So for my boyfriend’s birthday, I made decorative owl cupcakes! I used the classic buttermilk recipe because it is my boyfriends favorite. Every time I say that I am making cupcakes, he always wants me to make that one. Let’s just say he has slowed down my progress through Martha’s book on more than a few occasions. Hehe! 

I did get to try a new decorating style in her book though! the owl eyes are simply twisted pretzels with one side broken off, then half of a stick pretzel for the nose! The almond feathers took the most time. I started around the eyes and worked my way outward. Then I melted chocolate chips and piped the eyes inside the pretzel. That was fun because you get to make each owl looking a different direction! 

Needless to say, he loved them!!! Decorating is fun! (That’s his Owl face) 

Since my blogs have been scarce I thought I would post a few images of things I’ve seen online that inspire me.

I like this combination of frosting and fondant decorations.

Beautiful color! and I want to try that stitch design on fondant!

_____________________________Simple, elegant, beautiful!__________________________                  

These are from a shop called Sprinkles. I have actually never been but have put it on my list after hearing about all its popularity!

________________These cupcakes are more for adoration than for eating!________________

While none of these are things from Martha’s book, its always nice to look around at what others are doing and to appreciate and be inspired from them!

I have a long over due blog coming soon!!! 

To celebrate Easter I chose to make cupcakes with birds’ nests on top of them! The cake is Martha’s white cupcake recipe (that I didn’t realize was actually in the book. My mom found it!) and we used the fluffy vanilla frosting. 

To make the birds, we dyed the remaining frosting blue and piped them onto the top of an already frosted cupcake. I did not have my tips with me so the birds look a little rough, but you can pipe them pretty easy by just cutting a nice circle out of the corner of a plastic bag.

My mother, who saved me in this project, was the one who did the beaks! I was frustrated that I didn’t have my tips since we needed a leaf one to make the beaks and I had no idea how we were going to do it…My mother pulls out the toothpicks that we needed to put the eyes on and said, “You do the eyes and i’ll do the beaks.” She did a spectacular job with just a toothpick! 

The nests we made out of toasted coconut. We put it in the oven at 350 degrees and tossed them around about every 4minutes. I think they turned out very well!

So I will start with this; There is this lady at my work who always brings in cakes or treats for whoever is having a birthday. Our supervisor’s birthday was coming up and she told her, “I don’t want you to bring anything for my birthday. You do it too much. I appreciate the thought, but I don’t want you putting yourself out for me.” So…secretly…behind her back…she sneaks over to me and says, “Hey, if I bring something small and you bring something small…then it won’t seems as bad like I did everything. Wanna help?” So I said yes!

These are the One Bowl Chocolate cupcakes recipe from Martha’s book and it was actually extremely simple! I taste tested one when it came out of the oven and I would like to advise you all…that is the BEST time to eat them!!! They are so warm and fresh and…well…there is just something about home made chocolate cake versus the kind you buy at the store or in a box mix. here is something so much more pure about it’s flavor. 

Here they are! I frosted them with Martha’s Fluffy Vanilla frosting and then decided I needed to make them pretty. 

For the decorative top, what I did was dye some of the frosting yellow and some orange. I used the petal style pipe (the same one I used on blog #8 for the sweet pea flowers) and I just tried my best to go in a circle and then I added chocolate sprinkles for the centers. 

This project was very fun! And my coworker , who brought lemon rum cake, cookies, and a large cake for our supervisor to take home, was very impressed with my contribution! 

I am SO EXCITED for the fall season!!! I made these pumpkin spice cupcakes for a “pre-thanksgiving dinner” with some friends. 

The batter uses all of the best spices! Cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and….something else, I forget. It also uses pumpkin puree, which I think helps make it so moist! They baked very well and were very light and fluffy.

I made the cream cheese frosting for these which worked perfectly with the cupcakes.

the decoration, however, was made from marzipan. I kneaded it and split it in two parts, one larger than the other. Dyed the bigger part orange and kneaded the color in, and the same for the green.

I rolled the orange into small balls, poked the top with a toothpick, and made the lines on the sides with a butter knife. The only tricky part is you have to keep cleaning the knife or your hands because it starts to stick and tear. 

To make the stems, I mixed a little orange with the green and rolled it out very thin. Then I just kind of cut a small piece and arranged it on top of the pumpkin to look like a stem. Some were short and some were long and curly. It was fun to be creative like that! 

This was back in August (To show you how far behind I am in my posts) for my friend’s daughter’s birthday. She was turning 7 and was having a tea party for her birthday. I showed my friend the book and she pointed to the piped flower decorations. I thought I could at least try it. So I told her I would.

I used the basic buttermilk recipe with the fluffy white frosting, only I made sure to smooth the frosting on the tops so the flowers would lay nicely. I took some of the remaining frosting and split it into bowls, just kind of guessing how much I thought I would need for blue pansy flowers, pink sweet pea flowers, and green for the stems. Martha suggested to use gel dye coloring and I highly recommend it! It was so much more manageable than the drops! I grew up using the liquid drops but I feel I had a better handle with the gel. 

After dying the frosting I attempted my first flower, the pansy. My boyfriend can attest to this…I screwed it up. The second one….terrible. So, as I always do, I started to panic. It was just a short time before the party and I could not get how to make these flowers! I was trying my best to follow Martha’s description holding the pipe with the right shaped tip at a certain angle, and slowly rotating the cupcake, but…they were just blue blobs on green sticks. 

Finally, and I have no idea how it happened, I got one right! I was so please I am pretty sure I did a little jig right there in the kitchen! With my spirits high I tried to perfect a few more and then moved on to the sweet peas.

I suppose once I made that cosmic connection with the confectionary floral realm, all flowers came to me with ease! I don’t think I had a single sweet pea that was considered unsatisfactory for presenting! So I took them to the party and they were a great addition to a lovely outdoor tea party!