Happy Birthday, Karl!

A few months back, my cousin, Claudine, threw out the idea of having a suprise 40th birthday party for her husband, my cousin, Karl.  It was pretty quickly decided that it would be "beer" themed, since Karl does enjoy his brew!  I knew that I had to make my favorite Car Bomb Cupcakes, which I've posted on here a few times.  After that was decided, I searched the interwebs for a good idea for the cake.  I found something fun that I wanted to try, and here are the results.

The cake was made with four 8 inch round cake pans.  I used Martha's One-Bowl Chocolate Cake recipe.  I used her fluffy vanilla icing recipe for the yellow base and her swiss meringue buttercream for the "foam". I covered a foam twist tie in plastic wrap and then fondant and shoved it into the side of the cake. 

The "beer" was made by caramelizing sugar and pouring it over a dowl and twisting.  I will admit that this was the hardest part.  I've never made candy before, and we really burnt the first batch.  Matt helped me figure it out after a lot of googling!

Jack was my baking helper that morning!

I wanted to give the "beer" a golden color to match the Fat Tire Beer that Karl loves so much, and Matt found this gold shimmer sugar in our pantry, and we added a little to the caramel mixture.  I think it added a nice sheen to the the "beer."

There was a lot of talk about how to cut the cake, but my dad figured it out.  My sister in law makes this recipe all the time, and it is always fantastic, so I thought I'd try out that recipe.  It tasted different than hers, but still delicious. 

Holly helped her daddy blow out the candles. 

Happy Birthday, Karl.  We love you!!!

Happy Fourth of July

Lemon Cupcakes

My brother and sister-in-law were nice enough to host breakfast and lunch/dinner on Sunday.  I offered to bring a dessert, but I wanted something that would be refreshing on a  HOT summer day.  I've been trying to bake my way through Martha Stewart's Cupcake cookbook, so I found her Lemon Meringue Cupcakes recipe.  I changed it a little though because I didn't feel like making the 7 Minute Frosting.  I made the Swiss Meringue Butter Cream instead.  It was also my first time making Lemon Curd.  I was a little intimidated, but it was so simple!  These cupcakes were delicious.  Her recipe is very similar to her buttermilk cupcakes, but with a lemon twist.  YUM!

Can you see that beautiful lemon curd?  Its tartness really tasted great with the butteriness (is that a word?) of the frosting.

A word to the wise...these cupcakes do not travel well, especially on hot days.  They sort of slid...oops.

I found these liners in the dollar bin at Michael's.  They are from Paula Deen's line.  So cute.

This is Sammy.  Her mommy regularly reads this blog, and I thought she'd love to see Sammy's picture up of her eating the cupcakes!  So stinkin' cute.

Jack's Robot Party

Happy Birthday (Again) Jack!

Jackie (aka Robot Boy) turned three on June 1st but his party isn't until tomorrow.  Jack has been asking for months for cupcakes with robots on them.  Matt and I had a whole idea ready to go last night about how we were going to make a robot shaped cake and cupcakes.  Well, when I went to bake today, my oven was not cooperating.  It kept turning off in the middle of baking, which caused two of the small cakes I was making to collapse in the center.  I got super frustrated and decided to go with a much simpler idea.  I used his invitation as inspiration....

I made a chocolate half sheet cake and swiss meringue butter cream.  I cut the letters and robot out of leftover fondant.  I also decorated around the edges of the cake with chocolate buttercream that I made for the cupcakes.

It wasn't what I originally wanted to make, so I'm a little disappointed.  Hopefully Jack will like it anyway. 

I did not think that the cake would be enough for the large party tomorrow, so I decided to make cupcakes as well.  I made chocolate cupcakes with chocolate meringue frosting.  I had found silver jimmies (sprinkles for those of you not from Philly) at HomeGoods a few weeks ago, so I thought they'd be perfect for the robot theme.  I dipped the cupcakes in the silver jimmies, then I had no idea what to do.  My mom and Matt helped me stare at the cupcakes to come up with an idea.  We tried putting eyes and a mouth on them that looked like the eyes on the cake just in a smaller form.  Well, the eyes ended up looking more like deviled eggs.  Then we tried to put red instead of yellow at the center of the eyes.  Then it looked the GEICO money.  Finally, my mom had the idea of doing robot silhouettes on each of the cupakes.  I think they turned out pretty cute. 

It is supposed to be VERY hot tomorrow, and I'm a little worried about the cupcakes and cake melting on the way over to the party.  What do you do to keep cakes from melting and falling apart in the summer time?

Congratulations, Molly!

Cake success and fail on the same day...

My cousin Molly graduated on Friday from Bishop McDevitt High School and will be attending LaSalle University in the fall...our alma mater!  LaSalle is where Matt and I met twelve years (eeek!) ago, and I think Molly will do great there.  Molly's mom asked me last week at the family reunion to make 2 dozen cupcakes--half Bishop McDevitt themed, the other half LaSalle themed.  I thought, "No problem!"  Little did I know that the baking gods were not working with me this morning.  I baked 2 dozen vanilla cupcakes and while cooling, the cupcakes pulled away from liners.  CAKE FAIL! After a little bit of googling, there are two possibilities as to how this happened.  Either, the cakes weren't fully cooked or the oven is heating evenly.  My guess is that its a combination of both.  I'm always worried about over baking cakes, and our oven has been acting weird lately. 

Needless to say, I had to start over and make another batch.  This time, I made sure to bake them a little longer and rotated the cupcake pans more often.  The results were much better!   I made swiss meringue butter cream icing and tinted half of it yellow for the LaSalle cupcakes.  Have you ever had an idea in your head that you just couldn't make happen in reality?  That's what these cupcakes were like for me.  They turned out cute enough, but just not what I had in mind.  I've seen lots of cupcakes rimmed with sugar, and I thought it would be fun to try.  Somehow, it just didn't turn out the way I wanted them to. 

Sorry the pictures are so dark.  It started to storm like the world was ending right as I was finishing up, and I just could not get the lighting right.  (Not-quite-right seems to be the theme of the day).

The cupcakes, luckily, tasted pretty good.  Molly said they tasted very fresh, which  I always like to hear!  Holly really liked the icing and even conned her Poppy into giving her his icing...Poppy just ate two plain cupcakes!   After devouring the icing, Holly said, "These are good.   Matt made them!"  She proceded to tell everyone that Matt made the cupcakes and kept thanking him!  Needless to say, Matt didn't correct her!

Congratulations, Molly!  You'll have a great time at LaSalle!

Happy Birthday, Timmy!

A Philadelphia Union Birthday Cake

Our friend Timmy is turning 30 this weekend, and his wife decided to throw him a surprise party.  Although, Matt definitely cannot make the party, and I may not be able to, I wanted to make a cake for him.  His wife, Jess, clued me into the fact that his favorite cake is strawberry shortcake.  I was very excited at this news as I have been dying to make a strawberry cake of some sort.  Matt helped me decide on the theme of the cake, which is the logo of the Philadelphia Union Soccer team.  Timmy is a big soccer fan and has gone to several games of the new team.  I really hope he likes it!

I made a basic pound cake recipe, used fresh strawberries with a little sugar for the filling, and made a swiss meringue buttercream frosting.  The fondant took a long time to tint to the appropriate colors.  Who knew navy was such a hard color to dye?   To finish it off, I dipped some strawberries in white chocolate and surrounded the bottom of the cake with them.

How good do these strawberries look?

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Christening Cupcakes

God Bless Everly Grace...

Remeber Miss Everly? Well, she was baptised today in a gorgeous heirloom gown that her mother, uncle, and grandfather all wore. Everly's grandmother called me a few weeks ago and asked if I could make cupcakes for the occasion. Well, she left a voicemail at home, which Matt on purpose accidentally deleted. After some research, I found her number and was able to call her back. She asked for some pretty chocolate cupcakes as the cake she was ordering was vanilla; however, she gave me free reign as to how to decorate them. Seeing as Miss Everly is so pretty, I knew they had to be pink! I used a chocolate fudge cake recipe and Martha Stewart's Swiss Meringue Butter Cream. I topped them with pink chocolate crosses and light pink sugar pearls. So sweet and dainty...just like Everly. The cake, in my opinion, was just ok, but the frosting was delicious! If I didn't know how many sticks of butter went into one batch, I'd probably eat it out of a bowl with a spoon!

I found the mold for the chocolates in the stack of ones my mother gave to me a few years ago. 

Here they are displayed next to the beautiful cake at Everly's Grandmother's house...

They seemed to be a hit as there were very few left at the end of the afternoon...

Another (semi) cake fail...

Book club oops!

I borrowed an Ice Cream Cone cake pan from my sister-in-law a few weeks ago.  (Have you checked out her blog?  You should.  She rocks.) It looked so cute, and I couldn't resist.  I figured I'd make them for book club tonight.  Well, in theory...they are cute.  The problem?  They cannot stand on their own!  Right now they look okay, but I guarantee that they will not survive the drive over to Jen & Mandy's house.  The good thing is, they taste amazing!  It is yellow cake recipe with Martha Stewart's Swiss Meringue Butter Cream frosting.  Delish!  

Looks cute, right?  Not so much when I couldn't figure out how to transport them...

See?  Awful.  Hopefully the girls won't mind.