Mama Mia Spaghetti themed Cake & Cupcakes!

Kristie has amazing parties and when she asked me to do little Mia's birthday cake, I knew it was going to be an amazing design! I think my favorite part of this was that she came up with this design herself and sketched it out for me! So cool! :)

The cakes were covered in marshmallow fondant and then I used styrofoam rounds for the black separators. The cupcakes were cream cheese frosting piped out so that they look like noodles topped with ferrero rocher candies and whoppers and then covered in strawberry sauce. I love, love, LOVED making such a unique cake :) Thanks, Kristie!

Salt Cake City CUPCAKE BEANIES!

Introducing Salt Cake City CUPCAKE BEANIES! These hand-knitted adorable cupcake beanies come in baby, child, and adult sizes. They're made with super soft baby yarn and are machine washable! After today's boutique, I only have 2 baby beanie

s (1 in blue, 1 in white), 2 kid pink cupcakes, and 1 in each color for adults. I wish I was talented enough to make these myself but I'm not, however, my beanie maker can create different sizes and colors on request. They're $8 each and perfect for Christmas presents! If you'd like to order, email me anytime at SaltCakeCity@gmail.com.

Mary Kay Cupcakes

 One of my favorite clients is a Mary Kay rep and she always comes to me with the best cake ideas! This time, she needed cupcakes for a Mary Kay event she was throwing and so we did make up themed cupcake toppers. I think they were Chocolate Peanut Butter cupcakes and Strawberry Shortcake Cupcakes. :) For the toppers, I hand cut them and just try to make them cute. How'd I do?

Superhero & Spiderman Cupcakes

 This is one way to please both of your kids but only throw 1 party! Hellen has two boys who have birthdays so close to each other that they always celebrate together. The trick is getting them each something special and not blowing the bank :) We did half of the cupcakes as superheros and half of them as Star Wars. Haha. Hilarious. Both of the boys wanted chocolate cupcakes with chocolate buttercream and then they were topped with marshmallow fondant toppers. I hand cut each of the designs but they really are just a combination of round circles and straight cuts (I know that sounds simplistic but that's really what it is... :)

Pink Ruffle Cake with Mini Cakes

Cynthia wanted this pink ruffled cake that she had seen on the internet. I had been wanting to do this cake design as well so I was thrilled to get her order. This cake was around 6 inches tall and it was Neopolitan Dynamite Cake (layered chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla cake) covered in light pink buttercream, no fondant here. To go with the main cake, she wanted little mini cakes that were also Neopolitan Dynamite flavored. These tiny little things were so much fun to make (okay, they were difficult and frustrating too but in the end, I felt so rewarded :) These were covered in deep brown  marshmallow fondant and I piped initials and "4" on the top in honor of the little birthday girl. I love how simple, yet elegant both of these design were and how they complimented each other well. 

Mini Mario Cake

Recently, I've been making a lot more mini-cakes, which I think are ADORABLE! Look how tiny and cute this is!!! It's a 4-inch round top with a 6-inch round bottom. It's all covered in marshmallow fondant and all of the Mario bits and pieces are MMF as well. It was a Chocolate Chip No-Cookie Cake (vanilla cake layered with chocolate chips and buttercream). I loved making each little detail for Leo's birthday because it took me back to my childhood as well. Enjoy the throwback and the mini! :)

P.S. I'd like to add this to my nerd cake collection... Ah, I have to represent!

Texas Longhorn Cupcakes

Camille works for Brian, who received Mickey Mouse Cupcakes from Honey a while back, and she got to try a few of the cupcakes since Brian couldn't eat that many cupcakes himself :) So then Camille ordered cupcakes for Jacob with his favorite team's colors. Can you guess it? Yup! Texas Longhorns! Half of the cupcakes were chocolate and half were vanilla all topped with buttercream. I topped some of the cupcakes with marshmallow fondant toppers with "Texas," "T," and the longhorn logo on them. I printed out the longhorns logo and then hand cut the fondant to make sure they looked right. So simple but so fun! :)

Deep and White Cupcake Tower

 

Shauna wanted a cupcake tower for her wedding and wanted to match the colors and flowers for her wedding in the design. I had done her bridesmaid's wedding cake a few weeks earlier and so I was so excited to make Shauna's as well. We decided to do 3 cupcake flavors (Triple Chocolate, Rainbow Bright, and Strawberry) and the top cake was Rainbow Bright as well with layers of light green, dark green, and white cake.

DL Jones Construction made this awesome cupcake tower and since then, I ordered two more cupcake towers from Dennis Jones. Turns out that on the day of the wedding, I grabbed two wrong center dowels and wouldn't you know it, I couldn't get the 4-tier cupcake tower together. Ugh. It was really stressful in the moment because Shauna's guests were all waiting for the cupcake tower to be completed, along with the other tables for dinner. I had to assemble what I could of the tower and place the cupcakes as soon as possible because there were kids (and adults) running up and sneaking cupcakes away :) Haha. It's was actually pretty funny. One of the guests took a deep green cupcake and smashed it into another guests' face. Lucky it was the guest and not the bride!

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!

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! :)

Valentine Cupcakes

My bonus daughter was having a Valentine's party in class (Yes, I am THAT far behind in posting pictures... I'm Sorry!). The rules on snacks in classrooms have become way more strict than when I was in school so now they can only bring in store-bought snacks. Luckily, I own a bakery so I can make special little treats like this. Yay! These were mini chocolate cupcakes topped with red dyed buttercream and really big candy conversation hearts. They were so adorable and she loved them. Happy late Valentine's Day (yes, I know, that was A LONG time ago :)

JP Display Cupcakes

In January, I was a vendor at a kid's show called "Winter Palooza." While there, I met Rick & Jodie Peters, owners of JP Display. They are the behind the scenes people that set up trade shows, helps business promote products and services, and make everything run smoothly at these shows and events. You can check out their work at http://jpdisplay.com/

They were wonderful to help me with my first booth ever and then they asked me to make a set of 100 cupcakes for one of their clients. I was happy to do it. We thought it would be great to have cupcakes topped with their logo so I made their exact logo out of marshmallow fondant. There were chocolate cupcakes with buttercream, lemon cupcakes with lemon buttercream, vanilla on vanilla, and chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting (YUM!).

Mini Grasshopper Cakes

Kari needed two cakes for her friends' birthdays. One of her inside jokes is little grasshoppers so we went with this idea and made mini-cakes for them. This first one is a female grasshopper (can't you tell? She has pouty pink lips and eye shadow) made out of fondant on top of Vanilla Latte Cake (vanilla cake layered with coffee flavored buttercream). The blades of grass and bow are also marshmallow fondant and then I placed silver dragees on the cake for a little extra touch.

As you can see, these are pretty small cakes. They were around 4 inches in diameter, which is pretty small to work with when covering a cake in buttercream and fondant. This cake has a little boy grasshopper (why I had to make a girl and a boy grasshopper is beyond me. She said grasshoppers, I assigned them a sex). In any case, this one has a hershey kiss made out of fondant along with a puddle of chocolate underneath the grasshopper. Again, the mini-cake is covered in home made marshmallow fondant. This cake was a chocolate cake layered with chocolate chips and chocolate buttercream. YUM!

I later heard that the second cake never made it to Kari's friend because when she unveiled the first cake to her friend, they ended up eating both cakes together :) haha. Happy to do it!

Star Wars Cake & Cupcakes

Will was having a birthday party and his mom, Holly, wanted a Star Wars themed cupcake set for him. Rather than doing people-like pictures, I decided to do a more cartoony-version of the main characters and here were the results. They were all topped with marshmallow fondant accents and each of them were hand-cut. So much fun! She ordered three flavors, White Chip (sweet yellow cake with white chocolate chips baked in and topped with buttercream), Chocolatey Chocolate (chocolate cupcakes with mini chips topped with chocolate buttercream), and Cookies & Cake (vanilla cake with Oreos baked in and topped with Oreo buttercream). Yum!

A few weeks later, I made my bonus son a Star Wars themed cake and thought I'd put them here together since they matched. He's completely obsessed with Star Wars although he can't watch them all yet. The cakes were covered in homemade marshmallow fondant and all of the designs and accents were also marshmallow fondant. Although I don't remember which flavors I made for his birthday, the kids ate it all up pretty fast at the party :) The characters were the real prize though because before we even sang Happy Birthday, each kid called a character. Hyrum got the light sabers. They were pretty energetic by the end of the pool party!

I have to thank Lucas Films for allowing me to recreate these images for this cake and cupcakes. Most of the time, when I email a company for permission, I never hear back from them. Thank you so much!

Mod Cake & Cupcakes

Sarah was having a sex-reveal party for her future baby and wanted a modern cake and cupcakes to match. We decided early on that Sarah isn't much of a "pink ducks" and "baby blue rattle" type of mother and since it was her shower, we wanted the theme to match her personality. In our discussions of the party, she mentioned that this baby was her "VERY.LAST.ONE" which I thought was hilarious. I suggested that we integrate those words into the cake because it was too funny to let slide. You can hardly see it in this picture but the cake topper (made of marshmallow fondant) says "VERY LAST ONE" on it.

The cake was covered in marshmallow fondant and the cupcake toppers were also MMF. We went with yellow, orange, brown, red, and white as the color scheme because this was during the fall. The cupcakes are Chocolate Dipped Cherry Pie Cake (chocolate cake with baked cherries) topped with cream cheese frosting while the main cake was White Chocolate Dipped Strawberry Cake (strawberry cake layered with white chocolate ganache).

Because this was a sex reveal party, Sarah had her doctor call me immediately after her ultrasound and told me the sex of their future baby. It was pretty crazy that I was the second person to know :) Anyway, I dyed the cream cheese frosting and the white chocolate ganache blue so that when they cut into the main cake and when the guests bit into their cupcakes, they saw bright blue all at the same time finding out that they were having another boy. Sarah later wrote and told me that the sex reveal was a huge hit and they are thrilled to have another boy. Congratulations, Nathan and Sarah! Very. Last. One, right? If not, I'll be here for another sex-reveal cake. haha

First Gingerbread Ever!

South Jordan holds an annual Gingerbread contest mostly for kids and just for fun. This year, I thought I would enter because I've never made a gingerbread house from scratch before. It was even more fun than I thought it would be plus I loved the smell of the house after cooking gingerbread... yum! I decided to make a gingerbread bakery instead of a house considering what I do. I cut windows into the walls of the bakery and assembled the "house" with a mixture of buttercream and royal icing. I covered each wall with marshmallow fondant with a brick texture and added a shingled-type roof made of colorful MMF ovals. I used the same colors from the "shingles" as accents on the door, Christmas lights around the house and on the trees. Pretty much everything on this gingerbread bakery is MMF with the exception of the icing and the walls.

The trees are solid pieces of fondant shaped into a cone. Then, I used cuticle scissors to cut the sides of the tree making it look more like a Christmas tree. I added the Christmas lights and a solid fondant star on top. I accented the gingerbread bakery with my Salt Cake City logo on the window and a cake, cake slice, and cupcakes on a small table outside of the bakery (made from MMF). Lastly, I drizzled thick royal icing on the bushes (made from MMF as well), trees, and the roof. To add even more texture, I blended coconut flakes with granulated sugar and sprinkled that on the wet royal icing creating a thick snow fall.

This piece was so much fun to make because for me, the more color there was, the better it was. I wanted it to be really vibrant and festive :) I hope you like it and I also hope you have a lovely holiday season!

Christmas Cake Ornaments!!

Just in case you didn't know, I LOVE Christmas. Last year, I saw some cupcakes that someone had made that looked like Christmas ornaments and so I waited all year to make these. That was a bit more dramatic than it needed to be but I have been wanting to make these for a while. Rather than doing cupcakes, I decided to make full sized, round cake truffle ornaments. I made around 30 of them (phew!). Half were chocolate cake and half were spice cake covered in buttercream and then covered in homemade marshmallow fondant. They were accented with MMF decorations including the top gold hook, and then sprayed with edible pearl shimmer. I didn't have the pan that most people use to make these so I hand-shaped them... can you tell they aren't completely round? Ah! I hate that. Here's an up close shot of four of my favorites.

These were deceivingly time consuming. Because I hand-shaped them, I had to shape, cool, and then reshape them just to get them round enough for my liking. Then, I had to frost, cool, reshape, refrost, cool, cover, cool, decorate, cool, spray with shimmer, and top with hooks. In the end, totally worth it! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Cowboy Cupcakes

My bonus son (step-son) turned 4 last month and for his birthday, he wanted a cowboy themed celebration. Dallen LOVES cowboys and anytime he wears a belt, he says it's his cowboy belt. When he wears a hat (any hat), it's his cowboy hat. When he wears shoes (any shoes), they are his cowboy boots :) He even says "Howdy, Ma'am" as he tilts his hat. Oh, he's SO cute! I realize I'm bias but he's just the cutest kid EVER!

For his cupcakes, I made cowboy hats, horseys, cow patterns, cacti, lassos, and sheriff stars. The toppers were all made out of marshmallow fondant sitting on top of buttercream. I hand-cut each of these shapes with the exception of stars. Half of the cupcakes were chocolate and half were vanilla. He loved them and I loved making them for him. Got me some really good hugs with these puppies :)

Gerber Daisy Cupcakes

Lea was having a reception back here in Utah after her destination wedding in Hawaii. In order to tie in the Hawaiian theme, she wanted some bright and fun cupcakes. We decided to do bright orange, yellow, green, and pink gerber daisies made out of marshmallow fondant to top most of the cupcakes and then a few cupcakes with just bright colored frosting. This was the end product! I have to give a quick shout out to Dennis Jones Construction for his AWESOME carpentry skills in making this beautiful cupcake stand. It was hand-crafted and mailed to me from Carmel, CA, and I was so completely pleased. Every time I saw it, it made me smile. This cupcake stand exceeded even my own expectations of his abilities and I just can't say enough about it. Thank you so much! I will definitely be using DL Jones construction in the future :)

Now to the cupcakes. Lea wanted Tuxedo flavored cupcakes and so there was quite a lot behind getting these babies to be just right. First, I baked chocolate & vanilla cupcakes (I scooped half chocolate batter into the cupcakes and then scooped vanilla on top of that). You can see in the first picture how the chocolate is peaking through on some of the cupcakes. Second, I dipped the cooled cupcakes into rich, chocolate ganache (picture 2). When the ganache had cooled, I piped sweet buttercream on the tops of the cupcakes (picture 3). Finally, I added colorful marshmallow fondant flowers to the tops of the white buttercream and piped bright colored buttercream on the tops of some of the other cupcakes (picture 4).

My mom, who lives in California, was visiting that week and happened to help me make all 100 or so gerber daisies that were cut by hand, shaped, and topped with a ball of marshmallow fondant that had been rolled in tiny candy balls. This just gave them a little extra color, pop, and flavor. Thank you, mom!!

Lastly, here is the cake topper that Lea and her now-husband cut into. The flavor was Ruby Red Velvet (red velvet cake layered with cream cheese frosting) and the cake was covered in homemade marshmallow fondant. All-in-all, I loved how this cake order came together. I was so pleased to have the help of Mr. Jones (who made the stand), my mom (who cut out so many little flowers), and Rosie & Drew (who helped deliver all of the cupcakes and set it up in site). Thank you all for your help in making this beautiful display!

SuperBron

Leona needed a cake for her husband, Bron, who is a big kid. She said he loves Superman and so she wanted a cake in that theme. I kept this cake pretty simple to make it more "adult" rather than kid-friendly. The cake was English Toffee Cake (yellow cake layered with rich, chocolate ganache and crushed toffee bits in between the layers of cake). It was covered in homemade marshmallow fondant with marshmallow fondant words and letters.

Because the cake ended up being a little bit shorter than I had anticipated (my cakes are usually 4-inches tall and this one was more like 3-inches or 3 and a half inches tall), I ended up making cake truffles to accompany the order. These cake truffles were also yellow cake covered in chocolate ganache with a piece of English Toffee right in the center of the bite. Then, I sprinkled a little bit of red sugar on top to match the cake. Yum.... I always "have" to sample the cake truffles when I make them... fun for me! :)