Cupcake deluge

 It's strange, but not so very long ago I was writing to a fellow baker, telling her that the vast majority of all my orders are for cakes, not cupcakes.  To be sure, I have made hundreds of cupcakes in the past year, but most were donations or gifts, with the one glaring exception being the cupcakes I made for TLS in December.  Now all of a sudden I have more cupcake orders than ever before?!

I don't mind, as they are in general less work and far less stressful to create than cakes, but I am a bit bemused.  My cupcake bouquet, which I originally made as a gift for a sick friend, has become rather popular, with my fifth one being delivered all the way to Heidelburg (about an hour's drive away).

 These cute puppies were made for a client who wanted to give them as a surprise gift to a friend.  However, this friend also ordered a birthday cake from me to be delivered the same day as the puppy cupcakes.  Needless to say, the cupcake order had to be cancelled:(  I had no choice than to pack the orphan puppies carefully in a box and hope they would find a home soon.

 On a happier note, the same client contacted me a couple of weeks later to order flower and butterfly cupcakes for her mother.  I was given pretty much free rein with the design as long as they were chocolate and had butterflies.  These are what I came up with.

 June 21st, or the closest weekend after that is cause for midsummer celebrations in Finland.  Our small, but very proactive Finnish section of our school put on a whole morning of performances, culminated with snacks and drinks to celebrate.  I donated these strawberry cupcakes to the event.  The flowers are copied from the Marimekko® "poppy" fabric, which is their signature design.

 Most exciting of all is that I was finally  asked to make 2 cupcake towers! One was for a seven-year old's birthday and she wanted something very pink and very girly with butterflies.  I made a cupcake tower that was silver and pink and sparkly just for her.  The cupcakes were strawberry and vanilla  and I made a gazillion sparkly pink and white butterflies in different sizes.  During my last Alan Dunn course in Holland I had purchased some fuschia edible disco glitter dust which I use liberally!  Unfortunately I don't have a picture of the final set up as the client picked them up herself.

The other cupcake tower was for a colleague's 40th birthday party.  She wanted a shabby chic theme with rich chocolate cupcakes and Kahlua white chocolate ganache.  I was getting all excited about the design, but then her budget limited the possibilites and I ended up doing light turquoise and pink ribbon roses.  Still, she was delighted, which in the end is all that matters!  Unfortunately the picture is not very good as I took it on location and in a hurry.

 Last week my daughters and I drove to England for a week long whistle stop tour of all the universities my youngest was thinking of  attending.  One of our first overnight stops was at a pub/B&B that my cousin runs near Brighton.  I hadn't seen her in 30 years, but that wasn't a hindrance at all.  We had a fabulous stay at her George Inn www.thegeorge-alfriston.com, which is definitely worth visiting!  Anyway I wanted to bring her something special, so tried my hand at these fondant covered cupcakes.  I had a devil of a time covering the cupcakes, but I managed in the end.  Since we were spending the previous night in Canterbury and spending that day looking at Kent University, I arranged to leave my precious cupcakes at the Inn in Canterbury for the day, so that they wouldn't spoil!  The staff were very gracious about my unusual request, although they did threaten to eat them if I forgot to pick them up!

After an exhilarating and exhausting trip all around England, I had to find a way to thank my lovely neighbours for feeding our cat while we were gone.  They are dog lovers and in a sudden flash of inspiration I found a home for my puppies! And voila; out of left-over flowers, butterflies and orphan puppies these yummy cupcakes were born.

They were delighted, and I have guaranteed good care for our kitty whenever we're away:)

Now it is time for a break and head north for the summer.  Since I know I won't be able to resist the urge to work with sugarpaste, I plan to practice my flowers and piping skills over the summer.

 

Mother's Day

Yesterday was Mother's Day at least in Germany, Finland and USA.  This naturally meant that I had a busy weekend, despite being a mother myself!  It also meant that I got to make lots of lovely flowers, which always makes me happy. 

One of my projects was to make a cupcake bouquet for the wife of a colleague of mine.  Having done two of them in the past, I got a bit more ambitious with this one.  I thought that instead of just putting piped rose swirls on the cupcakes, I would actually make fondant roses the proper way (minus the wires).  For variety and balance I made lots of hydrangea blossoms.  On paper it was a great idea, but the logistical problems emerged when it was time to attach the cupcakes to the styrofoam ball.  Namely the roses were so heavy that they were in severe danger of falling off.  So instead of using cocktail sticks to spear the cupcakes on to the ball, I decided to use wooden grill sticks cut long enough to spear...and thus hopefully secure...the rose on each cupcake.

In practice I had to avoid putting roses on the lowest level and the cellophane I used to gift wrap the bouquet also became a support system for the lowest cupcakes.  Not sure what I am doing wrong (other than using too heavy toppers!), but I  am definitely going to have to rethink how I put these bouquets together.

Nevertheless, the problems and headaches that came with making this order were all well worth it when the recipient teared up with joy and flung her arms around me in happiness.  I kept telling her that the gift wasn't actually from me, even though I created it.  The bouquet was delivered relatively early on Sunday morning, so for me it was a perfect start to a lovely day.

Having already completed two cake projects for the weekend, I wasn't ready to call it quits yet.  I had baked a small, 15cm single layer chocolate cake from left over batter from a birthday cake I had made for Saturday, with the idea that my daughter could use it to make a Mother's Day cake for me.  At the last minute I announced that I  wanted to decorate my own cake.  Sounds weird, I know, but I had an idea in my head for a cake that nobody had ordered and I wanted to do it for my portfolio.  My daughter rolled her eyeballs at me, called me nuts, but ultimately was happy to go along with it as she had a massive project for school to complete.

It was a beautiful, sunny Sunday, so I sat in our garden and spent a few merry hours making sweet peas and lilies of the valley for my cake.  Both were flowers I had learned to do the other week with Alan Dunn, but as with everything else, practice makes perfect.  I  used a different brand of flower paste than Alan uses, and it gave me ENORMOUS problems!  It cracked, it dried too fast, it was brittle beyond belief etc etc etc.  This meant that I only got half the number of flowers done than I had intended, because so many petals broke, failed or merely refused to cooperate.

I also finally understood the importance of having high quality tools to work with.  At the moment I have a fairly haphazard collection of paint brushes I use exclusively with cake work and I have never really spared a second thought to them.  If my shading was off, or my painting was less than perfect, I blamed myself, and not the equipment.  Having spent three days using state-of-the-art equipment with Alan, I realised that the quality of one's brushes can have a significant impact on the quality of one's work.  I also realised how woefully inadequate my collection of dusting powders is, with the inevitable result that the leaves are far from the colour I was aiming for.  Also, not having a small enough and sharp enough cutting wheel is far more restrictive than not having the correct cutter!  Needless to say, my next shopping list includes GOOD paintbrushes, a tiny cutting wheel, and a whole host of dusting powders!

Spring flowers

With sunny skies and longer days, spring is definitely here despite the cold nights.  The snowdrops, crocuses and daffodils are in full bloom and it won't be long before the cherry trees start to blossom!  After the inevitable green cake for St. Patrick's Day, I had a relatively quiet weekend to look forward to.  I had a cupcake "sampler" order for Monday which inevitably left me with extra cupcakes. 

For a while I have been itching to try making a cupcake bouquet and now that I had both the time and the cupcakes, I got to work making flowers.  I also got to practice my buttercream roses, which I have to admit I haven't done in years.  The cupcakes are an assortment of vanilla, lemon, strawberry and chocolate flavours.  In the end I was pretty pleased with the result and so was my friend who received it.  She is battling cancer and I thought I would cheer her up with this edible bouquet.  Perhaps next time I make one of these I will try using fancier cupcake cases and more ribbon.  I think this is a great gift idea for anyone who loves cupcakes.

I also had time, finally, to practice making sugarpaste peonies.  Here is a picture of my very first attempt.  Not perfect, but I hope that in time they will get better.  They are not so much impossibly difficult as time consuming; each petal must be hand shaped and shaded and there are so many in each bloom!  To make this peony I followed an online tutorial...in German no less! For those interested the link is http://tortentante.blogspot.com/ .  Monika is a very talented lady whose cakes have won prizes and have been featured in wedding magazines. 

Last but not least, here is this year's St. Pat's Day creation.  Every year the Irish staff members throw a buffet lunch for all staff members at the school and it has become habit for me to provide the cake for them.   I will admit that the leprechaun is recycled from last year's cake, but everything else was fresh!  The beer mug was made from rice krispie treats with the "foam" being Bailey's flavoured buttercream, yum!  I am somewhat amused to see how inordinately popular the rice krispie treats are with the staff.  The Brits like it because I suppose it is a familiar treat from "back  home", but the Germans have been hitherto completely ignorant of this treat.

Next on my wishlist is time to make a tiered wedding cake, just to prove to myself that I can do it.  Tempting as it is to use up every free moment cake decorating, I do have to make time for my family and the garden occasionally!  However, before I get too caught up in the wedding cake theme, I have a birthday cake to create for my husband......