Baking Fun - Baby Shower Duckies

Baby Shower Lemon Goodness!

I made this three layer checker board cake with lemon and vanilla cake mixes. I normally don't like to use boxes of cake mix but considering the time restraints, I didn't have much of a choice. The mom-to-be was aware so it made me feel a bit better about it. :)

I used the Wilton cake pans to create the checker board effect. I wasn't able to get  a photo of a slice of the cake because I didn't attend the shower but here's a shot of one of the layers. The process was quite messy and hard to figure out because I didn't have a clear plan or a single clue what I was doing.

I'm glad I used some more subtle colors because the layers of color didn't quite line up. Next time, I'll be more prepared and will attempt a more contrasting combo like vanilla and chocolate or something like that. I'd recommend to give this a try a couple times to get the hang of it before going all color-crazy.

I used some vanilla icing and some basic fondant for the decorating. Not much fanciness there. I don't have a board to measure my fondant and to anyone attempting to use fondant, I'd highly recommend buying one. It's the next thing on my list for sure. because this cake had three layers, it took me quite a few tries before I could get it the right size and thickness. The sided ended up being a bit chunky because of that but I was able to cover it up with some duckies all around. I added some blue buttercream icing for the "waves" and added some little silver candy for detail and a nice finish.

I had some left over cake mix so I mixed in some green coloring into the white vanilla batter and made some marbled mini cupcakes. I decorated them with buttercream icing in yellow and blue topped off with some cute candy. They looked awesome!

Mom and Dad to be were thrilled with how everything turned out and I got a prompt update that everything was all gone. Their guests loved the cake and cupcakes and the baby shower was a success!

Congrats to Sarah and Travis and I wish them all the best as they prepare to welcome their little bundle of joy into the world. :)

Baking Fun - Easter Bunny Cuppy Cakes

I had to contain myself yesterday not to post these on Facebook in case Maggie saw them before she left Winnipeg... here's hoping she's already on the road. :)

Easter Bunny Cuppy Cakes

For the actual cupcakes, I used a pre-made plain vanilla cupcake mix and just tossed in a bit of extra vanilla flavor in them. I like to use a more subtle cake flavor when the entire focus is on the icing as to not over do it - this worked very well. Also, instead of using food coloring, I added chocolate to the icing to make the brown ones so they have a slightly different taste than the green ones.

I took the design and idea from this book. Hello Cupcake is just wonderful because it makes things easy, uses real words and doesn't tell you you have to buy this and that and the other thing in order to accomplish this.

For the Rabbit Butts, I used chocolate icing and covered that in Oreo crumbs. I spent hours and hours looking for circus peanuts in this blessed town to no avail - so I settled to cutting the ends off marshmallows to make the feet. I used a black jelly bean, as shown in the book, for the large foot-pad but I recommend using either a chocolate covered peanut or raisin. The taste of the licorice jelly bean does not go very well with the rest so people will just pick them off. I couldn't find any chocolate covered sunflower seeds so I used some extra chocolate icing for the toes. I stuck everything on with a bit more icing - be careful when you add the Oreo crumbs to leave a bit of space for the sticking of the parts. Icing does not stick well to crummy surfaces - the feet will just fall off. Overall, very satisfied with how they turned out.

For the Green Grass ones, I simply piped some little stars to create the grass and stuck some mini-eggs, small candy flowers and some colorful sprinkles to give it a bit of color and make it look all Eastery and nice.

I used in total about 2 and a half cups of butter cream icing for the whole thing. Colored a bit more than half - so about 1 cup and a half - in green using paste coloring. That made about 30 cupcakes. I also put different amounts of batter in some of the cups as to give it a bit of variety and depth and it worked out wonderfully.

Can't wait to eat them!! :) Happy Easter baking!