Mickey Mouse Inspired Cupcakes

Honey wanted to surprise her new boyfriend with a set of Mickey Mouse cupcakes. I was so happy to make them because I LOVE Mickey :) I decided to do a deconstructed Mickey and Minnie set of cupcakes and here's how they turned out. Half of the cupcakes were vanilla with vanilla buttercream and the other half were chocolate with chocolate buttercream (I've only pictured the vanilla ones here). All of the toppers were made out of marshmallow fondant and I hand-sculpted all of the Mickey and Minnie parts.

I delivered them to Brian's office and his receptionists went nuts over them. It was so sweet of Honey to surprise him like that. She said he blushed all day long over them.

Just to update you..... they are now engaged and will be married in a few months. That's right, I like to think my cupcakes had magic love in them :) Congratulations you two!! I can't wait to make your wedding cake!

Dual Sports Birthday

Dominique was having a joint birthday party for Nick and Nico again this year. Last year, I made the boys a sports themed cake that was three tiers and had a baseball, basketball and football for each tier. This year, I went a different route because I wanted to keep it unique and fun for them. The basketball and baseball were made out of rice krispies covered in homemade marshmallow fondant. The basketball net and the baseball field were the cakes. The cakes were Cookies & Cake (vanilla cake layered with crushed Oreos and buttercream). The cake doesn't look as big here but it was pretty big and heavy. I get such a work out with some of these cakes :) haha

Jungle Animal Birthday Cake

Shannon was having a Jungle themed birthday for Gabe this year and wanted a cake to match. I've done a few jungle animal cakes before but none that were 2-dimensional to match an invitation so I was super excited. I've attached the invitation below for you to see what I was going for. One of the tiers was Ruby Red Velvet with buttercream and one tier was Boston Cream Pie Cake (yellow cake layered with vanilla cream filling and chocolate buttercream). The cake was covered in homemade marshmallow fondant and the animals were also all fondant. Happy Birthday, Gabe!

Rosa's Kitty Cake

Danielle's babygirl was turning one and she wanted a fun cake for her party. She wanted to incorporate Rosa's cats with the cake and since the cake was such bright and vibrant colors, the cats really stood out as well. I loved the contrast here. The cake was covered in marshmallow fondant and the cats were also made of fondant.

You might be looking at these cats and saying "I could never do that" but I promise, it's super easy and fun... as long as you have some patience and time. Fondant cats are really just a mixture of different circles (head and stomach) with some thin tubes (arms and legs) mixed with small dots for the whites of their hands, feet, and stomach.

Danielle ordered Orange Creamsicle for this cake (orange flavored cake layered with orange cream filling and buttercream). Yum! I got to see some pictures of Rosa enjoying the cake... soooo cute :) I love when babies are covered in sugar... haha

Grandpa Fishing Cake

Patty wanted a special cake to celebrate her dad's 50th birthday. She thought it would be cute to have grandpa fishing off of a dock with his four grandkids. As you can tell, Grandpa's a huge dodgers fan so I added that to his shirt as well. :) The whole cake and all of the decorations were edible except the wires hooking the fishing poles to the fish. Behind grandpa and the kids were a bucket full of worms and a tackle box with hooks in it.

The cake was a Tuxedo cake (chocolate and vanilla cake layered with chocolate and vanilla buttercream) and White Raspberry Kiss Cake (white chocolate cake layered with raspberry cream filling and white chocolate ganache). It was covered in marshmallow fondant and the kids and grandpa were also fondant. Thank you for looking :)

Tiffany Blue Wedding Cake

Jennica & Braden were having a very traditional and elegant wedding and at the tasting, Jennica said she wanted a fun and colorful cake to offset the traditional. This is what she had in mind. This cake was based on a cake from Creative Cakes & Cookies and incorporated Jennica's beautiful wedding colors (black, white, and Tiffany blue). The whole cake is covered in marshmallow fondant and decorated with MMF as well.

Jennica & Braden chose three flavors for their cake. The first was Brownie Lovers (chocolate cake layered with chocolate ganache and a layer of chewy brownies), the second was Ruby Red Velvet Cake (moist red velvet cake layered with cream cheese frosting), and the last was White Raspberry Kiss (white chocolate cake layered with white chocolate ganache and raspberry cream filling).

When I got to the venue to deliver the cake, they had a BEAUTIFUL room set up. I came in just as the wedding party was taking their photos together and wow, they looked wonderful. Everyone was dressed in black, white and Tiffany blue and room matched. Have I mentioned that this was a picture perfect couple? :) I have to give a special shout out to Penny, mother of the bride. She was amazing to work with to make sure all of the details were correct on the cake and also for the set up. Thank you all for being so easy to work with!

Red Bows & Pearls Cake

Jesse, a former student of mine, emailed me saying he was getting married. You can imagine how shocked I was considering how young he is but then again, I do live in Utah :) He asked if I was able to make his wedding cake and I said, "Absolutely!" He was a great student and so I knew his fiancee was a lucky lady. Tori emailed me later and said they both trusted my judgement and to make whatever cake I wanted to make for them. Well, as fun as that may sound to some of you, it's MUCH harder than just doing whatever I want to do. I think a wedding cake should reflect the bride and groom, or at least the feel of the wedding itself. If your wedding is a very traditional and formal wedding, a bright colored topsy turvy cake probably wouldn't be the best. On the flip side, if you're having a fun wedding to reflect your outgoing personalities, a plain white wedding cake wouldn't do either. So this means I had to go on the hunt for more details. I asked about her dress, her venue, her invitations, etc. I soon found that they were having quite the wedding at the Grand America Hotel in downtown Salt Lake. A wedding at the Grand America for a beautiful couple should be grand itself, don't you agree?

This was the wedding cake for my adorable former student and his new blushing bride. We decided to do alternating borders of overlapping fondant and pearl beaded fondant. On the tiers with the pearls, I did 6 layers of the beads so that it created a very thick border on the cake but still an elegant touch. The large bows are also made out of fondant and I added a few edible white pearls around the cake (you can't see it very well in this picture but they're there). The only thing not edible are the crystal brooches in the centers of the bows because Tori wanted some bling on the cake. Finally, I painted the red bows and borders with edible shimmer to give it more sparkle.

The couple chose After Dinner Mint (Minty chocolate cake layered with mint chocolate ganache and mini-chocolate chips) & Southern Butter Pecan Cake (Butter pecan cake layered with caramel, pecans, and cream cheese frosting)

Congratulations, Tori and Jesse. You are a beautiful couple and I was thrilled to make the cake for you :)

Baby Blue Animal Print Cupcakes

Shandell wanted cute cupcakes for a baby shower she was throwing. Since it was a baby boy's shower, we matched the shower invitations by doing baby blue animal print designs on the tops of the cupcakes. Here's the invitation:

For the cupcakes, she chose two flavors. The first is After Dinner Mint cupcakes which are minty chocolate cupcakes topped with mint chocolate ganache. Here's a shot of the cupcakes before the toppers:

The second flavor was Carnival Caramel Apple cupcakes which are spice cake with baked apples topped with cinnamon buttercream and caramel. YUM!
Shandell's been one of my clients for a few years now and I was so happy to make these cute little cupcakes for her. She later wrote me and said they were delicious and quite the hit at the party. Thanks, Shandell! :)

Soccer Birthday

Carol wanted to get Matthew a unique birthday cake for his 16th birthday (not sweet 16, but rather a soccer 16 birthday). I remember telling her that it's not as easy as it sounds to make a soccer themed cake that doesn't look like a child's party cake. I came up with this design to incorporate Matthew's school colors, red and gold, along with his soccer jersey. Making a completely edible soccer net was quite the challenge. Fondant likes to lay flat to I had to dry it against a curved object that it wouldn't stick to. Four nets later, this one worked :) It's hard to see in this picture but it's on the top there with the fondant 16.

The cake was an Orange Dreamsicle Cake (orange cake layered with orange cream filling and buttercream) covered in homemade marshmallow fondant. Carol and Matthew were so excited when I delivered the cake while I apologized the whole time about it still looking childish to me. Haha... I'm such a perfectionist. They both loved it and so I just have to get over it. :)

Bright Zebra Birthday

Whitney wanted a bright & fun birthday cake with a zebra print theme somewhere in there so we came up with this design for her 13th birthday party. To make it a little more whimsical, I tapered in the sides and made it slightly topsy so that it almost looks like it's falling over. The cake was Cookies & Cake (vanilla cake layerd with crushed Oreo cookies) and white cake with raspberry filling (the birthday girl's choices, of course). The balls and the number "13" are all made out of fondant and the whole cake was covered and decorated with marshmallow fondant. I had a ton of fun with this cake because it was just bright and colorful. Hmm... I don't think there's much else to it! :)

Hippo Birthday Luau

Easter wanted a really unique birthday cake for Lili's first birthday. In fact, it was so unique that her husband drew a sketch of exactly what they wanted... Safari Lili sitting on top of a giant purple hippo with a friendly alligator and lion inside of a little jungle scene. Yup. That's right! Here's what I came up with. The hippo is all edible. The body and legs are all Ruby Red Velvet Cake with cream cheese frosting and the head is all rice-crispies. The whole cake is covered in homemade marshmallow fondant.

Here is an upclose shot of Lili and her little lion and alligator friend. They are all made out of fondant and so are the palm trees. I thought it was so cool that Easter's husband drew out a sketch and I'll tell you, when I first saw the sketch, I had NO idea how I was going to do it. As Bronwen Weber once said, always say yes and then figure out how to do it later. That's exactly what I did and I'm so glad I took on the challenge.

In order to get the cake this big, there were two full tiers of cake inside of the hippo herself and they were separated by a piece of cardboard and supported with straws so that the cake didn't collapse on itself. I shaped the head out of rice crispies and then covered the head in buttercream. I let that firm up in the fridge for a while, then I sculpted it down to make sure it was cute and in proportion. I covered it again in buttercream and then in marshmallow fondant. I added the eyes, lashes, nose and ears. Then, I used a few skewers to skewer the head in tightly to the main cake, and boy was this head heavy. It was HUGE (like an orange on a toothpick... or a rice crispie hippo head on a skewer, I suppose). Once I got the hippo's body and head put together, I added the legs out of cake and then placed Lili and her animal friends on the top of the hippo.

When I got to the party, Easter had gone all out! There were musicians, dancers, decorations, tons of food and it just looked like an awesome party. She went nuts over the cake and so I was proud to have been a part of Lili's first birthday. As a surprise, I made a matching smash cake with just a little hippo's face on it for Lili to get into and Lili loved it. Well, technically, I don't think Lili cared too much but Easter loved it :) haha