Jewelry Party + cupcakes = sparkly yumminess!

Hi everyone! Not sure how many "everyone" encompasses but HI nonetheless!!

Here's just a quick little blurb on some really cute mini's we made for a friend's jewelry party! She's launching a new business and wanted to have some cute cupcakes for dessert to serve her guests! OF COURSE we obliged!! K, so this was our 1st attempt at crafting jewlery out of fondant, but OMG so fun and actually pretty cute! Kind of hard to make things so tiny to fit atop mini's, but I think we came through!

Here they are! All ready to travel! We made some rings as well as a few pairs of earrings! These are Apple Spice Mini's with Cream Cheese Frosting. Little pink pearls adorned a few as well!

Here's a close-up of a few. We made both silver and gold! Just mixed a little almond extract with some different colors of Lustre Dust and voila! Sparkly fondant paint!

And here they are at the party! SO cute and quite yummy!!

Big E!

Ahhh the Big E! For those of you who aren't familiar - the Big E is an enormous State Fair which involves the New England States! K so I catch wind of the Domino Sugar Cupcake Contest to be held at the Big E (which is held in West Springfield, MA) SOOO I figured, what the heck - let's give it a go! So which cupcake to bring? Pondering over this for sometime, I decided to enter our Oreo Cookie Cupcake! YEAH! So rich and decadent - yep - I went with that!

I thought I was totally prepared...cupcakes-check, recipe-check, domino sugar proof-of-purchase-check, parking pass and entry form-check, cute outfit-check! K everything seemed in place. So I get there and it was POURING that day, but luckily I had an umbrella in the car. PHEW! I arrive at 9am, park in the vendor parking lot, gather my belongings and open the door to step out - WOAH! That's right my cute sandal is completely submerged in mud - up to my ankle may I add! UGG. But I trudged on in the pouring rain and finally arrived at the correct venue! K , looks like 30+ entries. I place my cupcakes in their proper spot and then go snoop out the competition....

These were interesting, not sure what flavor they were cause we were not allowed to label our cupcakes! PLUS there was only 1 judge! One lovely, very thin lady to taste all of these cupcakes! K more snooping....

Very nice...

OMG can you smell the yumminess? K so HOURS and HOURS passed then they finally announced the winners!!! And TADA....

BLUE RIBBON for Project Cupcake!!! YAY YAY YAY!! Trudging thru the monsoon-like conditions, submerging my foot completely in mud, having to ring out my dress several times, hair (which looked cute in the beginning of the day) now in a pony-tail...ALL worth it! Ahh the sweet, yummy taste of victory! Yes, I love the Blue Ribbon!!

O - and let us not forget the 15lbs of Domino sugar that I also won!!! Life is good!

Cupcakes for baby Hailey!

Yes, I know babies can't eat cupcakes! I wanted to try out a new technique and I thought - what better way than to make cupcakes for my future niece, her hubby and their new baby; Hailey Mae! And by "future niece" I mean my fiance's niece, Aimee! (Well actually I think that technically she IS my niece because Jeff and I have been together for 7 years now! So I'll just refer to her as my niece from here on out!) ANYWAY, I wanted to try my hand at dipping frosted cupcakes in chocolate. YUM right? Well, the finished product came out awesome, but I lost one along the way! More on that later....

I imagine that someday I will either get way better at taking pictures OR I'll get a different camera that allows me just to snap and it will do the rest OR I'll have a pro take all my pictures! But for now, it's just me! So these are the yummies! Dark chocolate cupcakes topped with the lightest and smoothest marshmallow frosting I've ever tasted! I loved it! Yes, I needed to make some sweet pink and purple flowers and as I mentioned earlier, some are dipped in chocolate - SOME.....

Here's another picture showing a little more detail of the flowers!

See that 1 empty spot? Here's the deal...so I made the marshmallow frosting with our BRAND NEW RED STAND MIXER and it came out amazing. OMG - love, love, love the stand mixer! It's not a Kitchen Aid, but it serves the purpose for now! It was so odd for me to be able to let the egg whites whip while watching over the boiling sugar/water syrup and take the cupcakes out of the oven! It was like I had an assistant! Then - once again - I thought; "MAN, I forgot to take pictures of the process again!" I promise next time, I will take pictures before DURING and after! Anyway, I piped the frosting onto 6 of the cupcakes, set them in the fridge to set up for about 10 minutes while the chocolate melted. Once the chocolate had cooled I gingerly and o-so-carefully dipped one of the cupcakes into the cooled chocolate to get the "hi hat" or dipped ice cream cone look. WELL - things seemed to be going well, when as I lifted the cupcake out of the chocolate - there was no mound of chocolate covered marshmallow on the top of my cupcake! It was still in the bowl of chocolate! It lay there beautifully covered in chocolate and still maintained it's triangular shape. ARGHHH!! SO - for the next few, I decided to spoon a little chocolate onto the frosting and then use my off-set spatula to do the rest! THAT is why there's an empty spot! i am NOT giving up on the whole dipping thing. I think maybe next time I may need to thin out the chocolate a little!

All in all, I am quite pleased with the outcome! They tasted amazing (I tasted the casualty that ended up in the bowl) and they look really pretty! PS - marshmallow frosting holds it's shape really well! Now to bring them to baby Hailey!

Behold, the Whoopie Cake (and other yummy projects!)

OMG, how awesome is this?? I like to try new things & come up with ideas (quietly and to myself) and THEN spring them!! K, so here's SuzieCake's latest & greatest addition to the family - the Whoopie Cake! So, so, so, so yummy - really! Just a new twist on an old favorite! Our Whoopie Cakes are made with our cupcakes! This batch was made using our decadent dark chocolate cupcake, (we only use the tops of the cupcakes to create the Whoopie Cake!) and filled with a traditional Whoopie Pie filling - but with a little SuzieCakes magic blended in! This cutie cake has some pink sugar sprinkled on top, but we can use any topping you want! AND the best part - we can make your Whoopie Cake in any FLAVOR and FILLING you'd like!! So here it is.....

I wanna eat it right now! I've also discovered that these are amazing when refrigerated and eaten cold!

And here it is all dressed up and ready to go! (I dusted a little powdered sugar on top and bottom to prevent the cake from sticking to the wrapping)

NEXT - I decided that this margarita glass would be the PERFECT container for this little cupcake sundae! Rather than put a cherry on top, I made a little white chocolate flower instead!

A layer of chocolate cream cheese frosting on the bottom, then a layer of white cream cheese frosting, our very own Wedding White Cupcake, topped with more chocolate cream cheese frosting. I added a swirl of white cream cheese frosting around the edges. HEAVENLY!

My baking would NOT have been complete without making some SuzieCakes-in-a-Jar! Some with Chocolate cupcakes, some with Wedding White, and 1 with both! (I also made a few Wedding White Whoopie Cakes!!)

Hmm, what's next...... (man I love this!)

Mini Cupcake Tower!

As a surprise for my niece-to-be (I'm engaged to her uncle!! Yay!!) I decided to create the sweetest little mini cupcake tower! OMG So cute right? The cupcakes were red velvet topped with the most amazing cream cheese frosting (Project Cupcake's secret recipe!) colored in bright blue & pink!

Since she doesn't know if she's having a boy or a girl, I covered each tier in a different color (pink, blue & green) of the yummiest gingham embroidered with vines, leaves & flowers. I also added 2 more stands to go along both sides of the tower.

Each mini was nestled in custom cupcake wrappers in the most adorable baby prints! And of course the shower was outside & it was about 90 degrees & super humid!! I left the tower inside until we were almost ready for dessert, then nervously arranged the minis in the sauna-like heat! So the frosting sweated a little, but it was gorgeous nonetheless AND the cupcakes were amazing!! This is just one example of the cupcake displays we do! More to come on our website!!

Aprons should always be fabulous!

So I decided to gather up some of my favorite fabrics & create a new apron! I believe that aprons don't necessarily have to be functional all the time - sometimes they should just be fun & fabulous! And of course when baking cupcakes, you should always feel delicious! SOOOO

I gathered some canvas, some muslin, 2 of my favorite cotton prints & some embroidery floss & off I went...

A little fraying here & there, a bunch of pin tucking, gathering, pinning, pulling & ironing till it was exactly how I wanted! (That's a tall order sometimes!)

Next, added some free-hand embroidery.....

Flowers made of left-over fabric, more embroidery, a ruffle at the bottom, some vintage lace trim & some painting....

And VOILA! A snazzy new apron - completely lined & with a pocket!! This is the 1st of our showcase aprons which is a one of a kind & will be featured on our upcoming website! OMG I love this apron!!

CUPCAKE WARS!!!

Cupcake Wars is back & we're so excited!! The show will air on June 15 - set your DVR! Check out the link below to find out which bakeries will be featured...

http://http//fastfood.freedomblogging.com/2010/05/25/o-c-shop-competing-in-new-food-network-show-cupcake-wars/62281/