Oh, Mickey You're So Fine!

A co-worker of mine asked me to make her a cake for a very special birthday. Her husband, lover of all things Disney, is turning 60 years young! Because this is such a special birthday, I wanted to make her and her family a cake that they will remember. When I asked her what kind of cake she wanted, she had me at one word: MICKEY. As a die-hard lover of all things Disney myself (I have been going to Disney World almost every other year since I was 5), I was super excited to start on this cake.

She asked for a classic yellow cake with chocolate frosting (the birthday man's favorite). As for the design of the cake, I went red for Mickey's shorts (complete with 2 white buttons and a butt flap <3), yellow trim, and the iconic mickey ears cap on top. I also included the patch on the hat, but personalized it for the birthday man!

I hope I made Disney lovers and Mickey Mouse, himself, proud with this cake!

- the finished product -

- 3 layers of yellow cake and chocolate buttercream -

(note: Minnie is also present hehe)

- Mickey Mouse patch -

- his lil butt (bit of a seam in the yellow trim..) -

AF, I hope your husband and your family enjoyed Mickey!

Girly, Floral Cupcakes

A coworker told me her daughter was celebrating her birthday a couple of weekends ago. This also coincided with her graduation from school, so it was a pretty major event! I was asked to bake cupcakes and given free creative control (I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing because then I get stressed out, or my imagination goes crazy). I wanted to utilize the knowledge I've been acquiring through my cake decorating classes, so I decided on using fondant and gum paste as my tools.

Mint green and pink has been a color combination that I can't seem to get out of my head lately... ergo, the color scheme for my girly, floral cupcakes!

- vanilla cupcakes filled with pudding topped with buttercream -

- chocolate cupcakes filled with ganache topped with buttercream -

RC, I hope your daughter and your family enjoyed the cupcakes!

Wedding Cake

I had the honor of baking a wedding cake for an old friend of mine. Sonia, Sharon, and I used to play all the time when we were younger. We would ride bikes and hang out at the park near our houses. Our younger brothers were also good friends, so we were always together!

When Sonia asked if I would bake her wedding cake I was pretty apprehensive... I've never done a wedding cake before and am no professional! I mean, it's a wedding cake! That's a lot of pressure! However, Sonia was able to persuade me and I consented. The bride asked for a simple cake design that was all white buttercream. The cake flavor she asked for was a recreation of her and her fiancé's favorite Haagen Daaz ice cream flavor: White Chocolate Raspberry Truffle.

As any good researcher would do, I set off to my local supermarket to find this specific flavor for a taste test. Man, it's really yummy ice cream... About half a pint later, I started pulling recipes for yellow cake, white chocolate frosting, and raspberry filling. I whipped up a batch of cupcakes, filled it with raspberry goodness, and topped with white chocolate frosting. Overall, I was pleased with the final product, but I could not figure out how to incorporate the truffle part. I got an idea from a friend to use chocolate shavings and TADA, the final flavors came together!

Sonia and David, congratulations! You are a beautiful couple! I hope you loved your wedding cake ❤

Holiday Heads

Long overdue, but I wanted to post pictures of the holiday cookies I made for my coworkers this year. I dipped pretzels in white chocolate and added glitter sugar and holly sprinkles I found in the dollar section at Target. While the holly sprinkles were ADORABLE on the chocolate covered pretzels, they stained everyone's lips red! This definitely makes me rethink buying the cheap stuff...

While Pinteresting, I came across the cutest cookies by Bakerella. She had cut out circle gingerbread cookies and decorated them just as heads. I'm not a HUGE gingerbread fan because it gets really spicy, but I thought this would be really cute. I made circle sugar cookies also to make snowmen heads. These were incredibly time consuming and required lots of individualized TLC, but I was happy with the results. Here's the link to Bakerella's perfect holiday head cookies!

My not-so-perfect-but-just-as-cute-cookies are below!

- gingerbread and snowman heads -

- chocolate covered pretzels -

Happy Holidays!

Puppy Chow

I have been seeing lots of pins on Pinterest in regards to puppy chow (or muddy buddies if you prefer), so I bought a box of chex when I was @ Walmart. I've never made it myself before, but had some when coworkers would bring some in. Having all the ingredients that I need in my pantry already, I paid for my box of chex and went home to try the recipe on the back of the box (how convenient!). It was a bit of a messy project, but super quick and easy! Who can deny tiny, crunchy, chocolatey, peanut buttery goodness?? I can't stop popping these in my mouth!

9 cups of chex
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups confectioner's sugar

1. Melt chocolate, peanut butter, and butter in the microwave until smooth.
2. Add vanilla.
3. Pour over cereal and stir until evenly coated.
4. Put the cereal mix and the sugar into a ziploc bag and shake until well coated
5. Spread on a baking sheet to cool.
6. Store in an airtight container in the fridge (or eat them all in one sitting).