Doug's cupcakes

Note to self: I really need to start making Doug take ALL the photos of my stuff. My little camera (and my meager skills) just aren't cutting it! Moving on...

Doug's birthday was May 26, but we were traveling home from a wedding in PA that weekend, I was out in LA for BEA the next, and so on and so forth. The poor guy never got a proper SaraBakesCakes birthday celebration (the cobbler's children, etc., etc.,). I made it up to him yesterday with a cupcake of his own design. Spice cupcakes with a banana in the middle, topped with an attempt at Nutella buttercream. The problem was I tried to just flavor the vanilla buttercream I already had with the Nutella, but that just added to the sweetness and didn't provide a lot of hazelnutty flavor. Don't tell the parents, but I also dumped in a lot of Frangelico, which sort of worked but it was still way too sweet, in my opinion.

Next time I'd make an italian buttercream and flavor that one. For those who care (ha) - flavoring a powdered sugar buttercream does work really well when the flavor you're adding isn't already really sweet (like peanut butter or bittersweet chocolate).

I wish I'd taken a photo of the cross section with the banana inside, because it looked really cool. And the papers?? I just bought them when I was in LA at Surfa's - a magical cooking supply store. Next I'll bust out the orange and yellow ones - I need another special occasion for those!

a cup in a cup

We have all this old cool serving ware from Doug's grandmother. I hope to use more of it in my photos. This is from a 20 piece demi-tasse cup set.

Cupcakes for Summer Birthdays party at Maxie's school

There were four kids with summer birthdays at my son's school and right before school ended they had a party for all of them. If it's not obvious, the letters are for each of the bday kid's name. I bought the Wilton letter/number set - and made them out of gumpaste. Not a big fan of the Wilton stuff, but this did the trick. Vanilla bean cupcakes with vanilla bean buttercream.

Claudia's cake

Cake for Claudia's confirmation. Vanilla cake with apricot filling and vanilla frosting. Wanted blue and green decorations so I went with gumpaste dots because I love dots! You can't really tell in the photos, but there are three different colors of green and three different colors of blue. I love the way this turned out - and am very happy that my writing is looking more confident. Two things: congratulations is a MUCH longer word than I thought, and Claudia isn't spelled Claduia (which is how I originally wrote it on the cake - but can't can't tell, can you???).

Busy, busy weekend - starting with animals

I made four dozen zoo animal cupcakes for a 1st birthday on Thursday night. I think they turned out pretty great. Shout out to the Cupcake Carrie and pastrybitch on flickr for the ideas.

Joseph's cake

joseph's cake
Originally uploaded by the schneider clan

Joseph's party was at the nature center and the theme was frogs, lizards and snakes. I love the way the gumpaste creatures turned out, especially the little guy on the lily pad.