Aileen's cupcakes

I'm way behind in getting photos of new things on here, but I'm just waiting until the powers-that-be decide to add a couple more hours in the day and then I'll do it!

Made these cupcakes last weekend for a friend's daughter's engagement party. 36 cupcakes with gumpaste flowers. Went a little crazy with the colors, but I think bright colors can be really fun, especially when on chocolate buttercream.

A couple of people recently asked me about the boxes I use -- BRP Box Shop is a fantastic resource for boxes of all shapes and sizes. You have to buy in quantities of 100, but if you've got the room and/or the business, it's totally worth it. You can also email them and they'll send you free samples. Their cupcake holders are the best - nothing's worse than a box full of smooshed cupcakes!

Love the color contrast!

All boxed up and ready to go

New website!

It's taken a while, but I've finally replaced my yucky old DYI Yahoo! Site Builder website with something a little more professional looking. Happy to report that as of this week www.sarabakescakes.com is up and running! Little kinks still to be worked out, including resizing many of the photos (what a pain in the butt!) and going through Flickr and adding more, but so far so good.

Doug won a free website design from a great company called SiteDesignWorks and he gave it to me. I was able to choose from a number of predesigned sites - ended up choosing one called Prismatic. They even designed a logo for me.

Is it my dream website for Sara Bakes Cakes? No. But is it a 1,000 times better than the old one? Absolutely. Check it out!

Fire Truck Cupcakes

Update! I'm thrilled that Cupcakes Take the Cake blogged about these cupcakes on March 27. Thanks!

I've always had a thing for firemen (they're the only guys who can really pull off a mustache), and now I have a thing for gumpaste fire trucks. My search for a MINI fire truck cookie cutter was fruitless, so I had to improvise and make my own.

Cupcakes are vanilla bean with vanilla buttercream, fire trucks are gumpaste. Couldn't decide if the ladders looked best up or down (Doug said up, I thought down) so I did some of both. Handpainted the number 4 with food coloring. If I make them again I'd probably use some silver dust to make the number pop a little more.

(btw - I love these cupcake boxes and holders. They make any cupcake look that much better)

Dylan's Jungle Cake

Making and decorating cakes always makes me happy, but today's cake makes me SUPER happy. I love when the finished cake turns out better than I imagined it would.

The cake is vanilla bean, with vanilla buttercream and strawberry jam filling. Decorations are made with gumpaste and royal icing. I got new cutters for this project from Amazon - the giraffes are my favorite. Although my brother thought the yellow creature on top was either a hippo or cow, it's a very short-necked giraffe. That and the monkey are also made from gumpaste.

Jaden's Basketball Cake

Vanilla bean cake with vanilla buttercream. Basketballs are made from gumpaste and royal icing. The basketball lollipops are my favorite. As usual, the photos are so great because Doug took them.