust onto it. Then I started making my marshmallow homemade fondant with a recipe taken from http://www.megzcakes.ca

Marshmallow Fondant Recipe:

• 1 package miniature marshmallows

• 2 tablespoons water

• 2 cups  sifted icing sugar

• 1 teaspoon vanilla

• Shortening (for greasing)

Instructions:

• In a large plastic or glass bowl, grease sides and bottom with shortening and add package of marshmallows.
• Sprinkle water over top of marshmallows.
• Put bowl in microwave for 30 second increments, stirring marshmallows after each increment until melted.
• Stir in 1 cup sifted icing sugar with greased spatula.
• Have a moderate layer of sifted icing sugar laid out on a clean flat surface.
• Pour marshmallow onto icing sugar and again add 1 cup sifted icing sugar.
• Grease your hands with shortening then powder them with icing sugar.
• Knead marshmallow until icing sugar is completely mixed in and consistency is close to rolling.
• Cover in plastic wrap and put into fridge for about an hour.
• Once cooled, to make fondant ready to roll let it come to room temperature again or put it back in the microwave uncovered for about 15 seconds or so

• You will have to knead fondant again before rolling. If you want to add colour, use the gel colours and add a little bit at a time to get the shade you prefer, knead until colour is completely solid throughout the fondant. 

I added the red food colouring to get a pink color to the fondant, I then used my cookie cutters and cut out some fondant tulip flowers.

After cutting them out and placing them in the refrigerator to chill, I sprinkled my cupcakes with some edible shimmer dust :)

This is how they came out:

With my left over batter, I added some red and blue food colours to make a purple colour, I then stacked them onto lollipop sticks to make cupcake kabobs :)

Cookie Kabobs

My next project! I promise I will take lots of pictures to let you guys know how it turned out! =)

Ombre Cake

An Ombre Cake I tried making, Happy Mother's Day! :)

Chocolate Coconut Cake

Just a cake I made for Valentine's Day. It has chocolate shavings, coconut shavings and red cinnamon sugar sanding sprinkled on top! :)

Arsenal Birthday Cake

On the 24th day of April, my sister's close friend celebrated his birthday. He is a HUGE fan of the Arsenal's Football team so I decided to bake him a themed cake! :)

I did not own a soccer ball pan, so I decided to bake him a normal cake and decorate it accordingly... I made some butter cream icing and stored it in the refrigerator to chill while the cake baked....

While the cake was in the oven and the icing was chilling, I decided to make some fondant cut outs using my 'sun mini cookie cutter'

In the center of the cake, I decided to write the word "GO" indicating a chant for the team and the red and yellow sprinkles around the cake represent the colors of the Arsenal football team! I'm not a big fan of sports but I tried! :)

I hustled home from school just to decorate this cake! :D

Helpful Hint:

Butter Cream Icing:

• 1/2 cup solid vegetable shortening
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine, softened
• 4 cups confectioner's sugar (1 lb)
• 1 teaspoon clear vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons milk

Instructions:

Medium Consistency:

In large bowl, cream shortening and butter with electric mixer or by hand. Add vanilla. Gradually add sugar, one cup at a time, beating well on medium speed. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl often.

When all sugar has been mixed in, icing will appear dry. Add milk and beat at medium speed until light and fluffy.

Keep bowl covered with damp cloth until ready to use.

For best results, keep icing bowl in refrigerator when not in use. Refrigerated in an airtight container, this icing can be stored two (2) weeks. Re-whip before icing.

Note: For thin (spreading) consistency icing, add two (2) tablespoons light corn syrup, water, or milk.

For pure white icing (stiff consistency), omit butter, substitute an additional 1/2 cup shortening for butter and add 1/2 No Color Butter Flavor. Add up to four (4) tablespoons light corn syrup, water or milk for thin icing cakes.

Rainbow Cupcakes

As an extracurricular activity, I model. For Easter, the agency decided to host a bake sale! So I decided to bake up some rainbow cupcakes- as I wanted to try something new!

So I mixed up a batter for a white cake:

White Cake Recipe:

• 2 1/4 all purpose flour
• 1 2/3 cups sugar
• 2/3 cups shortening
• 1 1/4 cups milk
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 3 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 5 large egg whites

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease 13 x 9 inch rectangular pan or two (2) 8 inch round pans.

• Combine all ingredients except egg whites. Mix on high speed for 2 minutes.
• Mix in egg whites on high speed for another 2 minutes and pour into prepared pan.
• Bake rectangle for about 40-45 minutes and bake rounds for about 25-30 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean.
• Cool completely before icing, about one (1) hour.

Okay so I copied that recipe but instead of adding the batter to the cake pans, I separated the batter and divided it into four bowls and added some food coloring to each bowl.

After coloring the batter, I first added the blue portion of the batter into each cupcake liners. You are free to add whatever color you feel comfortable with adding at the bottom first.

 Then I decided to add the green and the yellow portions! I didn't have enough time to make colors such as purple and orange...

For easier pouring and less spills, I used a piping bag to get the batter into the cups. Just pour each color onto the previous color, do not stir or mix the batter!

This is the finished product. Sorry, but I lost  a couple of the pictures in the process. These are the cupcakes after their trip to the oven!

 These are the ones left over!
 They were a hit at the bake sale :)