Old Havana Nights

Such a fun party... Old Havana nights

Mojitos, Cigars, Fedoras and Guayabera shirts (pronounced “gway-ah-bear-ah,”)

How can your 40th not be fun with all that?

I set the cupcakes in empty cigar boxes that sat on top of burlap and burgandy tableclothes

The colors looked great, the boxes were perfect to set cupcakes in.

Happy 40th Poncho!!

I rolled the cigars, then brushed with brown petal dust to give them

some "highlights" then I made a label with brown royal icing.  Once the royal was dry, I mixed vodka & gold petal dust and painted a little on the label. 

The Fedora was really easy. I rolled out some ivory and cut a circle and set it inside my flower formers

then I rolled a ball and indented the top.  I used royal icing to glue this to the bottom of the hat.  Then I added a band of tan fondant.  I brushed a little bit of petal dust on the top of the hat for definition.

I made the shirt from the full body cutter set by Makin's Clay Cutters (#37007)

I cutt off at the waste and above the shoulders.  Then I used a knife to put an indention down the center. The collar was made with 2 small pieces of fondant cut in a triangle shape then glued down with vodka.  The white accents are royal icing.

Star Wars for Chaz

Chaz was all over Spiderman last year for his 5th Birthday..

This year instead of a party he went with his family to Disneyland and

he fell in love with Star Wars!  I went and bought Williams Sonoma's cookie cutters to make the toppers for his cupcakes.   They worked great on fondant.   Two days later I saw one of my favorite blogs,

Sweet Sugarbelle make Yoda cookies.   Of course, I have all the cutters shse used so I could have done it that route.  I'vd added Star Wars cookies to my "to do" list that seems to be getting longer and longer lately.

I used my black Americolor marker to add color

Darth Vader

Yoda

Available at Williams Sonoma

Cutters worked great... I wonder how long the push things will

continue to work.

They had Star Wars villians & space ships too.

The Space Ships were on sale last week for $9.95.

I'm tempted to go back and grab the box .. a girl can never have too

many cookie cutters.

Happy 6th Birthday Chaz!!!

Lil' Fireman Party for Zayden's 1st Birthday

Time flies...seems like this sweet boy was born a few months ago but a year has flown by.  It's been fun watching him and the milestones he's reached in the 1st year. His smile will melt you.  Zayden's dad is a fireman and it was a perfect theme for his 1st Birthday.   I made hydrants, hoses, flames, fireman suits,  a helmet & a firetruck for the birthday boy.  I'm sorry that we missed his party due to family business.. It looked like everyone had tons of fun.

The Birthday Boy's 4" cake

Banner for Zayden

I left the 4" plate up a little from the cake underneath so they could remove it easily for

Zayden to smash.  I tried to hide it with fire hoses all around.

Helmet with his last name

Due to time constraints I had to transport this cake stacked.

My husband drilled a hole down the center of the Wilton plastic cake plates for me that was the same diameter of the wooden dowel. I glued the bottom cake plate to foam core board so the dowel would have something to rest on.  The dowel was cut 3" shorter than the total height so it would not stick out of the top.

I put wooden dowels throughout each cake to support the upper level. I left the dowels 1/4" taller than the cake so the cakes never touched the plate above it. The pressure causes the icing to crack so I was trying to prevent this in transport.   It worked perfectly.

Happy Birthday Zayden!!

Happy Birthday Marina

Happy Birthday Marina

I think the 5 petal rose cutter is my favorite cutter.  I use it so much. The flowers work up very quickly and look so pretty.  I don't think I've ever used it to make a rose which is what it is intended to do.

Using Wilton's Bismarck tip #230 I filled each cupcake with

raspberry filling

Raspberry Filling : (printer friendly click here) 1 basket of raspberries 5  tbsp sugar 1  tbsp fresh lemon juice 1 tbsp cornstarch, disolved in 1 tbsp cold water Boil the raspberries, sugar & lemon juice until soft.  Pour raspberries through strainer and press thru to eliminate the seeds.  Put pulp back in pan, add the disolved cornstarch and simmer til thick.  Cool & then put in the middle of your cupcakes

Congratulations Greg!

Our friend earned his BLACK BELT!!

Way to go GREG!

His wife, Susana, asked me to make a simple cake with a black belt.  I used my 9 x 13 rectangle pan and made two 1.5" layers.   Once I had the cakes together, I carved the sides as if they were a waist.  I do not like to cover cakes in fondant and prefer to use buttercream for as much as I can - straight butter, no crisco.   This cake was done in all buttercream aside from the collar and the belt.  I spent more time frosting than I did making the pieces trying to make it nice and flat since I wasn't putting borders on to cover any imperfections.  The collar & belt tie had to sit overnight to firm up before I put them on the cake.  I used a little vodka to stick the tie to the rest of the belt and it was done.

Susana found perfect party goods for his party from Party City

Nice sturdy plates and they fit the occasion perfectly!

Ridges in the belt were made by placing drinking straws underneath in various directions

I used the Wilton serrated quilting/cutting wheel to make the stitched lines in the belt.

Fluffy Vanilla Buttercream:

5 sticks of unsalted butter, softened
2 lbs confectioners' sugar
1/2 tsp salt
3 tbsp cream, milk or water
1 tsp vanilla extract (I used my homemade vanilla extract & the flavor is amazing!)

In a stand mixer, cream the butter. Add the salt, water & vanilla.  Gradually add sifted powder sugar until fluffy.   Easy as that.. and so much better tasting than store bought.

Golf Cookies

This set of cookies goes with the Golf cupcakes I made for Justin a few weeks ago.

The golf cleat is made on a flip flop cutter.  Sometime you have to think outside the box... it's a little big but it worked.   I think I've finally found a cookie recipe that I will stick with. It's easily modified to make different flavors like mini chocolate chip, lemon, orange and chocolate.  

I'm in the middle of organizing my cookie cutters. I have 236 to be exact, although 2 of those are alphabet sets which have about 30 pieces in each and 2 are number sets with 10 cutters in each.  So really it's more like 300.   Hopefully I can finish organizing it in the next few weeks & then I'll share photos of how I've done it.   

http://www.bakeat350.blogspot.com/2012/02/storing-icing-tips-couplersworks-for-me.html posted a great blog yesterday showing how she stores her tips & couplers.   I have mine in an embroidery thread container & the couplers are on my bottles.  I would like more #2's & PME 1.5's.  I'm happy that I can use the PME 1.5's without clogging now thanks to The Bearfoot Baker.  I haven't tried PME 0 or 00 tips with her method yet...but will, soon.

How do you store your tips & cutters?   Share with us on my Facebook Wall. We would love to see!

Flip Flop Cutter

White stripes using PME 1.5" tip

Tee Time

Round 2 of Golf Cupcakes

These are almost identical to the ones I made for my Gramps 90th Birthday.

Happy Birthday Justin! 

Happy Valentine's Day to my Valentine!

For my Valentine ~  My sweet husband...on our 15th Valentine's Day

Vegas or Bust

This week my friends are moving from Northern Oregon to Las Vegas, Nevada in hopes of finding more sunshine than rain.  They planned to make a roadtrip down the coast stopping to see friends & family along the way.  She is originally from SoCal so that's why the route has a "hook" in it because she could not plan a road trip without stopping in her hometown.   I bought a USA cutter last month and thought it would be cute for many occasions...going off to college, moving across the country, traveling, etc.    Their move gave me a great excuse to make my very first USA shaped cookie with LilaLoa's Chocolate Cutout Cookie recipe (it's sooooo good!)    The recipe is at the bottom of this post but please visit her website.. it is fabulous!!

 

Key representing a new home

and of course, my version of what that home will look like

even though I'm sure it's better than my version!

BEST OF LUCK TO THE SCHAD FAMILY!!

If you love chocolate, try this recipe... it's one of my favorites.  I made it with all butter.

The End-All Chocolate Cookies Recipe by LilaLoa

(print here)

1 cup butter 1/4 cup shortening 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar 2 eggs 1 teaspoon vanilla 1 teaspoon salt 3/4 teaspoon baking powder 2/3 cup cocoa 3 or 3 1/2 cups flour Cream butter, shortening and sugar together. Add eggs and vanilla. Mix well. Add baking powder and salt and mix again. Stir in the cocoa until well blended. Add flour 1 cup at a time. IF YOU ARE GOING TO MAKE COOKIES RIGHT AWAY, ADD 3 1/2 cups flour. If you are going to "chill" the dough, or just wait for another day to make your cookies, STOP AT 3 cups. It will be totally soft and look all wrong, and you will want to ignore me completely and add more flour, but I'm telling you -- DON'T DO IT. Practice self-restraint. You will be glad you did, and I will be proud of you. Roll out on lightly floured surface. Bake at 375 F for 6 1/2 minutes. LilaLoa's tips: *** I don't have conversions for the metric world. I'm sorry. Please don't leave me hating messages. But I will tell you that this may be the most forgiving cookie recipe in the world. You can just google conversions and anything that's remotely close to being right will work for these cookies. *** You don't have to add shortening if that grosses you out or you hate it on sheer principle or you can't find it where you live. It just makes the cookies a little softer. You can omit it entirely or substitute it with butter. *** If you find that the dough has cracks in it when you try to roll it - don't freak out. It's okay. Just knead it for a minute and it will be ever so smooth and wonderful.

Beach Lover

If you have been following me since last summer, you've probably seen a version of the

Beach cupcakes before for my boss's birthday.  I went with blues & greens for this set.

Flip flop tutorial here

I ended up not liking the shade of frosting that I did for sand

and redid it before I took them for the Birthday boy..

Happy Birthday MARTIN!

Surf trunk tutorial here

Beach Towel tutorial here

I picked up the umbrellas at Cost Plus World Market in the

cocktail/beverage section .. perfect for beach themed cupcakes