Cupcake Bites!!!

I have attempted cake bites before after looking at Bakerellla's beautiful creations, but I failed miserably.  I didn't even blog about it I got so mad at the darn things.  WELL, then I found this idea for cupcake bites: http://www.bakerella.com/cupcake-bites-made-easy/.  They looked easier and SO much cuter, so I decided to give it another try.

This is the LOAD of leftover cake I had after trimming the wedding cakes.

So first, crumble up your baked cake and add some frosting.  I have read that one can of store bought frosting and one cake mix worth of cake is perfect.  I just crumbled cake until I had a lot and added frosting until it was truffle like.  This part is not hard, but the first time I did it I totally screwed it up.  The cake was way too wet and it turned out terribly.  You want to be able to make balls out of this that stay round and do not make your hands messy.  Be careful and only add a little frosting at a time.  I probably had 6 cups of crumbs and maybe 3/4 cup frosting.  Those are ROUGH estimates, btw.

Okay, roll the cake into little balls.  Make sure they can sit inside a peanut butter cup mold.

Stick these in the freezer for a few minutes while you melt chocolate.

Melt some chocolate chips.  Add a little veggie oil (like 1/2 a teaspoon) to make the chocolate easier to pop out of the mold.  Melt this for only 30 seconds at a time in the microwave and stir between each time until fully melted.  I only had it in the microwave for 1 minute total.  You could also use candy melts or almond bark.

Spoon chocolate into the mold until each one is about 1/3 of the way full.  I got this mold at Fun Finity in Orem, UT but I think you can pick them up at the craft store too.  Put a ball in each hole and push it down until the chocolate fills up the sides but does not spill out.

Stick this all in the freezer for about 5 minutes before you pop them out.  They popped out okay.  I just turned the mold over and pushed real hard.  If it is cold enough, they will come out so be patient.  The oil helps too if you are using chocolate chips.  

These make the paper part of the "cupcake".  SO CUTE!!!

I used light blue candy melts for the tops or "frosting" part of the cupcake.  I melted this per the directions on the back of the bag.  I dipped the cupcakes in the candy and moved it around until the blue met the chocolate.  I put some sprinkles and old royal icing flowers on them while the candy was still wet.

 So, I think they turned out adorable.  You could pop these back in the freezer or just wait for them to dry.

 Okay, so I love these!  So much easier than cake bites or cake pops and even cuter!  I can definitely see these at my next party.  

Oh Happy Day

A good friend of mine from my hometown in MD got married last week in the DC temple.  She moved to MD from Ogden, UT and this week she had a reception there.  I got asked to do the wedding cake and DANG, I have been excited for this for months!  Kali picked out a beautiful design that we saw on Martha Stewart and we modified it for her needs.  I'll let the pictures speak for themselves...

Just some last minute old-school piping!

Even Andy got put to work!

The beautiful display table.

Yes, those are my business cards.  Don't judge me.

These designs were made with royal icing ahead of time.  MUCH easier!

After the cutting!  I just love to see those layers.

 This is Kali's beautiful fabric flower bouquet.  There are also broaches and beads from her grandmas and aunts and such.  Really a beautiful piece and I think the cake matches it perfectly!

I don't want to be prideful, but the cake was so perfect INSIDE as well as out.  And it tasted like a very chocolate drenched piece of heaven.

This was a wonderful night and I am so glad I got to do it!  Wedding cakes are the way to go!

My FAVORITE Thing!

Just in case I haven't whined about it enough, my roommate with the Kitchen Aid moved out.  (That is not the only reason I liked her.  She is very cool and just got married.)  It has been sad and hard and luckily most of the time I was at home.  
I have been looking into KitchenAid mixers for quite some time, but people kept telling me I had to wait until I got married to really need one.  :)  I looked anyway and FINALLY found an amazing deal on ksl.com in Utah.  Thank goodness for the internet.  I got a great deal on a 6 quart Professional Series mixer and I am SO happy!

 My baby in action!

 Yeah, that's PROFESSIONAL 6 BABY!

AZ Birthday

I have totally been slacking on my blog posts!  And so many exciting things are going down I don't even know why!  More to come....
BUT, last weekend my roommate and I went to Mesa to visit her family.  Her niece and nephew had a birthday and I made some cupcakes for them.  Their mom, Natalie, has a wonderful home decor blog and she posted about them.  Check it out:
http://nattybydesign.blogspot.com/2011/05/cupcakes-and-birthday-party.html

If you can see it, there is edible GLITTER on those cupcakes!  SO cute and pretty!

Birthday Cupcakes

I am back in Utah, apparently to go to grad school.  I had no idea but my M/W class does not start until June 13th so instead of being busy, I am bored!!!!  Didn't think that would happen.  But... it has given me the chance to make these adorable cupcakes and blog about it on the same day.


I have been wanting to make an almond joy cupcake for a while now and when I found some leftover coconut filling in the freezer I knew this was my big chance.  I baked up some chocolate cupcakes.  Mom got me some amazing Pampered Chef scoops that are amazing!  See how perfect this batter divided up:

  
BTW... my roommate with the KitchenAid moved out.  :(


I injected the coconut filling into 18 cupcakes and frosted them with chocolate cream cheese frosting and put some chopped almonds on top.  I also made some without coconut and put frosting and these beautiful new sprinkles that I got in NYC.

This is my amazing new cupcake holder.  It holds 36 cupcakes, which is just pretty cool!

Happy Mom's Day

I've been chilling on the East Coast for the last few weeks and LOVIN' it!  I promptly passed out my business cards to all of my parent's friends and this weekend it paid off.  I made a happy mother's day cake for a friend of ours.  She wanted all buttercream, which was fun for me.  I have been working with fondant so much that I have not done a buttercream cake in a while.  It was chocolate with chocolate mousse and iced with vanilla buttercream.  Real yummy.  I have to admit that the quality of my cakes has really been getting pretty good if I do say so myself.

I went to NYC a days ago and we went to a wonderful store called NY Cake.  It was a VERY fun few hours.  They had EVERYTHING that I have only seen online including lots of edible glitters and Ateco cutters and even... LACE FONDANT MOLDS!!!  I didn't buy one of those, but they were SO much fun to look at.  I have dreamed of these things and it was fun to finally hold one.  They even have a website so I would check it out if I were you.
http://www.nycake.com/

Enjoy!

 Are you seeing how SMOOTH that buttercream is???