Pastel Wedding Cupcakes

It's Friday! I'll keep the post today short and sweet. Here are some cupcakes we decorated for an outdoor wedding. The cupcakes were displayed on a stand made by the bride & groom and the top of the stand held their anniversary cake.


4 different cupcake flavors with 4 different pastel-colored icing swirls!


Stay tuned to our Facebook Fan Page for a sneak peak of something special we're working on today!!! They're may even be a prize involved!

Cupcakes and Mini Cakes Galore!

Many bakeries typically define a "busy" week as one in which many orders needed to be fulfilled. Of course, the size of each order always comes into play...and last week was a perfect example of how the quantity/type of each order can really have an impact!

I think we had a total of...3? ...orders due last week. But one of those orders was for 200 vanilla chiffon cupcakes with pale yellow icing and a fondant bow on top.

200 of those? Oh yes.


But that was the easy part. The second order was for 200 mini cakes covered in blue fondant. Then, a white ribbon was wrapped around the base of each cake, and they were decorated with white icing polka dots.
Here they all are lined up in a box to be delivered to the lucky group! (They put them on cute plates at the party.)


Oh, and they also had individual monograms piped on them. Each party attendant had her monogram on her cake. 200 different monograms.


And what was the third order for? A classic, elegant gold anniversary cake:


It was iced in white buttercream and textured with a quilted pattern. Gold dragees were settled at the intersection points, and the whole cake was topped with a gum paste gift bow.


So, we only had 3 orders in the bakery last week...but it was FAR from what some may call a "slow" week! But you know what? After re-reading this post before sending it out to all of you, I'm thinking you really can't get a good idea of how time-consuming TWO HUNDRED of those dang little blue cakes were! So...just trust me when I say that we were beyond tired of seeing them by the time they went out for delivery. And now I feel like I need a nap after reliving the whole thing for this post...phew!

Wilton Class Fun!

Last month, one of my students from Wilton Decorating Basics brought her camera to class and captured some great shots of the cupcake decorating in action!

And Elizma (the blond in the photo above) sent me a photo of her finished cupcakes, which she took to the Ronald McDonald House to share with the children there.

Such variety and cuteness!  My personal favorite is the yellow fishie. *smile*

Also last month, we found a little extra time* in the Wilton Flowers & Cake Design class so we decided to model a gum paste figure together.  Since I'm the teacher, I got to choose what we created.  And, since I love clowns, that's what we did!

Isn't it funny how each clown is so different, even though we were all following the same instructions?  Well, aside for the two identical ones, which were created by sisters who somehow managed to make clone clowns. Oh, and some of the clowns are missing eyes because we didn't actually have time to finish them in class.  But don't the little buggers look great?!


*Ok, so technically, I can get in trouble for teaching the fondant figure in class.  I'm supposed to ONLY teach the Wilton curriculum...but these girls were fast!  We got through the curriculum so quickly that we had an entire class session free!  How could I deny them a fondant figure?  So, um...let's just keep this on the down low. *wink*

Pomegranate Creativity - POM Wonderful

One of the perks of writing a blog like this is that generous people sometimes send you free stuff in exchange for a review. My most recent freebie was from Ryan at POM Wonderful. He sent me a whole case of their delicious pomegranate juice!

Now, I could go into details about how good pomegranate juice is for you. Like how it's got more antioxidants than orange juice, green tea, cranberry juice, and red wine.

Or I could tell you how the POM Wonderful company is trying to minimize all wastes and protect our planet. Like how they use every part of the pomegranate (leftovers are used to feed cattle) or how they use the latest drip-irrigation system to preserve water.

But you can get all that information from their website so I won't bore you any further. On to the good part - the tasting!

The first thing I did was bust out a bottle and drink it, straight up. Phew! It's tart! It reminds me of tart cranberry juice. It was yummy though! And I'm not much of a drinker, but I imagine it'd make some mean cocktails.

But being the baker I am, I had to try some recipes with the pomegranate juice. I made white cupcakes with POM Cream Cheese Frosting and topped them with little fondant flowers. It was a fresh, fruity flavor but definitely not tart! Quite tasty! One of my friends actually said that was one of the best cupcakes she'd ever had!


Then, I made some cookies using a Martha Stewart recipe. Her recipe calls for pink grapefruit juice so I simply substituted the POM Wonderful! Again, the cookies were yummy. And it's nice to have something different than the classic, sometimes boring sugar cookie for a change.


Adam surprised me with his cleverness in the kitchen and made Pork Tenderloin with Pomegranate Glaze for dinner one night. Way to go, honey! The pomegranate glaze added a really nice flavor to the pork - definitely a recipe we'll repeat.

And tonight for dessert? We'll be having POM Gelato. I know, I'm already looking forward to it.