Internship

Now for some exciting news!!! I started my month long internship with Sweet and Saucy today!!! I get the chance to learn so much stuff and this opportunity is really a blessing.

Today was fantastic and I am so excited for Melody (the owner and pastry chef). The cake studio is going to be awesome! Check out the website www.sweetandsaucyshop.com

Stay tuned... but for now, here's a pic of me in my Sweet and Saucy t-shirt!

I baked my own birthday cupcakes!

I know, I know... my friends said I shouldn't bake my own birthday cupcakes, but hey, I'll take any opportunity to decorate! I want people to look at my cupcakes and go "yea, that's Danielle." I love black and white... everything I own (journals, jewelry cases, filing folders and clothes) are black and white. So, I wanted my cupcakes to be black and white... and then I came across these really cute yellow polka dotted cupcake liners at the baking supply store... sigh. In the end, the cupcakes turned out to be yellow, white and black. :)

Enjoy! (I apologize for the bad picture quality)

I colored the fondant pale yellow and embossed the fondant with a Parisian wallpaper stamp

I colored the cream cheese frosting with yellow food coloring and used a very large piping tip to create the dollop look. I then used a gum paste flower cutter to cut out these cute flowers! Then I sprinkled yellow colored sugar and added some candy pearls.

This one is a little hard to see... I tried to get a good shot, but I couldn't. I created a happy birthday pattern by pressing a "happy birthday" stamp and a present stamp into the fondant. Then I added those cute little flowers again.

Finally, I cut out a little circle of black fondant and laid it in the middle of the cupcake. I used a piping bag and a decorative tip to create the peddles of the flower. I sprinkled some yellow colored sugar around the black circle of fondant.

Here are the four cupcakes side by side

Will you be my bridesmaid?

I'm engaged!!! Although most of my bridesmaids already knew they were going to be bridesmaids... I wanted to do something special for them. So, what better, than to bake! I baked sugar cookies and decorated them according to our color theme. Our wedding will be black, white and gray with green as the accent color. The bridesmaids will be wearing black dresses and they will hopefully be holding a boutique made up of green flowers (think green cymbidium orchids or jade roses).



I found this really cute quote and printed it out on paper and attached a paper gardenia (I love these flowers, but they wilt quickly).


Let me know what you think. And stay tuned for some exciting news... until then happy baking!

Bright Birthday Cupcakes

I finally had the chance to really decorate cupcakes (with fondant and embossed fondant!). I was asked to make a dozen cupcakes for a birthday party. The birthday girl loves bright colors... orange, yellow, green and blue. This is what I came up with.






This one is especially for the birthday girl :)


Thank you for visiting! Until next time, happy baking!

Argyle Birthday Cake

Today is my best friend's little sister's 21st birthday and so an argyle cake was asked to be made. Here it is! It's a red velvet cake with cream cheese icing (everyone's favorite).

Sorry for the grainy pictures...

There will be a new post tomorrow!

Surprise Birthday Cakes and Cupcakes

This week was full of birthday surprises!

My girlfriends and I threw a surprise birthday dinner for our friend. The theme of the dinner was The Little Mermaid, so I decided to give the cupcakes an "Under The Sea" kind of feel. I made buttermilk cupcakes with buttercream icing. The coral flowers, seaweed and fishes are made out of fondant. And the sand was yellow colored sugar.

About a month ago, my friend asked me to make a ninja cake for her husband. I have been so excited to make this cake! She gave me a couple sketches and we came up with this... I hope you enjoy it! The cake was blood red velvet... hehehe.

This is definitely one of my favorite cakes!
Until next time, happy baking!

11.5 hours of cake decorating

It has been a busy week! I had my first cake decorating class and I had three requests to decorate. On Wednesday, my boyfriend, Tyler asked if I would make cupcakes for his classes. The cupcakes were the prizes for the students Jeopardy like study session. Tyler teaches 8th and 9th grade science, so the cupcakes were either H20 molecules or tiles from the table of elements. :)

I pulled an all-nighter last night... I decorated for 11.5 hours. I haven't pulled an all-nighter since my freshman year in college. Half way through the world cake an air pocket formed beneath the fondant. I had to remove the fondant (and all the work I had completed) and start the decorating process again. Let's just say, I learned a lot! There were two cakes due this morning for my number one repeat customer (my best friend, thanks Shira!).

One cake was for her brother's graduation celebration. He just graduated from USC yesterday, so we thought it was fitting to incorporate a USC theme into his cake. Everything on the cake is edible. The lettering and the Trojan head are made out of fondant. The cake was a red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting.

The other cake was for her sister who just came back from Semester at Sea. Shira and I decided to include a map of world (well part of it) and the flags from each of the countries she went to. There were so many details on her cake that I decided at midnight last night that it would be best if I hand painted most of it. Everything on this cake is also edible. Her cake was a rich chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream icing.