Princess and the Frog

For A's 6th birthday she picked out princess and the frog cupcakes to bring to school. She wanted the princess one's to be for the girls and the frogs to be for the boys. The kid's loved them!

Meeska Mooseka Mickey Mouse

My sister's friend was having a mickey mouse themed birthday party for her daughter, Faith, who was turning 3. She asked if I could make a cake. This is by far one of my favorite one's that I've made and the first three tiered one that I've done. I had the challenge of transporting it to the party and learned a lot in the process. I now know why the cake shows on tv assemble them at the destination. =) Thankfully it made it there in one piece. 

Jungle Cupcakes

K's been wanting me to make S'more's cupcakes for months. I was having trouble finding the graham flour that I needed for the recipe but K's dad was able to find it. Yeah!!!!  K loves animals so I ended up adding a chocolate one on top for her birthday celebration at school.

Graduation

For K's graduation party I made another cookie cake but for her's I ended up drawing a traditional cap and diploma.

Honu Cookie Cake

I made a Honu cookie cake for A to bring to school for her end of the school year party. We kept it  simple by putting two honu (turtles) that were heading towards the water. 

Strawberry Shortcake

My first attempt at using fondant was for a friend of mine. Her daughter was turning 5 and loved Strawberry Shortcake. I found a picture of a similar cake to the one I did online and thought that it would be perfect. I made a three tiered strawberry cake with coordinating cupcakes. I learned so much with this cake and can't wait to make another one. 

Building a Sandcastle

For an Ariel themed party I made a sandcastle cake. I had a blast building it and the best part about this one was that it was edible.  The towers were made by stacking up different sized cupcakes and topping them off with an upside down sugar cone. It took me awhile to figure out how to add the birthday girl's name to it. I thought about how when we go to the beach the kids always take a stick and draw in the sand so I tried to do the same to the cake. It didn't stand out enough so instead I ended up breaking up pretzel sticks and laying them down on the cake. I loved how it turned out. 

Caramel Surprise

These are so yummy! They're a chocolate cupcake with caramel inside, topped with a dark chocolate buttercream frosting. K loves it when I make them for her to bring to school. She doesn't tell anyone about the caramel inside so they end up discovering it after they take their first bite. I've also made them with a small amount of sea salt on top of the caramel and icing. It adds a great flavor to it.  

On Dasher, on Dancer....

These reindeer cupcakes were one of the two different designs that I made for the holiday this year. I found several different ways to make them but ended up going with this version. I used melting chocolate to make the antlers, tootsie rolls for the ears, mini vanilla wafers and M&M's for the nose, and white M&M's for the eyes. Next year I hope to add Santa Claus and make it look like their pulling his sleigh. 

Holiday Lights

This is the other design I made this year. I love holiday lights and end up putting up what seems like a bizzilion of them every year, so when I found this design I knew it was perfect! They turned out to be one of the fastest and easiest cupcakes to make too. I used graham crackers to make the light bulb shape. I originally thought about using marshmallows but they weren't big enough and were harder to shape. I also used red gumdrops, red licorice, and chewing gum to make the plug.  

Shark Attack

K loves animals and picked out this design for me to make for her 8th birthday. I ended up making cupcakes for her to bring to school and a cake for her party. The cupcakes have either a shark, a shark-bitten life preserver or fish on them while the cake has all three. Their favorite part, the sharks.

Digging up Bones

When I make cupcakes for K and A to bring to school I make over 50 of them which can end up being extremely time consuming. In order to cut that time in half I decided to make a skeleton to go with the pumpkins. This was super easy to do too! All used was white melting chocolate to make the bones and crushed up oreos to resemble dirt. The kids loved them!

Pumpkins

I love carving pumpkins for Halloween. I'm one of those people that pick out an intricate design and spend hours carving it out so it's picture perfect. When I saw these four pumpkin cupcake designs I knew I had to make them for K and A to bring to school. I used yellow starburst, tootsie rolls and a twisted pretzel. I still can't pick out my favorite. =)

Bon Voyage

I'm known at my daughter's school as the "Cupcake Lady" since we tend to bring cupcakes there once or twice a month. So when one of the girls was moving away the teacher didn't hesitate to ask me if I'd make something for her going away party. I had just made cupcakes for them that past week so I decided to try my hand at a cookie cake. Now I just had to come up with what design to put on it.  It was going to be a bon voyage party which made me think of cruise ships sailing away in the setting sun. Once I found a picture of one it was smooth sailing.   

Be Mine

I couldn't resist skipping ahead and posting the cupcakes I just made, especially since tomorrow's Valentine's Day!  These candy heart-shaped cupcakes were incredibly easy to make. I used a heart-shaped cookie cutter to cut out pound cake for the top, dipped them in melted frosting and wrote messages using red frosting. K and A had a blast helping me pick out what to write on each one. I can't wait to bring them to their school tomorrow.

Hi, I'm Pablo!

One of my friend's asked me to make cupcakes for her daughter's birthday party last year. One of her favorite tv shows is the backyardigans so I ended up making one of the character's named Pablo. I dipped a Mallomars in melted blue frosting for the head, used a yellow starburst for the mouth, and a frosted gumdrop with red licorice for his hat. She loved them!

"Frosting the Snowmen"

One of my favorite holidays is Christmas so making cupcakes for K's party at school was something I had been looking forward to since I had started making them earlier that year. I decided to make snowmen since we've missed the winter season living in a tropical climate. The snow is created by using shredded coconut and the colorful scarfs are made out of air heads. The carrot nose was made from orange starbursts and the top hats from regular and mini oreos.

Waddle, Waddle, Waddle

My first introduction to making cupcakes was with these penguins. It's often a challenge to find the right ingredients on the island so I usually am forced to improvise on materials. I ended up using yellow starburst for the beaks and feet, marshmallows for the bellies, along with mini doughnuts and doughnut holes for the heads. I would have loved to have found thin chocolate cookies for the wings but had to use another type of flat cookie instead. Also, small fish candies could be placed under one wing and blue rock candy can be placed on another cupcake that's covered with coconut to resemble an iceberg. They ended up still being a huge hit with my girls.

Eight Legged Friends

This was my first cupcake that I created on my own without looking for ideas elsewhere. I used black frosting to make the spider's web, added one half of an oreo to the cupcake. Then I used frosting to attach a half of a mini oreo, cut up some black licorice for the legs. I finished it off using white and red frosting for the eyes, and finally added white frosting for fangs. This is one spider that will leave you wanting more. =)

Woof Woof

When A picked out a dog bouncy house for her 4th birthday party I thought to myself, YES! She had read my mind since I had been wanting to make dalmatian cupcakes for awhile and had been trying to figure out a way to secretly sway her in that direction. I made the cupcakes for the kids and a spotted cake to match for the adults. It worked out perfectly.

Fishiiieeeesssss

As A M would say, "Fishiiieeeesssss." I thought these would be perfect for her second birthday. Start with a small fishbowl, add two to three baby goldfish, a bit of rocks, and some yummy seaweed to make these absolutely adorable. They were a huge hit!

Fly Away

I wanted to start with my all time favorite cupcakes. These Monarch Butterflies seemed to want to flutter their wings and fly away. I loved making them for K. I melted chocolate for the wings and antennas, colored some white chocolate orange for the inside detailing, and used M&M's to stabilize them on each cupcake. After all the hard work it didn't matter that the kids devoured them in minutes. The ohs and ahs from all her friends was worth all the work.