Cake | UCLA Bruin's Groom Cake

I love when clients "aka friends" have an exact idea what they have in mind and then trust me to create it for them.  I will be honest, I was a little nervous about this one.  Last year, it may be a full year, a friend from college asked if I would do a groom's cake for a friend of hers.  The groom wanted a UCLA Bruins themed cake.  I had previously done a USC Trojan cake (I can hear either the boos and the cheers in the background) last year, so I thought why not, I can do this!  

I ran a few images I found off the web by the groom and groom decided he wanted to go with the Bruin drawing behind the UCLA logo.   We picked this out last year, so when it came time to actually do the cake I was a little intimated.  But I laid out a schedule and I accomplished the Bruin a little bit here and there.  I started to work on the Bruin logo two nights before the cake was due.  It would have been easy to purchase a printer, fondant sheets and edible ink and print out the logo (this works so well for corporate clients - sugar cookies and cupcakes).  But I also like the look of layered fondant.  So, with my handy dandy exacto knife I set to work cutting out different layers of the logo.  

Night 1

Here is the final cake!  I don't like to toot my own horn, but I think this is definitely a step up from the USC cake that I did last year.  

Day 3, pick-up Day!

And I wanted to share this last photo, my friend, Leika took this at the wedding.  I love the table display (I am all about table displays!)

I probably won't be able to post anything until after our wedding, so don't give up on me. 


Until next time, enjoy the summer!
~Danielle

Cake | Simplistic Graduation Cake

Just wanted to do a quick post on a cute little cake I did for my friend, W.  W graduated in late May with a Masters in Biology.  I wanted to do some kind of nerdy cake, like I did for Tyler's birthday last year (remember the Beer Yeast Microbe cake), but I decided to do something more simplistic.  

W really likes my mint chocolate recipe, so I create a 6" cake for her.  Mint chocolate cake with peppermint Swiss meringue buttercream.  For an added surprise, I smashed up Girl's Scout's Thin Mint cookies (I buy a box every year and put it in my freezer... frozen Thin Mints are the best!) and sprinkled the cookie crumbles in between the layers of cake.

 

I did a simple black circle pattern on the outside of the cake and topped it all off with a Thin Mint cookie on top of the cake. 

Here I am with the graduate.  Congratulations on your graduation W!

Next up, a groom's cake which I think is beary beary good...

~Danielle

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

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

Cake Decorating Supplies!

Half an aisle!!!  Who was excited?  I was!

Wednesday, while on my lunch break, I needed to go by Michael's craft store to pick up cake boards for a couple graduation cakes I am working on this week.  As I turned down the aisle, I turned my head to the right and noticed a whole new display of cake decorating supplies and materials... and what brand do suppose I am talking about... it's not Wilton, but Duff from Charm City Cakes!  Oh, happy day!  No, literally, it made my day!  I actually squealed in delight and the woman down the way looked at me like I was weird.

Some of you may or may not know, but baking and cake decorating is a side venture of mine.  During my normal 40 hour week, I happen to work at a craft company.  I am constantly bugging my product department to venture into the cake industry (hasn't worked... yet).   Many cake artists use scrapbooking and sculpting tools, so it is nice to see our supply selection growing!  Right now the Duff line is only being sold at Michaels.

I took these images with my iphone and I was a little excited (just a little...), so they are kind of wobbly.  Mary Alice posted more pictures on the Charm City Cake blog, click here.  Enjoy! 

Printed icing sheets for easy use, Duff calls them Cake Tattoos

Nice Plan-o-gram action going on right here!

Texture Mats for use with Fondant and Royal Icing

Sprinkles and Royal Icing!

High quality fondant... who is willing to try it?

If anyone has tried out Duff's product, let me know what you think!  I bought a texture pad and I'm hoping to try it out soon.  I'll do a follow up post when I do. 

Until next time!  
~Danielle

Personal Cakes

4" round cakes are about the cutest things you can possibly see.  I like to call these little 4" round cakes personal cakes, even though it serves 4 slices...   A couple weekends ago, we attended my friend's 3rd annual birthday party at the Olde Ship in Santa Ana and I brought along this cake for her.

It's a chocolate cake filled with chocolate ganache.  Decorated in fondant accents.  I finally got to try a new technique, rolled ribbon fondant flowers... not too shabby if I say so myself. 

These are great little cakes for birthdays, baby showers, bridal showers or even your occasional tea parties!

Hope you enjoyed, until next time happy baking!

~Danielle