Thursday, June 24, 2010

Cupcakes Inspired by Glee

I'm sorry I haven't posted in a couple weeks.  Work is crazy busy, we are getting ready for our big trade show and I am getting married in exactly three weeks! 

I'm a pretty big fan of Glee, you may go so far as to say that I am a Gleek.  I have the music from Glee on my iPhone and I listen to it almost daily at work, it gets me through the day!  Anywho, a bunch of wonderful ladies gather weekly to watch Glee together



And in honor of the season finale, I wanted to make cupcakes.  I was going to go the simple route and just pipe frosting on the cupcakes and spell out Glee or something like that.  But then my friend Tals said we should make slushie inspired cupcakes.  A day later we had this!



I baked red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.  To make the cupcakes appear like slushies, I piped the frosting onto the cupcake.  Then I dipped the cupcake into a bowl of large dusting sugar.  I then used spray food coloring, red of course, to color the frosting to make it look like a slushie.  I have found that the more you spray the wetter the frosting will appear.  Tals bought small red cups and straws.  We filled the red cups a little over half way with starbursts and then placed the cupcake gently in the red cup.  We finished it off by cutting colored straws to 3 inches and placing the straw into the cupcake (thank you Stephanie for your help!).  


Over head shot!  I think they look just like a slushie would!


I had all the girls pose for a slushie in your face shot!  If you haven't seen an episode of Glee, I highly recommend it!  It may just bring some gleefulness into your life.

I'll have a new post soon!  So many cakes to share with you!  Thank you for stopping by, until next time, take care of that sweet tooth!
~Danielle

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Shout out | Alex & Shae

My blog was recently featured on Alex & Shae's blog, check it out here

Thank you to Alex & Shae for my shout out!  


Definitely check out their blog, the ladies specialize in stationary and jewelry.  They also have an etsy.com store!  Good luck Alex & Shae!  I wish you two the best!!!

~Danielle

Minne Mouse Cupcakes

Minnie Mouse themed Cupcakes

I love the mouse and I have always loved the mouse! I really wanted to do a bachelorette event at Disneyland, so with many thanks to my coworker and her future husband to be, my girlfriends and I were able to go for a day! I wanted to do something special, so I made these Minnie Mouse inspired cupcakes for all the ladies to enjoy. 

Here we are posing in front of Disney's California Adventure.  "C" is for cupcake!
I knew I wanted to do a least two different designs. Everyone knows the famous red bow, but not that many non-Disney fans know about Minnie's cute hat! Last year, while walking around the park, I noticed a cute new hat that you could purchase and I was inspired then to create a Minnie Mouse cupcake!
Minnie used to wear a blue skirt with white polka dots as well!
The cupcakes were chocolate cake with espresso swiss meringue buttercream. I created my own cupcake wrappers.  I work for the craft company, Sizzix and we have an art room where we can use our machines for personal projects (I really want to buy a Big Shot Pro!).  I found this fantastic red and white polka dot paper at Michaels and I used my Stampin' Up Perfect Setting die to cut out the wrappers. The Minnie Mouse heads were created out of black fondant.  The red bow was created with red royal icing and my ribbon tip. After the royal icing hardened, I added a little ball of red fondant to complete the look. 


The hats were made out of yellow fondant.  I cut green flower wire to 1/2" pieces and laid them down on parchment paper.  I then took a piping bag with a #2 tip and white royal icing and created a flower.  After the royal icing dried, I pulled the flower carefully from the parchment paper and stuck the flowers onto the hat. 
Tyler did a fantastic job taking pictures outside our apartment complex, the photo below is my favorite because the hat came out perfectly!



And here is a picture of my sister and I with our Minnie ears!





Until next time!  Happy baking and decorating!

~Danielle