cupcakes, cupcakes and more cupcakes!

So as most of you know (I THINK) i LOVE baking, cupcakes mostly!  i've made quite a few cupcakes over the last year (oops...2 years) and haven't shared so now you are going to be photo bombed by these sweet little bites!  

strawberry lemonade

"under the sea" for a mermaid themed party for twin girls

mini "strawberry" cupcakes (white cake, strawberry icing and a fondant leafy things)

&

mini "lemon blueberry" cupcakes (white cake, lemon icing and a blueberry filing)

chocolate cupcakes "superbowl party"

carrot cupcakes with cream cheese icing and fondant carrots

 

white cake with a buttercream almond icing

cupcakes for my mom's wedding

almond cupcakes and chocolate cupcakes 

decorated with pastillage flowers and pearls

i also made the cupcake tower myself ;)

i had this in my drafts and totally forgot to post it!  

birthdays

i love birthdays and throwing a party for the kids.  everytime i ask them what theme should we have for your party?  2 years ago my youngest wanted a "rainbow" birthday and last year he wanted a "winter" birthday.  I totally forgot to share some of the pictures of those parties so i finally got around to it before he has his 7th birthday in January (i think it'll be "superheroes" but we're not sure yet)

5th birthday "rainbow" party

here's the overall look of the sweets table.  i used my Silhouette to make the banner.

these are cake donuts in rainbow colors (i used the leftover batter from the cake)

rainbow lollypops!

extra stuff on the table.  oh yeah! did you notice the confettis on the table?  i used different sized paper circle punches to make them.

And now THE CAKE!!!

so very yummy!

6th birthday "winter" party

Igloo cake with a penguin and puffle

wintery marshmallow pops

"melted snowmen" personalized water bottles

white chocolate dipped pretzels (so yummy if you love sweet and salty!)

"snowball" donuts

take home "homemade hot chocolat"

thanks for stopping by!  (i promise to try and be more regular on my postings, i have a whole bunch of yummy cupcakes and crafty goodies that i've made and haven't share with you...i can't wait!)

Bella

25th anniversary cake

this, i could say was the cake from HELL!
i was asked to make this cake for a 25th anniversary and i had originaly turned it down, but then they came back (3 weeks before they needed it) and said they simplified the cake they wanted, i knew they hadn't found anyone else to make it so i said i would.

everything went wrong.  i was on schedule, cake was baked and iced 2 days before but i made a mistake and forgot it in the freezer overnight.  so the next morning i took it out and smoothed the icing (weird enough the icing wasn't completely frozen, this was icing i bought already made from the cake shop)

my mistake was i wanted to get the *&#$ cake done and i didn't let it thaw out completely before putting on the fondant.  about 2 hrs after having covered the cake in fondant a clear syrup started leaking out from the side (under the fondant)  i put a fan on it to dry it out, left it uncovered overnight like the cake shop told me to do.  the next morning it was still leaking so i removed the fondant, re-iced it ( i still had some store icing left) and put NEW fondant on.  Not 1 hour later it had started leaking again.  this was the same day they were supposed to pick it up (after work).  i ended up having to run to the grocery store, bought ingredients to make MY buttercream icing and 3 boxes of Betty Crocker (hey gotta love Betty!)  I had to make the cake from scratch, i asked them if they could pick it up the next morning before the party and they were ok with that, thank goodness 'cause if not well they wouldn't have had a cake.  So to make sure there would be no problems i put the fondant on the next morning and finished up the decorations.

It's pretty simple and i'm happy with the way it turned out, especially with all the trouble i had with it.

i hope they had enough cake (i checked the size with the cake shop) and that Mike and Julie liked it, but i wouldn't know because i haven't gotten any feedback (the girl that ordered it is the wife of a guy that works for my husband) i'm just saying it would've been nice to know if they liked it and if they didn't then i guess i don't really want to know. 

i think that's enough bitchin' for today.  thanks for reading my rants! 

miscellaneous updates

first off today i decided that i was sick and tired of feeling icky in my body.  I am slowly easing into eating clean.  To make myself accountable to me, I am doing it a little more publicly, you can see my diary and progress here.

ok now for the funner stuff.

today i made my grandmother's green tomato cake recipe.  don't let the veggies in the cake fool you, this is an awesome cake.  I did tweak it a little to make it more along the lines of clean eating, not completely but a little.  I used whole wheat flour instead of white, sugar cane and turbinado sugar instead of proscessed white sugar.  I also added some ground flax seeds and some wheat germ to it.   There's also some raisins, dried cranberries and pecans in there.  The green tomatoes make this cake super duper moist.

I had my two helpers to make the cake and eat it too!

The verdict: 

so yesterday i was alone with no kids and I was able to go to my friend Nathalie's place for lunch and we ended up doing a bit of scrapping.  I made two cards, of course.  well i had no pictures and the papers that i did have with me were kinda girly papers so....

I had been wanting to try this new flower that's all the rage right now.  It's made with material and can i just say it was so much easier than i thought.  i got all three flowers done in about 15 mins!  

                                      

here are two close-ups of the flowers.  

                                    

materials: 

pp and material: Dear Lizzie by AC, MME

letters: Sassafras Lass

and then i made this one, everything was cut free hand (ok except for the circles, those were punches) but the birds, tree trunks, hills are all cut out by me.  I made it in honor of Earth day which is on April 22nd.

                                                

materials

cs: doodblebug

pp: MME Quite Contrary collection

other: sharpie marker (red and brown), Maarvy Uchida and fiskars circles punches

Thanks for stopping by, 

Bella

pirate birthday cake

My friend Erin asked me to make a Pirate cake for Ethan's birthday this week-end. Well here it is; finished this morning! i used some gold dust powder on his beard and mustache and then diluted it and painted the earing a nice shimmery gold. The skull and scarf have been dusted with pearl dust powder. i'm someone who will fuss a lot and not be happy if it didn't quite come out with the way i had imagined it. well i can say that i am very happy with the way this one turned out!

On another note, Charlie started coughing yesterday and fever last night, this morning his fever went up to 104F! so needless to say we're taking it easy today.

upcoming plans.... stay tuned tomorrow for Stamping Bella's birthday blog hop!

next week: bake cookies, pies and tourtieres! start X-Mas shopping (yup haven't started yet!)

in two weeks: on the 17th; go pick up our new puppy (it's a 6.5 hrs drive from here! i know we're crazy!) finish up X-Mas shopping!

oh yeah, i really should mail out my X-Mas cards! and this week-end i really have to mail out my mom's present, i'm also supplying her with a dozen x-mas cards.

Don't forget to stop by tomorrow!

Bella

my fondant class

ok, for those of you who don't know what fondant is it's a sugar paste that bakers use to cover cakes and also make figurines and other decorative elements. Marzipan can also be used, this is almond paste; personally i prefer the taste of marzipan but it is twice the price of the fondant. Either are super fun to use, it's like play-doh for adults! So here's the cake we decorated in my fondant class that ended last week, it was only 2 evenings but so informative. our teacher Steve Paquin from St-Bruno is awesome! I took this class and all the other cake decorating classes at Creations Gourmande in Ste-Catherine.

it's a bit of a modge podge of different techniques so the cake looks a little odd but it was oh so good. Of course i couldn't just make a regular white cake so i made a coconut flavoured buttercream and them sprinkled coconut between the layers. it was good but really sweet.

Thanks for stopping by!

Dora birthday cake

My very good friend Claude asked me to make the cake for Kira's birthday, which was last week-end, i was very honored to make this and it was so much fun since i have two boys and will not be making princess, Dora or anything pink for them. Sorry the picture isn't that great but Claude has a good one on her blog. Mommy wanted fondant over the cake but i told her kids usually like the icing better so i iced the cake but make those cute little swirl lollipops out of fondant just for her! The rectangular cake was white tinted purple, because when asked what kind of cake she wanted Kira just said "purple!" Ok so a purple cake it was! the white icing is buttercream and purple one is cream cheese icing. Dora's skirt is a chocolate cake. the road is make with multicolored non-pareils and multicolored licorice and jujubes are used to decorate the rest of the cake. it was very yummy and i love how it turned out! you know sometimes when you make something it just doesn't come out the way you had imagined it in your head? well it happens to me all the time! so i sketched out my idea for this one and it worked out great!

Thanks for stopping by!

yummies...

tomorrow, my good friend Michelle invited me and the family over for supper. Julie and Steph's families will be there also. We try and get together for supper at least once a year, which is kinda pathetic when you think about it. we all live within a 15 or so km radius from each other. Last year we did a girls only supper at Le Local in Old-Montreal, OMG the food was amazing!

So when Michelle started talking about this whole dinner at her house thing i had just finished my first cake class and was so excited about it that i offered, or begged, to make a cake. Ok now since then, with the other classes i've done (pumpkin, fondant...which i have yet to post the pics of the cake) i've made about 1 cake per week in the last month and a half and i have a request

from Erin to make one for next week-end so i'm a little caked-out! (but wait till you see the cake she requested it's so awesome i can't wait to make it!) So when we confirmed with the girls yesterday i told them i was taking care of "dessert", that left my options a bit more opened! I decided to make a Tiramitsu, with real mascarpone not some weird combo of whip cream and cream cheese, it's gonna be so yummy!

i'll post pictures of it later, it has to sit in the fridge over night before finishing it up. Since there is espresso and Brandy in it i made something else for the kiddos. They will be having a brownie pizza for dessert and Charlie helped me with the toppings, ok i think more went into his mouth then on the pizza but that's what's fun about it, right?!

this is super simple to make and takes about 45 min from start to finish. Make a Betty Crocker brownie mix and spread it in a greased round pizza pan, i cooked it at 350F for about 15 min and it was perfectly done. remove from oven and sprinkle some white chocolate chips on top.

let sit on hot "pizza" so that they melt and spread with an offset spatula, they weren't quite melted enough when i tried to spread mine and it pulled off some of the top of the brownie so i put it back into the warm oven for 3-4 min.

Once the "cheese" is spread out sprinkle with your choice of candy toppings and you are done! it's that simple and i'm sure the kids will love it!

thanks for stopping by!

a few cards, a layout and a cake...yes another one!

i took another cake decorating class at Creations Gourmandes; this one was a Halloween themed cake shaped like a pumpkin. it was fun we learned how to carve a stacked cake into a pumpkin shape (which would also make a great x-mas ornement or with a straighter bottom - a great igloo, which i might just make during the holidays...i can already see little fondant penguins!) we worked with Almond paste instead of fondant, i think it's way yummier! isn't that little mouse the cutest! i am gonna enjoy eating his little almond paste butt!

Ok now onto the cards,

materials: cs: doodlebug
pp: Jillibean
chipboard: maya road
letters: carolee's creations
ribbon: ? i never remember these!
other: EK success border punch, stickles, pop-dots

materials:

cs: bazzill

pp, stickers: cosmo cricket

ribbon: ? again same ribbon, don't remember

stamp: impression obsession

ink: memento

other: copic markers, stickles, pop-dots, spellbinders nestabilities

And i just realized that i never posted the last mixer. it was a sketch challenge, you can see it here. Unfortunately Mel has decided to close MIU due to the lack of time to keep it up - it's totally understandable, she has a crazy busy life! but i do want to thank her for asking me to be a part of it since the beginning and doing the banners for the site, that was fun.

thanks for stopping by!