Maci and Nick's Wedding Cuppies!

They are precious!

Oooo my giant cupcake looks so sparkly! 

AWWW!!

Here are a few pictures of the cupcakes and giant cupcake I made for Maci and Nick's wedding! They're in black and white, but you get the idea!

A Drink From the Wedding Cup(cake)...

HAPPY 2012!! My husband and I celebrated the New Year with cheap champagne and Dick Clark/Lady Gaga. Hope your celebrations were equally ridiculous!!

146 of 250 cupcakes!

Now back to what I do best: Cupcakes!!! I had my very first ginormous order, and get this: it was for a WEDDING! Someone actually entrusted me with their wedding cake(s)! Needless to say, with the both holidays and with work, I had a pretty full plate but I wanted these little confectionery treasures to be delectable for my lovely bride to be. To me that means fresh, moist and delicious... Hmm, how to time it just right for pastry perfection but leave  time to run to the local bakery and speed order 250 cupcakes that matched my bride's order if need be room for error?! So I decided to bake them in the kitchen I work in AFTER my 8 hour shift. At the time, it sounded like a flawless plan.. bake 250 cupcakes (5 different flavors) in less than 2 hours. Done and done. Not so easy. The oven temps were off.. and the commercial sized mixer left a lot to be desired.. it left huge clumps of butter in my batter so when I baked my first batch of 100 cakes, they all sank! I was devastated and tired so I decided to do it all in my tiny kitchen the next morning :) And boy did I ever! I baked and decorated the whole day away!! There was flour and batter everywhere, a dash of blood, a pinch of sweat and a tsp. of tears...but by 4pm, I had all of my cupcakes baked and decorated! Just in time to get them to the reception site and set them up for display! And let me tell you, they looked beautiful! I felt like I was dropping my children off at their first day of school... I blew them a kiss goodbye, got into my car and drove home. Phew! Too bad I didn't get a SINGLE picture of my final product!!! FACEPALM ! I do have one phone pic from 1/2 way through baking that I will post, and then at a later date I will steal my bride's professional wedding photos from her facebook! Prospero Año Nuevo!!!!

There's no place like home

If only traveling were as easy as clicking your cute red heels together three times... alas, it's not. My 3 year old daughter Violet and I flew to Michigan last week to visit my 82 year old grandmother. The flights on the way there went seamlessly, and I wore the smug face of the woman with the angel toddler that was delightful to travel with. Our stay was great (minus Vi being sick for 5 of the 7 days we were there) and we were sad to leave. Long story short, my daughter got sick while we were waiting to board or plane.. she had a coughing spell and ended up vomiting all over herself (and me) about 20 minutes before we were to get on our flight. We ran to the bathroom, did a quick hobo bath and ran on to find our seats. Needless to say, the passengers around us were none to happy to be sitting near Barfy McBarfpants and her stinky pukey mother. But what can you do? Just gotta cry in the airport bathroom roll with the punches.  Now if that wasn't an appetizing story I know something that might do the trick:

 Gluten-free coffee cupcakes with Nutella buttercream and homemade (the crust too folks!) apple pie for my Dad's 54th birthday party! Enjoy :)

PS: Between moving, Halloween and packing for our trip, I was too lazy busy to make my Nightmare Before Christmas cupcakes... but Violet loves that film so I will make them another time!

This is Halloween!

♪ ♫ ♪ ♫ ♪ ♫ ♪ Boys and girls of every age
Wouldn't you like to see something strange?
Come with us and you will see
This, our town of Halloween ♪ ♫ ♪ ♫ ♪ ♫ ♪


Halloween is by far my FAVORITE holiday. Making costumes, trick or treating, eating my  daughter's candy the cool crisp air... and all of the really creepy little treats there are to make. We've been moving all week so I'm a bit behind on the confectionery front, but this year I'm going to make "Nightmare Before Christmas" cupcakes! 


These little beauties are my inspiration, although I don't use fondant so mine won't look as inedible perfect:

If that last comment seemed snarky... it was! To be honest, I've been wanting to learn how to use fondant for quite some time now, and it's on my to-do list!  Happy haunting, boys and ghouls!