Alexa's Birthday Cake

I had the pleasure of making a birthday cake that was very similar to my last one! As soon as she saw the Jack Skellington Cake I made in Decemeber, Alexa contacted me and asked if I was able to do a more feminine design, but keeping the Nightmare Before Christmas theme. Of course, I said yes and here was the outcome! I delivered this cake to her this morning and she loved it! Another success!

Happy Birthday Alexa!

Adventure Time Cupcakes

A few weeks back, I did a cupcake order that was a request for Adventure Time! Here are the photos from that order. Thanks to Alvaro Alvarez for taking these photos!

Jack Skellington Cake

Today, I have the wonderful opportunity of baking a birthday cake as a gift for my boyfriend's brother! Now that I'm pretty seasoned on making my own fondant, I was so excited to be able to practice on this cake! Happy birthday, Jason! 

How to Make Fondant!

I have a cupcake order this weekend for a birthday, and I wanted to show you all how I made the fondant for the decorations! This was seriously so easy to make and I'm positive I will never buy fondant again! Thank you to my wonderful mother who helped by taking these photos!

You'll Need...

• 16 oz. mini marshmallows
• 7 cups of powdered sugar (I just used a whole bag of it, you may need some extra depending on how firm you want the fondant to be)
• 2-5 tablespoons of water
• 1/2 cup Crisco (vegetable shortening)
• A wooden spoon or rubber spatula for mixing

First, pour your marshmallows into a large microwave-safe bowl and add 2 tablespoons of water. Put it in the microwave for 30 seconds.

Remove from the microwave and stir. It may not seem like the marshmallows have melted yet, but the stirring definitely helps between each microwave session.

Put the bowl in for another 30 seconds, remove and stir again. You should really start to see the melting process begin!

Put the bowl in for another 30 seconds, remove and stir. This should be the last time you have to microwave the marshmallows, but be sure to stir everything to ensure there are no whole marshmallows.

Next, add 3/4 of your powdered sugar and stir it in.

At first, this will look like one big mess and NOTHING like fondant. Don't be discouraged!! This is just the first step! Keep on mixing, just think of it as a good arm workout!

Keep blending the two ingredients together. The mixture will still kind of be hot, so don't try kneading it too soon!

Next, spread some Crisco on your counter (make sure it's clean first!) so the marshmallow doesn't stick to it.

Then take Crisco and spread it all over your hands. This step helps so much!!

Next, dump out the marshmallow mix onto the counter where you spread the shortening and wipe off any excess from your spoon/spatula.

Begin kneading the mixture like you would with bread dough. It will feel like one giant, weird marshmallow. Keep on keeping on!

Occasionally, add more powdered sugar to help the firmness set in, and continue to knead...

Eventually, you may become EXTREMELY excited like me when you see that it's starting to become fondant! Feel free to show your neighbors or members of your household! Beware, you make receive strange looks!

As soon as you feel it starting to firm up, you'll want to do a 'stretch-test'. Grab a chunk of the fondant and stretch it out. If it looks like this, you'll want more powdered sugar. I'm looking for a more firm material to work with and this it just a little too stretchy for my taste.

Keep kneading...

and adding more powdered sugar...

Alright, here's our next stretch test!

And the results are perfect! This stretched about two inches and then disconnected! That's exactly what I'm looking for!

When you have the texture you're looking for, rub some more shortening on your hands so you can spread it onto the fondant

Ta da!

Wrap the finished product in cling wrap and store at room temp. for 12-24 hours. The shortening you rubbed onto it will be absorbed into the fondant, acting as a preservative for the time being.

Pie Cupcakes

Hello again! I feel a little more active on this blog now that I finally decided to share it on my Facebook page. I've been apprecaiting all the love I've received and couldn't be happier with how everything turned out!

Some of my favorite clients ordered again! The same lovely people who ordered my Spiderweb Cupcakes and my Ombre Cupcakes placed another order for their 'Friendsgiving' that they were holding the day before Thanksgiving. They wanted one dozen cupcakes made to look like pies, but made with Stevia instead of sugar. 

I have never baked with Stevia before, so I knew this was going to be a challenge. I found a Stevia bag that measured just like sugar! Cup for cup! Finding this was a life saver!

Below, you'll find pictures of how everything was decorated, but no recipe. The recipe was just a plain vanilla with the Stevia replacement. The photos demonstrate how to decorate cupcakes so they look like pies, but with a twist because my clients wanted pie filling, too! Enjoy!!

The Finished Product

Baking, baking, baking

The pie filling was added by cutting a cone-shaped chunk out of the top of the cupcake. PLEASE make sure to keep the top matched with the cupcake it came from. Trust me- it'll make things a LOT easier!

Here's a shot with the filling added in. Just enough cherries for each cupcake!

I bought a bag of m&m's, and satisfied my OCD by separating the colors. You can use any color, but since I wanted to keep a pie-theme, I chose red and blue only.

I recommend frosting your cupcake before you start decorating. The frosting will help the candies stay on the cupcake while you continue to decorate.

I recommend starting with 1 candy in the center, 5 candies around the center, and however many candies that can fit on it after the center is done.

Do the candies first before you pipe everything! 

Ta-Dah!