Happy Birthday Joy!

Joy ~ The Birthday Girl

Today we went up north to celebrate our friend's mom's 79th Birthday.  Several months ago, Andrea, asked me to do a crochet theme cake for her mom.. so I took a cake & cupakes and when Joy saw her cake she was so excited. She loved it! 

Andrea, Joy & me

Wild Blackberry wine & chocolate cake..perfect combo

Fondant decorations pulled off so we could cut the cake

7 of us devoured the cake

Happy Birthday Joy!

Thanks for allowing us to celebrate with you!

Crochet Cake

Back in October I made a knitting cake for Kim's birthday.  Another friend saw it and asked me if I could do a crochet themed cake just like the knitting cake for her mom's birthday.  The yarn on this cake was much easier because I made the base out of fondant vs. cupcake.   I used the Wilton basket weave tip #47 to do the sides of the cake to look like a basket.

The scissors & crochet hook are made out of fondant. I painted silver pearl dust on both to give the appearance of metal.  I have a "how to" tutorial here

Birthday girls name is Joy so I used a sharp object and wrote her name on the crochet hook

Frost cake with a crumb coat

Pipe a straight line with tip #47 (mine doesn't look so straight but it doesn't have to be perfect)

My frosting is soft because it contains no crisco...all butter so I have to work fast or the butter melts in my piping bag. If you use crisco your basket will pipe out better than mine.

make your cross bars and mark the spacing by placing a little bit of frosting in between

Pipe your next line

then do cross bars..and continue around until you make it all the way around the cake

Happy Birthday Joy!

..looking foward to celebrating her brithday with her & can't wait to see her face

when she see's her cake.

CK Squeeze Decorating bottles

I've been using Kuhn Rikon decorating bottles but find they are very hard to clean and only hold 2-4 oz of icing.  I ran across these on several cookie decorator blogs...so I was anxious to try them.  Bottles run about $2.49 a piece or you can buy in a set of 3 for $5.49.   I bought a few 8 oz. & a few 2 oz. to see how I like them.   All standard tips fit the bottles.  The small 2 oz. bottles come with a cap so you can store your icing airtight. I like this feature. The Kuhn Rikon caps tend to fall off and don't really seem airtight to me. 

2 oz. bottle caps

2 oz. bottle

bottle couplers  .. works with any standard size decorating tip

I'll do another post letting you know how I like the CK bottles... hopefully in the next few days

Royal icing spider web tutorial

Hopefully after this post you will see how easy it is to make royal icing toppers! 

You will need:

1 batch of Royal Icing (recipe here)

   (split the batch into 2 colors...2/3 of one and 1/3 of another)

piece of paper

wax paper or parchment paper squares

Wilton tip # 2 & # 3

Toothpick or roasting pin

glass with wet paper towel in the bottom to keep your tips moist

1. Dye your icing and then thin it to toothpaste consistancy.  Fill your bag with color #1. Place it tip down in your glass

2.  Draw a circle and place it under a piece of wax or parchment paper

2. Pipe your outline with Tip #2  (I used a bottle for this, you can use a bottle or bag, whichever is more comfy for you). Pipe all your circles and set aside.

3. Take your color #1 & thin it to gel (think hair gel) consistancy for flooding. Fill your bag or bottle and use     tip #3 to flood your circle



Flood your circle

4. Thin color #2 and fill your bag/bottle. Using tip #2 put a dot in the middle

5. Then pipe a circle around the dot

6. Then pipe another circle around the smaller circle & dot

7. Use a toothpick or sharp object (I use a roasting pin) and start from the middle and drag it out towards the outside edge to create a web. Make sure to wipe your toothpick clean after each pass

Repeat for the next line

Repeat until you make it all the away around

8. Now let it dry for 24 hours, then peel off the wax paper gently.  

If you have questions, leave me a comment or email me at

sweeetcreationsbystephanie@gmail.com

Spiderman Cupcakes

Happy 5th Birthday Chaz!

I made cupcake toppers with left over royal icing

The spider is fondant & the spider topper base is fondant

I will type up a tutorial on the spider web

Spiderman Cookies

I made Spiderman cookies to go with Spiderman cupcakes for

Chaz' 5th Birthday!

This is a cookie scraper.. aka booboo stick

It's great to have to fix "booboo's" on cookies

I bought mine at Karen's Cookies for .69cents...so cheap that I bought a few of them

1st I made the eyes and let them dry for 24 hours

The next night I baked my cookies & started to outline with royal icing

Then flooded the cookie with Royal Icing

You can gently shake the cookie to make the royal settle and fill all the spots

I should have let the icing dry because I noticed some bleeding after they dried.  Black & red are 2 colors that seem to give me trouble.   I did the web while the red flooding was still very wet with Wilton tip #2

Then add the premade eyes while the flooding is still wet

all done!

and the black ones completed

all wrapped up for his party!

Spiderman cupcakes coming soon!!!!!