One Year Ago

My husband and I were reflecting on the past year since I have started decorating cakes. I started in Spring 2010 by doing cakes for friends and to celebrate mine and my husband's first anniversary. Then, I never thought I'd be doing what I am doing now! I took classes in August 2010, and since then my skills (though not perfect) have developed so much that when I finish a cake- I shock myself! I cannot believe that I can look through photos online or at cakes in magazines and think, "Oh I could do that." I immediately think next, "Wow, I really could do that!"

It has been so much fun, and it truly is a blessing.

Here I just want to post some pictures of the first cakes I have worked on. They're not all pretty, but I had to start somewhere. My cake instructor always told me to save my first royal icing flowers I ever made- I never did because they were just too hard to store. However, I am so thankful I have pictures of my first attempts at cake decorating so I can look back and just see how far my skills have progressed.

Another thing that I am also glad that has progressed are my photography skills! I apologize for the poor quality of some of these photos. I am fortunate enough to have a husband who has taken the time over the past year to teach me how to use his Canon DSLR. =)

This was my first cake. Pink velvet actually. To my surprise- it worked! It was for a baby shower for some dear friends of ours. What I learned from this cake: an icing spatula would have made the job 10x easier!

These cookies too were for the same baby shower. Adorable? Yes! What I learned from making these cookies: I cannot write with frosting (in this case chocolate). I had 2 other friends do the writing and they did a fabulous job!

This cake was made to celebrate a friend's engagement (she's married now- congrats Lindsay!). What I learned from this cake: using a hint of lemon in a vanilla cake will make it taste more vanilla-ey. Yum!

This cake I made to celebrate our first wedding anniversary. I did not want to save our real wedding cake, and this tasted way better that the original would have anyway. Lemon raspberry with buttercream. What I learned from this cake: torting a cake isn't as difficult as it seems. I was surprised with my perfect layers.

I made this cake for my mother in law's birthday. Her favorite cake is chocolate cake with white frosting. What I learned from this cake: 1. Chocolate cake turns out better with the addition of sour cream. 2. Swan's Down cake flour is the bomb.

This was my very first Wilton cake. I made it week 2 of cake decorating class. It looks pretty cute, but the layers were a complete mess inside, they fell apart like crazy. What I learned from this cake: buttercream frosting can fix most mistakes.

This was my second Wilton cake. I impressed myself with this one. Vanilla cake, dark chocolate ganache, and orange mousse.What I learned from this cake: never over-whip butercream or it will be full of air pockets.

I made this cake for my friend's 18th birthday. It was lemon raspberry. I made all of those little apple blossoms by hand and they were perfect. What I learned from this cake: write on the cake first, then decorate around it, otherwise the text will get squished at the edge... oops!

This was another Wilton cake. Cute daffodils, huh? What I learned from this cake: always let royal icing flowers dry out overnight, or they will never dry.

I also learned that royal icing needs to be whipped for 7-10 minutes before use.

Well there is my cake decorating journey in a nutshell. It's been so much fun. The most important thing I've learned though is that anyone can do this. Really! It takes immense amounts of patience and practice, plus a steady hand, but it is a truly attainable skill.

Thank you to all my my very supportive friends who have given me endless encouragement since day one. I know I have filled your Facebook homepages with countless photos of cake, cookies, cupcakes, and chocolate, so thank you for your response and kind words.

Thank you to those of you who have actually paid me to make your special event cake. I always feel so honored when asked to make a cake for someone, especially since there are some fabulous bakeries around here! Thanks for the opportunity!

Thanks to my husband, who has stayed up late with me torting cakes and making frostings, and has thought up many ideas for many cakes I have made.

Finally, thanks to you blog readers. Not sure who many of you are, but I am always surprised to see my blog traffic even when I have not posted in awhile. It encourages me to keep going.



*Later this evening, I was looking through some older photos from 2009 ( I know this post is 1 year ago, but there were only 2 so I have to throw them in!) and came across 2 more early cake decorating projects. In 2009 I was a newlywed and had a lot of time on my hands- that is when the baking thing really got rolling.

Sugar cookies. I decorated these in summery colors just for fun to experiment with piping. What I learned from making these cookies: piping is A LOT harder than it looks.

Spice cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. What I learned from these cupcakes: close up photos of frosting and sprinkles are never a bad thing.

Ladies Luncheon

I had the wonderful opportunity of making desserts for a ladies luncheon at church this weekend. The spread was pretty simple, but it was definitely the most cupcakes I've baked at once and the most chocolates I've ever made. The desserts were a huge hit. They looked beautiful and they tasted amazing.

Here is what I made.

Mini Dark Chocolate Mocha Cupcakes with Vanilla Bean Buttercream

Min Milk Chocolate  Cupcake with Vanilla Bean Buttercream

Salted Caramel Cups

Peanut Butter Cups

Chocolate Mousse Cups

Mint and Hazelnut Chocolates

Cake Truffles Made with White Cake and Vanilla Buttercream and then dipped in White Chocolate

Apple Streusel Cupcakes with Maple Glaze

My brother-in-law Nick turned 30 this past weekend. We had a fun time with friends at dinner and laser tag,  concluding the evening with these delicious cupcakes.

I know these aren't typical cupcakes for a birthday party, but my brother-in-law, being from the Netherlands, has a more refined palette when it comes to desserts. While he enjoys birthday cake with sprinkles and butter cream frosting, he really loves desserts like tiramisu and Dutch apple cream cake (I'm still unsure of what that is). For such a memorable birthday, my sister-in-law and I baked these cupcakes up and they were a huge hit with the birthday guy and all of our friends. This recipe is extremely simple, but delicious, making it the perfect go-to cupcake recipe for any occasion.

Apple Streusel Cupcakes with Maple Glaze
Makes about 2 dozen cupcakes

• 1 box of Duncan Hines cake mix- french vanilla flavor
• 1 1/3 cups water
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 3 eggs
• 21 ounce can apple pie filling
• 5 tablespoons butter
• 1/3 cup light brown sugar
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup oats
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 cup pure maple syrup
• 1 teaspoon heavy cream, if needed
• 1 cup confectioners sugar

Apple Streusel cupakes baked in Tulip Cups.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
1. Prepare cake mix as directed by beating the eggs, oil, and water, and mixing with the cake mix.
2. Cut the apple slices in the apple pie willing into small 1/2 inch chunks.
3. Stir all of the apple pie filling into the cake batter.
4. Fill 24 cupcake liners with cupcake batter.
5. Make the streusel topping by combining 3 tablespoons of the butter with the brown sugar, oats, cinnamon, and flour. Use a pastry blender to cut the butter into the flour mixture until it is lumpy.
6. Sprinkle the streusel topping over each cupcake by the spoonful.
7. Bake cupcakes 18-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted removes cleanly.
6. Make the maple glaze by melting 2 tablespoons of butter with the maple syrup in a small saucepan over medium-low heat. Whisk in the confectioners sugar until smooth. If glaze becomes too thick thin it out with the heavy cream. Drizzle the glaze over the cupcakes immediately.

Cupcakes for a Lingerie Shower

Eyelet detail, ribbon cupcake, & pillow top cupcake

 To celebrate one of my good friend's upcoming marriage, I made these cupcakes decorated with homemade marshmallow fondant. The fondant decorations were inspired by silky, lacy, white bridal lingerie. Whether I 100% achieved this look or not they were most definitely a huge success at the party. Slightly more importantly than the way they were decorated was the taste. I made 3 dozen total, each dozen being different.

Lemon and yogurt cupcakes with vanilla bean butter cream

Lemon blueberry and yogurt cupcakes with vanilla bean butter cream

Almond cupcakes with amaretto butter cream filling and vanilla bean butter cream on top

I used 2.5 ounces of plain Greek yogurt in each batch of the yogurt cupcakes. The cake was incredibly moist, even after 3 days! However, since it was so moist the cupcakes sunk in a little bit after cooling. In this case it worked to my advantage because I need flat tops for my decorations. I was able to even out the indent with some butter cream, and that way each cupcake not only had the fanciful fondant top, but underneath that was about a teaspoon of real butter cream frosting. Many of the guests loved that part. =) Flavored with fresh lemon zest and plump blueberries, these cupcakes were most definitely delicious.

Variations of the ribbon cupcake