Dessert | Kristen's Birthday Cake and Cupcakes

As promised, desserts!  

Last week my coworker celebrated her birthday and our department goes a little crazy with birthday breakfast buffets... 

The birthday girl and the breakfast spread

I never seem to be hungry for lunch on those days {it may be the delicious cheesy potatoes!}.  Kristen happens to be my cubicle buddy and both of us graduated from Chapman University.  We also happen to be 1/2 of a group our other coworkers have deemed the lunch bunch!  There happens to be three ladies at work who I adore and work just wouldn't be the same without them!  Okay, moving on from the mushy gushy stuff... Kristen loves the colors orange and teal {I found out later that her teal is more of a turquoise}!  She even claimed dibs on those colors for her wedding, so we decided to incorporate that color scheme into her birthday decorations!  

This one was a group effort and I have to thank the lunch bunch for all their help! Thank you to Lynda for providing all the paper decorations!  

All the paper flowers scattered on Kristen's desk were cut out and the flowers are from her mom

Kristen loves red velvet, so I baked about 2 dozen cupcakes and a 4" mini cake for her!  I couldn't cover the 4" mini cake with fondant and have freshly baked cupcakes, so I opted for a rustic frosting look with fondant decorations.

The cupcake wrappers were custom designed and cut by Jen.  Jen is an amazing illustrator and designer, check out here work here.  

Happy birthday to the birthday girl!  Cheers!

Next up, piping carnation flowers... 250 of them...

~Danielle

Weddings and mochi!

Some of you may know that I am getting married in a little over three months and I have been in wedding mode for almost a year.  Yes, I was that 5 year old girl who used to play wedding and had her wedding planned out by the time I was 12.  I love event planning and all the crafty things that come with it!  Ty is a little worried that I am going to be depressed when the wedding(s) are over.  Yes, I said, weddings, more on that later.  But I don't think I am going to be depressed at all.  I'm the first of my close girlfriends to get married, which means that there are many more weddings to come!

Our wedding was planned, finalized and designed back in November, but that doesn't keep me from looking at wedding blogs every day!  Ty reads foodgawker every day and the other night, he stumbled upon weddinggawker and it literally felt like Christmas morning!  Needless to say, I have spent many many hours in the past couple of days on that site.  I love our wedding and all the details reflect who Ty and I are as a couple.  But if I had to do it again, I think I would definitely pull in a few of these Japanese elements that I found on weddinggawker and Martha!

Kimono inspired wedding gown, cherry blossom dessert spread with mochi, cherry blossom cupcakes

Martha Stewart did such a great job using mochi ice cream.  She accomplished the flower detailing on the mochi, by creating a cherry blossom stencil, laying it over the mochi and then using a sifter to lightly sprinkle powered sugar over the mochi ball.  Then they placed the ball in the center of a cherry blossom cut out of paper. 

I love mochi, especially mochi ice cream and I wish I could serve it at my wedding.  Unfortunately, both the weddings are taking place outdoors, so I don't know how I am going to get around the melting factor. 


Mochi for those of you who do not know what it is, is a Japanese rice cake made of glutinous rice that has been pounded into paste and then molded into a shape.  It comes in different flavors, it can be stuffed and it can be used in any meal of the day.  Mochi in soup is sooo good!  But my favorite is mochi ice cream, little balls of ice cream wrapped inside mochi.   Mikawaya, a Los Angeles based Japanese dessert company is said to be the creators of mochi ice cream in 1994. 


I love the fact Martha included mochi in this past month's wedding magazine.  This is an idea that I will be filing away, so that one day when I have my own dessert studio, I will remember to do something like this.  Or I could just use these ideas for my birthday this summer... there was also this party dress in that Kimono link... hmmm...

Until next time!
~Danielle