MOTHER'S DAY Topiaries

Yes, this blog post is coming a little late, but better late than never. I decided that for Mother's Day, I would take as many orders for these cupcake topiaries as possible, and I ended up with 18 orders. I charged $20 a piece for them and should have charged twice that much with how much everything ended up costing. Also, this was a HUGE mistake on my part to try to take on a task this big with never having attempted one of these before. This took up an entire week of my life, staying up most nights until well after 1am....but, After a few mistakes and "trial run" looking orders, I had some REALLY cute looking topiarys, and I am glad that I will have several "examples" for a website that I hope to build at the beginning of next year. I plan to make a Cupcakes 4.0 website with options for cupcake bouquets, cupcake kabobs (coming shortly), themed cupcakes and cakes, and gourmet cupcakes and cakes (where Ill specialize in flavor and design less than a "theme".)  I also plan to open a booth at the Valley Junction farmers market every Thursday night next year and sell "cupcakes in a jar, adorned with bows and lid stickers, in different themes, ect, as well as cupcake kabobs. To "beat the heat". I will have to buy big shallow tubs for ice to display the jars in, and havent quite figured out how I'll do the cupcake kabobs, but Ive got a whole year to figure it out, right?

Now, for the pictures!!

Bumble-bees!

Full view

Square-topiary. I love the color scheme, but am not a big fan of the "square" look.

Wrapped version. This kept the cupcakes VERY moist. Its just a "large treat bag", cut to fit, and then I tied them up with matching ribbons from the pot.

This was one of 2 of the large foam balls. Ill be going with the smaller ones next time as these make the pot too top-heavy. Ill also need to find something to weight down the pots more, as some had "tipping" problems.

butterflies!

bumble-bees and daffodils

Full view

Garden-theme

Garden-theme 2

My favorite one. too top heavy wiht going all the way around.

wrapped-up

Boxed Goods

I'd really like to find some online sources to find some bulk cupcake boxes. I have been buying some big cake boxes to hold orders of 24.00 cupcakes, however, I cant find ANY with the pre-cut cupcake inserts to hold your cupcakes securlely. This has made transport tricky and I would HATE for one of my orderers to ruin their order taking it home. However, it's been fun to get these plain white boxes is decorate them with cupcake and bakery themed stickers and cloth ribbons!

This is a vanilla flavored layer cake (9 inch teir) with Martha Stewart's Rum-Vanilla Bean Buttercream.

I must admit, ever since I made this cake, Ive been OBSESSED with vanilla bean. I would not use this recipe again, as I didnt get it down quite right and the rum flavor overtook everything else. I did, however, find a vanilla bean buttercream recipe for cupcakes that doesnt seem as complicated. It doest have so much powdered sugar in it and hopefully wont harden as much.

Ive also bought a few pre-patterened cupcake boxes for smaller orders; the only problem is that I havent really had any smaller orders and it wouldnt really be cost effective for me to make orders in such small quantities. Theyve been cute to dress up a bit and put small cupcake gifts to family in though. (see below)

Odd's N Ends

Attached are some pictures of some random "cupcake plates" that I made with leftover batters and frostings from orders.

Strawberry Mini's

Citris Feista Mini's

Key Lime Mini's

Making these mini's have been easy and fun to experiment with. Ive been using only a "very vanilla" cupcake to keep things simple and just experimenting with colors and designs. I want to start experimenting with some different piping tips, but Im afraid that usually by the time I get to these "leftovers", Im so worn out from the actual cupcake order I've just finished that my effort is lacking. :) Ive been charging 15.00 for 24 of these mini's, with 24 being the minimum order amount. Kevin and I (cross your fingers) may be getting a mini chest deep freeze and housing it in the garage (gotta love apartment square footage), so that will make things MUCH more cost effective for me to just freeze the leftover unfrosted minis that my different batters mad and allow people to order them in whatever quantities they wish. I feel lucky that cupcakes freeze so well!

Catching up!

Yes, Ive been MIA, but not for lack of business BOOMING. Ive gotten my business cards, am collecting items for my portfolio, working on making a website, and am looking into farmers market vending opportunities. First, Let's catch up.

On March 19, I made my very first ever layer cake; a strawberry-banana checkerboard cake with caramel and strawberry filling and frosted in malted chocolate buttercream. I made the cake for Kevin's younger brother Zach for his 15th birthday. He is a big fan of "Tapout" and the UFC, and I wanted a chance to work a little with fondant, and this was the result.

(the cake looks lopsided in the next few pictures. they were taken with a different camera so I think it was just poor camera angle; it made the ride to the restaurant just fine! )

That same weekend, I also did an order for a bridal shower out at the West Des Moines country club. I did 3 dozen of 3 different flavors. HOLY TIME COMMITMENT AND KITCHEN DISASTER!!

Caramel Apple: Apple pie cupcakes with caramel buttercream

Strawberry Lemonade: lemoncello cupcakes with strawberry buttercream and shimmery fondant flowers

chocolate banana cupcakes with double fudgey frosting and strawberry buttercream

Experimenting with some leftovers and different flower techniques....still need a lot of practice!

My next venture was purely motivated by my taste-buds: The chocolate-chip cooke-dough cupcake with chocolate-chip cookie dough buttercream. NEW FAVORITE!!

Decorated 2 different ways

Also, took some leftover batter and frosting from all of this cupcaking and made some "retro-cakes":

Strawberry square cupcake with strawberry buttercream and jumbo sprinkles

Supply Check!

So today I went through my cupcake supply totes and re-organized and freed up a lot of space! See below!!

 

Red Velvet's

Last weekend I made 80 red velvet cupcakes! 50 standard size, and 30 heart shaped mini's. From start to finish it only took me 4 hours. Im getting MUCH faster. I went with a simple design because I, once again, was pressed for time (Im seeing a pattern here) but I still think they turned out great!

We brought them to work and people were literally talking about them the next day!

Also, I recently booked a wedding for later this fall; I cant wait! The wedding colors are lavendar and dark purple, so I'll really be able to have fun with that! 150 cupcakes wont be too bad either! ;)

Next weekend I'll be making some birthday cupcakes for a girl at work, and then after that, its on to the valentines day project, with fondant! I cant wait!

Monkeyin' Around...with PB & 'nanas.

These little cakes werent the best designed, but they were SO good. The monkeys that I made for the tops turned out being too big. Live and learn.

The cupcake is a chocolate peanut butter/banana with peanut butter cream cheese frosting. I didnt pipe the frosting on this time, and the cake itself was so rich that a lot of frosting would have killed it, and because I was running low on time. I wasnt entirely happy with how these turned out appearance-wise, but I loved the recipe and am definitely going to try them again with some better planned decorating skills.

Nuveau Snowflakes

I did an abstract snowflake design for Kevin's work party last night and they turned out fantastic! I was really impressed with how pretty they were.

I also had the chance to work with Pearl dust for the first time; silver and gold. It was MUCH easier than I had previously imagined it being and I would really like to find opportunities to use it more often.

Check out the cupcakes below:

I also got the chance to use my new cupcake carrier and discovered that I should have no problem with "crushing issues" for my more elaborately topped cupcakes.

...so this is the last "winter" cupcake that I think I'll do for the year. I did go to Michael's yesterday and stocked up on a few wintery cupcake items for next year, and also bought a bunch of cute Valentines day themed stuff. I think for Valentines day, Im going to try a tiered cake with cupcakes. This will also be my first venture with fondant, so Im VERY excited!!

A Very Cupcake Christmas

Christmas treated this cupcake hobbyist WELL!!! My family has certainly provided much support in my journey through my new hobby, and for Christmas, everyone wanted to make sure that I was well equipped for cupcaking in the New Year! I got standard size and mini-sized silicone cupcake pans, a collapsable double-teired cupcake carrier, Betty Crocker's Cupcakes (book), Crazy about cupcakes (book), 2 flour sifters, and a red (to match my "fat chef" kitchen) professional 600 series kitchenaid mixer!!! This baby is the Lambourgini of mixers!!!

I wanted to post some pictures of the cute little cupcake trinkets my sister got me too...

A 50's style vintage cupcake apron!

Cupcake recipe holder

Cupcake Magnets

Cupcake Potholders!

Needless to say, I am very excited to continue cupcaking into the new year, and cant wait to see all of the fun and creativity that 2010 brings!

Quinceanera!

My latest cupcake adventure almost turned into a disaster. I definitely learned my lesson that when making more complicated cupcakes, I need to break up my tasks. I spent about 6 hours in the kitchen and, when done, I was a mess, my kitchen was a mess, and I had a party to get ready for!

Kevin's step-sister, Emily, had turned 15 that weekend and since she is of "latin" origins, I made some themed cupcakes for her Quinceanera!

The cupcakes were apple flavored with cinnamon cream cheese frosting. I made white chocolate cactus molds and sombrero molds. I tried experimenting with making some maracas out of hollowed out white chocolate but didnt have any luck. I had found some techniques online using balloons dipped in white chocolate, then popped when dry, but the problem I ran into was that even with the chocolate at nearly room temperature, the heat was too much for the little balloons...after about an hour of trying and brainstorming, I gave up on the maracas. Balloons-1, Michelle-0. :)

Check out the completed cupcakes below:

OLE!!

My First Paying Gig!

This weekend I had a chance to make some cupcakes for a baby shower! I designed them to match the theme of the shower invitations and used the same idea as the first set of cupcakes I made; The Dragon-fly cupcakes. I used melted white chocolate to free-hand baby bottles, buttons, safety pins, stars, and letters spelling the word "Baby" and then accented them by piping frosting onto them. The cupcakes are standard white cupcakes with key lime cream cheese frosting.

The girl that I did them for LOVED them; seeing her face when she saw them for the first time was WELL worth it!

Check them out!

Malt Shoppe Cupcakes

A few weeks ago, I made some double chocolate malted milk ball cupcakes with cherry vanilla buttercream frosting. I topped them with marascino cherries and malted milk balls, and they were AWESOME!! They are really rich, so I would suggest making them as mini's next time.

Check them out!