Nick's Cake

My nephew turned 15 this year. God, that makes me feel old. But anyways, I know he doesn't really like cake but I still wanted to make him a cake anyways. Took me a while to finally settle on an idea. I decided to make a cake that looked like the wrestling mat he wrestles on. To start off, I made a simple square cake:

I then used chocolate chips to draw out the two circles:

Finally, I used red sugar crystals to color in the top:

Here's the final product:

The writing on the side was crappy, let's ignore that.

He doesn't like cake, so I put the wrestlers in his ice cream.

Joe's Cupcakes

After seeing my cupcakes for Paula, Joe decided he wanted his own cupcakes. He decided to have devil's food cupcakes with chocolate icing. I didn't do much for his, since they weren't birthday cupcakes or anything, but I did want to incorporate one of his favorite things:

So, I decided I would use these as a topper on his cupcakes:

Paula's Cupcakes

For Paula's birthday, her request was to have lemon and coconut cupcakes. I decided that I would make lemon cupcakes and put some coconut in the batter as well as putting some coconut on top. I didn't have something specific in mind to make, but I had bought some Valentines Day cupcake holders and figured since it was close to Valentines Day, I might as well use that as my theme.

After I made the cupcakes, I died some icing red and some pink. I think used white icing to put dots around the cupcakes before adding a bit of coconut on top. =)

I ended up arranging them in a 24 count cupcake container, and had them alternating pink and red. =)

Michelle's Cupcakes

For Michelle's birthday, I promised her cupcakes. She decided that she wanted carrot cake cupcakes. I have NEVER made those before, so this was an interesting thing to do. Furthermore, I had just gotten a new book from my friend, Kenny, as a belated birthday present:

This book has SO many cute ideas for different cupcake, and I definitely recommend buy it (along with the second one). The idea I decided to try was the butterfly cupcakes that look like this in the book:

Of course, mine didn't turn out exactly like that, plus, I decided not to make that many, or use the sprinkles on them.Making these cupcakes, though, wasn't very hard. After creating the cupcakes and putting icing on them, you make the butterflies. In order to make those, you take two decorating bags (or ziplock bags) and put the different colored chocolate melts in each bag. These are the ones I used:

 

I melted down some orange and then melted down some of the dark cocoa. After melting them down, you trace the outlines of the butterflies with the dark cocoa, and then filled them in with orange. After they dry and harden, you can use chocolate chips or m&ms to hold up the wings of the butterflies. Here's my final product:

Christmas Cupcakes!

My mother also decided she wanted Christmas cupcakes. Well, I was also going to a Christmas party, so I wanted something that would be cute for both occasions. Another goal was to use my cupcake stand that was perfect for Christmas.

To do these cupcakes, I piped green icing with a star tip in order to make them look like Christmas trees. I melted white almond bark and died it yellow and drew out stars onto parchment paper so they would dry and harden. Then, I used tiny jelly beans for 'ornaments.'

Half of them. =)

Closer up.

My cupcake stand! There's actually another layer for three more... but why would you make 27?

Thanksgiving!

My mother decided that she wanted cupcakes for Thanksgiving. Why? I'm still not sure. 24 cupcakes is a lot for 7 people. I did them at the last minute, so they are nothing spectacular, but I still liked them. =)

Chocolate cupcakes, vanilla icing, 'fall' sprinkles, and a whopper.

Closer view.

Closest. =)

Same thing but with a piece of candy corn (and yes, I only had 23 cupcakes).

Closer view

Closest.

Spongebob!

This is my niece:

 For her birthday, she was in love with Spongebob:

Therefore, I felt that she needed a Spongebob birthday cake. I looked up some places and found that at Karen Ann's Supplies you can rent different cake pans to use and bring back. It only cost me a few dollars to rent the pan for the day. Here's the pan I got along with how the cake should turn out:

Well, learn from my mistake: When you are making a cake such this, DO NOT just use cooking spray to make it not stick. Be sure to use shortening and flour! The first time I did it with a yellow cake, the cake completely stuck to the pan and, well, Spongebob's face came off. In order to not waste all of the cake, I decided that Cecelia needed her own cake anyways. Therefore, this little cake came about:

After trying the second time with the Spongebob cake, I managed to get this turnout:

The cake pan actually comes with instructions on how to decorate the cake. It's pretty much a 'color by numbers' thing. It took a few hours in order to finally finish it, but I finally did and here's the final product:

Cecelia LOVED it! As well as her little cake:

Cookie Monster!

These were found online by someone I know. She recommended that I make them and they seemed intriguing... so I made them! For further posts, I will try to take pictures as I go so I can post them, but for now I have to work with what I have.

To begin with, I bought a bag of white melting chocolate wafers. Using some of the icing, you 'glue' chocolate chips onto the wafers (on the flat side), enough for a pair of eyes for each cupcake. Feel free to do them in crazy ways, if you'd like. Here's my plateful:

Looks a tad bit creepy. But anyways... You then take each cupcake and slice a hole in them in some fashion to insert a Chips Ahoy cookie. You'll then pipe on the blue "fur" and add the eyes. Here's my army:

Here's the individual ones:

 

Firs tries... Not too good.

I liked trying to find different ways to play with the cookies.

Like the guy with three pieces.

 These guys had some crazy eyes.

I'm not so sure what happened to their eyes...

First one looks like a little baby to me, with the little piece.

Each one has a cookie of some sort. The second one? Filled with crumbs.

That first one is my favorite. The second one made a mess.

First one is eating with his mouth open. =P

Big bite!

Second one's mouth is open, too, full of cookies.

Side bite!