Mom's Birthday Cake

My mom's birthday was last week, and I've been wanting to make her something special.  Cupcakes just wouldn't do.  I hadn't made a tiered cake in quite some time so I decided I would make one for my mommy.  I love making fancy pretty things.  :)  I scoured through thousands of flickr photos and all of my cake books for ideas.  I have to say I was inspired by so many cakes.  You guys and ladies on flickr are true artists!!  So many ideas, so many beautiful cakes, but I needed something simple since I only had one day to do it.  I had to cook Thanksgiving dinner for my family of 18 the same weekend.  

I made a sketch of what I wanted to do so my mind will stay focused.  I see so many of you out there with gorgeous drawings of your creations, but all I could muster was swirls for the flowers and dots all over the cylinder and hexagon (brings back memories of geometry in JHS).  It's a pretty pathetic drawing since I'm a stick figure type of gal, but it helped immensely on staying focused.  I had my sisters over to brain storm on flavors and colors.  We originally agreed on MMF covered dark chocolate cake with ganache and cheesecake, but I was making cheesecake for Thanksgiving, so we switched that to sponge cake with lemon curd and homemade strawberry jam.  Our mom loves pink but we didn't want a princess-y girlie cake so we went for ivory/ light pink with pink accents.

 

I even signed up for gumpaste classes hoping I could make beautiful bouquets of calla lillies, roses, orchids, and every other flower that was offered in the class description.  Just my luck, first class was cancelled due to low enrollment, so I went to another school, signed up, purchased all the supplies, and waited only to find out it was postponed.  As my last option, I went to my local Michael's to take their classes, but classes had already began.  Boo hoo hoo... what do I do?!?  I had all the supplies already so I just played around with the rose kit a couple of days before and came up with flowers that remind me more of magnolias than roses.  They took me forever since my klumsy fingers kept ripping the petals and pulling the entire flower out of the wires.  I ended up with a handful of passable ones that I dusted with pearly dusts in different colors.  They aren't that pretty, but I liked them anyway especially since I made them all by myself.  I'm sure the light bulb will go off, and I'll have a good chuckle once I get into a class.

In the end, my mom loved the cake and was quite impressed with the flowers even though I saw all the flaws.  The cakes tasted much better than I had anticipated (we finished all of it), so all in all I'm quite proud of it and can't wait until my next one.  :D

Ivy's Cupcakes

Yeah,  I made my first cupcake sales!!  I have only been making goodies for friends and family, so I am very estatic that someone outside of people I know want my cupcakes.  When Acme asked for the SPCA cupcakes, she told me to provide my info, so anyone interested could order my cupcakes.  She made me signs and little flyers for people to pick up.  I was very nervous yet excited with the fact that someone might want my cupcakes.  I worried that no one would like my cupcakes, and that my friends and family have just been nice by saying they taste good.  

So when I received an email from Ivy asking about ordering cupcakes, I was jumping for joy.  She said she had my cupcakes at the SPCA and wanted some to take to a farewell party.  YEAH!!  Then she asked how much I charged,  oh no, I hadn't figured that out yet...  Oh well, I knew what all the designer cupcakeries were selling them for and I knew how much they were being sold for at the grocery stores.  I didn't want to scare her, so I went for the just a little more than grocery store prices.  (Now I know why bakeries charge more, making from scratch and the packaging costs alot.)  

Right away she told me she wanted two dozen.  YEAH again!!  And she would like a variety...  hhhmmm, my recipes can be halved to make a dozen at a time, so I suggested her to order two types of cakes with two types of frosting and I could interchange them.  She requested chocolate/ chocolate, vanilla/ chocolate, vanilla/ vanilla, and chocolate/ vanilla cupcakes.  She wanted them elegant and not too cutesy.  I asked and she said flowers and colored sugars were okay.  I went through some of my flickr contacts' pictures for inspiration.  So many beautiful cupcakes, if any of you have the time and like looking at cupcakes, search through flickr.  There was one with a purple flower on top of vanilla buttercream.  I thought it was very elegant, so I went with that.  

I tried piping flowers out of royal icing, but they wouldn't dry in time, so I cut out purple and pink fondant flowers before heading to bed.  Once in bed, I couldn't sleep.  I felt the pinks and purples were too cutesy, so I got out of bed at 2am and made a new batch of fondant and cut out 30 large and 60 small white flowers instead (I always make extra since I'm a total clutz).  After that I fell asleep soundly.  A few hours later I got up early to make the cupcakes and buttercream.  I tested the packaging (which I purchased at Michael's the day before) to make sure the cupcakes wouldn't bang into each other (tissue paper helps).  I still had to decide what to do with the flowers...  I went through my boxes of stuff, and pulled out two bottles of pearly dust I had purchased a while ago.  

I dusted some of the gold onto a flower and WOW so elegant.  I went with it.  I dusted half the flowers with gold and then found some light pink royal icing and painted the other half of flowers with the pink icing.  I topped the flowers on the frosted cupcakes, and if I may toot my own horn, they were so pretty.  I felt they still needed something, so I added silver dragees to the chocolate frostings and pink flowers and sprinkled clear crystal sugar on the vanilla and gold ones.  Now they were complete.  

I boxed them one more time and walked around to make sure they were secure in their bed of tissue paper.  When I was satisfied, we (the cupcakes and I) waited patiently for Ivy to pick them up.  When she called, I felt my heart jump out of my chest.  I was so nervous.  But she really liked them, and thanked me for them.  Later that night she wrote back and said they were a big hit at the party.  I'm so happy!  Even now I can't stop smiling.  Thank you, Ivy for the opportunity!!