Archive for Cupcakes

Minecraft Sweet Treats

Posted on October 21st, 2015 in Cakes, Cookies, Cupcakes

One of my best friends, Dessie, gave me the opportunity to work on a Minecraft project. They were ready to celebrate her son’s 7th birthday with a Minecraft theme and I was up for the challenge.

My son is a huge fan of this game. I don’t understand it and to be honest it makes me dizzy just looking at  it. Noah was part of this cake and cookie making process from beginning to end as he “educated” me about the game, the characters and the purpose of the game (which I still don’t understand, but I won’t tell him that).

This is my second time making a Minecraft cake. The making of it can be… very time consuming.

  1. You need to take the time to color the material (fondant) into many shades of each color. 3-4 brown and 3-4 green and a few grey.
  2. Measuring (and later cutting) the squares can be tedious. You have to take into consideration the size (height and length) of the cake to make sure that the squares will fit properly. It can be a pain in the … neck.
  3. Once you know the exact measurement of the squares you have to cut and cut and cut. It really takes a lot of time if you don’t have some specific tools. I don’t, so I had to make rows and rows of fondant strips and cut them individually.
  4. Once the squares are cut, the process of putting the cake together is easier. This is the fun part of the cake process.

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The cake was a very decadent chocolate cake so to add to the variety, I made vanilla cupcakes. Specialty toppers with TNT and Creepers’ shapes.

Cupcakes Collage

The cookies were thank you favors. My son Noah was in charge of telling me what to make and which characters or items were more important in this very famous game. The whole set included: TNT, Creepers, Pigs, Pixel Axes, and I must not forget Steve.

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tnt IMG_4006

CREEPER IMG_4012

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steve IMG_4028

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One final look of the cake please…

Minecraft Cake Collage

Thank you dear friend for allowing me to be part of this special occasion in your family. Baking and creating these Sweet Treats for Leo was special and fun.

Happy Birthday Leo!!

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Rubix Cube

Posted on August 20th, 2015 in Cupcakes

Rubix cube birthday cupcakes!!!

 

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I plan to have pictures of how I made the cupcake topper… if I can find the pictures!

I’ll be back….

Valentine’s Day Cookies 2015

Posted on March 3rd, 2015 in Cake Balls, Cookies, Cupcakes

Valentine’s Day Cookies 2015

 

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The first hearts I call “Abstract Hearts”. They are hand painted and they were an ‘experiment’. That means that I messed up a lot of cookies before I was happy with the finished hearts.

I fell in love with an image I saw online while searching for ideas. A set of hearts full of coordinating colors, but no pattern at all. The colors looked brushed and spotted at the same time, if this makes sense. I took the brushing idea and the result is what you see below. They looked very dull and opaque after they dried so I sprayed them with edible glitter to make them shine.

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Are you familiar with Burlap fabric?  Burlap is a fabric material used for sewing and creating home decorations. The next hearts are decorated with the idea of trying to recreate the texture. Let me tell you… decorating these puppies was so time consuming and my hand was cramping after working on just a couple of them. The lines are meant to be really tight and close. I might have achieved the burlap look in one or two cookies, but my hand was numb with all the piping. The red hearts were some of the first ones and the brown ones… some of the last. I’m sure you see the difference.

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The flying hearts are next. I worked on these cookies last year, you can see them here.

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Burlap was one type of fabric design. This next hearts are decorated with a style called Filigree. Filigree consists of curved lines connected to each other and because it is typically used in jewelry or metal pieces in either gold or silver.

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You may wonder why there is a musical theme to this year’s cookies. I worked on this set for a musical Valentines piano recital offered by children taking piano lessons from Pied Piper Studios (Kindermusik). My daughter participated this year so it was a very special Valentine’s event for our family.

Musical notes, symbols and pianos were some of the designs. You can see last years music Valentine’s Day cookies here.

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Two more designs to show you. I love birds and this year I wanted to incorporate some sweetness inspired by these beautiful creatures. These cookies were some of my favorites.

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Here are some teddy bears that may require a little bit more attention next time. there’s no connection between the heart and the arms, but they are still cute.  What I like about them is that they have texture to them, like fur. It might be hard to see it though in this picture. I do like the pandas, they are super cute. They can always get cuter!

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Here is the treat table. Besides the Valentine’s Day cookies, I also made rich chocolate cupcakes topped with a dark chocolate buttercream and pink vanilla cupcakes with vanilla bean buttercream.

Another sweet treat I made for them were Cake Balls. Flavors included chocolate and chocolate ganache buttercream and vanilla with dulce de leche buttercream. Those are delicious!

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My daughter Lillie did a wonderful job playing her piano pieces and she delighted the seniors with a couple of songs as well as the other children.

Noah’s 6th Birthday!!

Posted on January 9th, 2015 in Cakes, Cookies, Cupcakes

My sweet Noah is now 6 years old and all six of them have been so wonderful.

This year he decided to celebrate his birthday with a Pokemon theme party with all his friends.

Unfortunately, I didn’t take a lot of pictures of the cake. I was in such a rush at home that I took the cake directly to the venue. Now I regret it.

This Pokemon cake has the Water element represented by the standing candy rock sticks on the top of the cake. We also have the Grass and the Fire element, each covering one third of the cake (shown on the right top and bottom side of the picture below).  We couldn’t miss the basic element of Electricity shown on the very front of the cake.

 

Pokemon Cake - Noah

 

I did take a lot of pictures of the cookies thank goodness. Typically, when I’m the one hosting the party I am working on the cake and the cookies and everything else until the very last minute. This time I was able to finish them the day (or two) before the party.

First, the party favors. Pokeballs sugar cookies were individually packaged and tied with pretty ribbons for each one of the children.

 

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The tray had a combination of all the cookie designs and his special birthday message cookies.

 

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Although I wish I could have incorporated a lot of the Pokemon characters, I could only do so many of them. I focused on some of the ones Noah requested, his favorite ones. Some of the characters include: Pikachu (my favorite!), Charizard (Noah’s favorite), Charmander, Totodile, and Squirtle.

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This is Squirtle, a water Pokemon.

 

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Charizard an evolved form of Charmelion, a fire Pokemon. Noah’s favorite Pokemon because it is a dragon (cousin of the Dinosaurs, he believes) and it has fire.

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Totodile. More like a crocodile right? This cutie is another water basic Pokemon like Squirtle.

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The adorable Pokemon on the bottom right is Charmander. He is a fire basic Pokemon that actually evolves into Charizard (the one to it’s left). I didn’t get a picture by itself.

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I love how the Pokemon logos turned out.

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A tray with all the assorted Pokemon sugar cookies.

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A final look at my son’s 6th birthday cake.

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My birthday boy Noah (bottom right side next to the boy wearing #21, Jack) and some of his friends. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get all the children in the picture. Some kiddos were outside the party room having fun.

noah's friends

The party was so much fun. We actually held it at the same location as last year. Noah specifically requested it. Even though we went to look at other fun places, he said that it was so much fun playing at Backyard Adventures, that he couldn’t go anywhere else. He was in charge!

I never in my life imagined that I would have a son that would enjoy watching the same cartoons I watched as a young girl. I was thrilled to hand him over my Pokemon movie collection as well as some of my Pokemon figurines. I never had Pokemon cards, but we have to thank Santa Claus for bringing him a large collection of trading cards that he can now play with.

Happy birthday my loving son. I love you with all my heart!!!

Flower Cupcakes

Posted on November 10th, 2014 in Cupcakes

It was cupcake weekend and the whole house smelled like Chocolate!

I love my butter chocolate cake is my absolute flavor because it reminds me of a sweet snack I used to eat when I was a little girl in Mexico. The cake treats are called “Pinguinos” (Penguins in English) made from a company called “Bimbo”. I know… I know. I didn’t name the company. In their defense, Bimbo doesn’t mean anything bad in Mexico and they make delicious treats.

Back to the cupcakes. I made them for a little girl to celebrate her birthday. She requested flowers.

 

 

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I love the contrast of the dark chocolate cupcake against the hot pink color of the frosting. The purple flowers with the green leaf really stands out.

Thanks for reading!!

Graduation Treats for Alex

Posted on August 19th, 2014 in Cakes, Cookies, Cupcakes

GRADUATION TREATS – PART 1

This is a cake I made to celebrate a pretty girl on her graduation day. Many cupcakes complimented the treats.

 


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A few details of the cake and cupcakes will be added later. I also need to work on the pictures for PART 2 of this post. I have so much to do!!!

4th of July Birthday

Posted on September 12th, 2013 in Cakes, Cookies, Cupcakes, News

I am super excited to share with you the very special treats I made for my lovely daughter Lillie as she celebrated her 7th birthday this year.

I don’t really struggle much when it comes to the color scheme that I plan to use for her birthday treats. As a 4th of July baby, I always know that I MUST incorporate Red, White & Blue. I do freak about making something that will be much better than the previous year. Now that she is a little bit older and realized what I can do, the challenge can be making a cake that she ‘approves’ and ‘loves’ (if I’m lucky).

This year was a tricky one since I asked her ideas of what she wanted the theme to be or a main design of the cake.  Well… bad questions. She wanted everything and it all sounded so complicated !!!! My dear Lillie asked for a beach cake (and she’s never been to the one) and wanted me to incorporate summer items. At the same time, she mentioned how much she loved the zebra pattern and reminded me that it it would be Independence day.

Oh boy…. After many sleepless nights thinking about how to incorporate ALL those ideas into ONE cake, here’s the end result.

 

ID47 Cake IMG_3325

ZEBRA: You typically see thick zebra lines/pattern on cakes  added using fondant and ‘glued’ on the cakes. I decided to try a different technique and painted the top and bottom layers of the cakes. I painted the zebra lines on the cake horizontally and diagonally as opposed to many cakes out there where you see them vertically instead. They are also more on the thin side.

4th of July Birthday Collage

Lillie absolutely loves Chocolate cake so there was no other choice. The additional cupcakes were vanilla and a few chocolate. I wish I could have taken a picture of a cut cupcake because the vanilla batter was actually red, white and blue to create multicolor cupcakes! A chocolate star was added as the topper.

ID47 Cake IMG_3315

BOW: I made the bow at the very last minute with fabric ribbon that I found at Michaels. I have always loved this type of bow so I wanted to incorporate it into the cake.

OTHER FOOD: With her birthday falling on such a special day for all of us, I am always very fortunate to find all sorts of goodies out there related to Independence Day. I found  m&m’s, fish crackers, twizzlers and all the silverware and decoration. Yeah!

4 July Treats  Collage

COOKIES: The cookie platter included all sorts of playful items related to the beach and hot summers not to mention that odd request of adding zebra patter to the theme.

Going clockwise starting at the top right: Ice Cream Cones, Sunglasses, Swimsuits and Bikinis, playful Kites, and Beachballs.

Cookies Collage

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Definitely some of my favorites were the bikinis and the sandals, the sunglasses too. All the sugar cookies were decorated with the same theme in mind. No chocolate designs this time, it was all royal icing.

Clothing Collage

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In the end, I have NO idea what the 4th of July, Zebras and The Beach have to do with each other, but I got it done. Somehow, I think it all worked out.

Lillie's Party 2013

 

All the girls (and my boy Noah) had a lot of fun.  We celebrated Lillie at a nearby YMCA so the girls (and some adults) were able to get into the pool for a long time.

Lillie IMG_5784

Happy Birthday sweetheart!! I hope you had a wonderful birthday.

Avengers

Posted on March 6th, 2013 in Cakes, Cupcakes

In the next few days I’ll be adding several post of desserts I have made in the past. Lets say, way back in the past.

2012 was a year of lots of sweets and treats that unfortunately did not get posted. So I am planning of showing the pictures and later adding the very important details about each and every event.

So with that, and an apology to my client for posting this so late we’ll get started.

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This was an exciting birthday project.

Avengers cake table

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superheroes cake buildings 1

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superheroes cake 5

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superheroes cake 3

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Avengers cupcakes 2

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avengers cupcakes 1

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Avengers Collage

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Thank you for being patient and enjoying the pictures. I still have a lot more to show you.

Happy Birthday Noahsaurus!

Posted on February 28th, 2013 in Cakes, Cookies, Cupcakes

In the next few days I’ll be adding several post of desserts I have made… in the past. Lets say, ways back in the past.

2012 was a year of lots of sweets and treats that unfortunately didn’t get posted. So I am planning of showing the pictures and later adding the very important details about each and every event.

So with that, and and apology to my own son, we’ll get started with this post.

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This was all for my Noah’s 4th birthday party.

JPIII Collage

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Dino cookies3

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Dino cookies1

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Dino cookies2

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Dino cookie platter1

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dinosaurio table party 2

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JPIII table Collage

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Noah

Happy Birthday my sweet boy! He is my little Noahsaurus.

Jungle Animal Treats

Posted on October 9th, 2012 in Cookies, Cupcakes

Once again I had the pleasure of making birthday treats for a very special friend whom I love so much. Her name is Dessie and she has a couple of beautiful kids, Leo and Gabbie.

Today’s treats were designed for Leo’s 4th birthday. Leo loves animals and he decided to celebrate his birthday at the Des Moines Zoo. Suggested by his mom, a jungle/zoo animal theme was the perfect design.

First things first, finding cute and age appropriate jungle animal clipart. Here’s my inspiration and design base. Just google “jungle animal clipart” if you are ever looking for ideas.

Bakers Tip: Working with large and simple clipart to create cookie or cake decorations is easier than small and busy pictures. The details will drive you crazy when the pictures are small and very detailed.

Here are Leo’s Jungle Animal cupcakes! Cupcake flavors included Chocolate butter and Lemon with a Raspberry filling all of them topped with Buttercream icing.

Dessie’s husband, our dear friend Jon, loves my cookies so sugar cookies were part of my plan.

Now that I’m editing this post, I’m wondering why I didn’t make giraffe print cookies. Oh well….

I arranged a pretty birthday platter for Leo to make Leo’s birthday extra special. Sorry for the ugly pictures.

And the rest of the cookies were bagged in clear treat bags for gift giving. I think by far my favorite animal cookie this time was the tiger below.


The birthday party at the zoo was a lot of fun. They brought out three animals out so children would learn about them. The visitors were a domesticated bunny (aahhhh), a small alligator (scaaary), and the third one I can’t remember, but my boy tells me that it was a turtle so we’ll go with that. The kids and some of the grown ups got to touch them… NOT me. That alligator jumped out of the box when they were taking him out. Thankfully they caught him!!

Happy Birthday sweet Leo.  We loved making the treats for you and I hope you also loved them too. Love Ya!

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