As always this is a favourite party for me to create cupcakes for. For the past two years I have had the privilege of creating cupcakes for my lovely next door neighbour. She is one of the most creative young girls I know and has a lot of spunk and pizzazz to her personality. So of course she came up with another unique birthday party theme. If you remember from a post last September it was a “bacon and babies” theme. This year it was a “Fashion” themed party. I honestly think I want her to help be a party planner for my daughter’s future birthdays! Gemma came over for her usual consultation and we came up with the flavours and a plan to do mini purses, high heeled shoes, necklaces etc. She always knows exactly what she wants and is so much fun to consult with. This year I had just had a new baby girl and as much as I wanted to take on the job I wasn’t sure if I could do it all by myself and so my lovely and talented cousin-in-law (if that is a term) Kara came over and did an amazing job helping with all of the fondant creations. She is so talented at cupcake and cake creations and was the one who first taught me how to pipe frosting and inspired me to learn more about cupcake decorating in general. So I was glad to have her help me on this first special cupcake order since my baby was born. This one was a very time consuming order but I was extremely pleased with how it finally turned out and was glad to see Gemma’s look on her face when she saw the final presentation.

The cupcakes were a vanilla cake base with a strawberry butter cream, made with freshly pureed organic strawberries mixed in and finished with a fondant accent on top. 

This again was done about a year ago now and I am finally getting to updating it today. As always it was a very fun order to create. I love creating cupcakes for children and so when I was contacted by Stephanie to create an assortment of polka dotted cupcakes for her daughter Lia’s first birthday I was very excited and it started me thinking about fun creations that I would be able to make for my little girl in the future. Lia’s mom ordered some minis and some full sized cupcakes in assorted flavours. I hand cut out each of the polka dots out of fondant.  These cupcakes had three different flavours to them: chocolate cake with a thick layer of chocolate ganache on top, vanilla cake with vanilla butter cream frosting, and minis consisting of vanilla cake with vanilla butter cream and chocolate cake with chocolate butter cream frosting. I was very excited to also finally be able to show off my lovely cupcake stand which was rented for this birthday party. My husband had made this for a Valentines present a year or two before and so I was able to use it and create a sign to go on top of the stand as well. It was great fun dropping off and setting up these cupcakes and seeing the cute little faces eyeing them up.  Thanks to another wonderful customer, Stephanie, who allowed me to have a lot of fun with this order.

This was an order that I really enjoyed making. I have a lovely neighbor who has referred me to a few of her friends and I have always had fun with each of my creations for them. I received an email from Christie who had told me she’d seen my Lego cake and was hoping I could do a cake or cupcakes for a golf themed birthday party. We decided to create cupcakes in a couple of assorted flavors and designs. This one was especially challenging for me as it took me a great deal of time to figure out how I was going to make it happen. I started off by going to the store looking for fondant molds. Unfortunately there was really nothing which surprised me. So then I started thinking creatively and visiting several stores. Finally I found two chocolate molds as well as edible silver pigment. I made the bag of golf clubs out of Bernard Callebeaut chocolate and dusted the clubs with silver. I then made fondant golf balls and added detailed dimples to them and dried them in a circular mold. Finally I worked on the “green for the golf course and piped some rough grass around the exterior making it really come to life.

The flavours for these cupcakes were: half chocolate cake base with a vanilla butter cream and homemade loganberry filling in the middle and the other half a chocolate cake with a vanilla mint butter cream frosting on top.

I loved how Christie really gave me the opportunity to be creative and come up with something fun for this party. It really was a joy to do this order for her. Hope you like the pictures! 

Well this post has been a long time coming for me. I made this cake back in October but haven’t really had a great opportunity to update my blog or to post pictures until now. This was one of my most challenging cakes to make to date. My lovely neighbor Julie messaged me and asked me if I might want to create a cake for her son Noah’s 4th birthday party. I immediately felt a bit nervous and hesitant. I started searching up ideas online and coming up with a plan. Little did I realize while I was frantically researching away and coming up with ideas of how to create lego pieces and mini figs out of fondant Julie was just thinking I would plan on creating a cake and add some actual lego decorations to the top. However, after I got it in my mind to design edible lego there was really no going back. Julie was so flexible that she really let me have fun designing this cake. All of the lego pieces and logos that you see on this cake were all hand cut out and were edible. The vehicles that you see on the sides of the cake plate were actual lego pieces assembled together by Julie’s boys and made for a great addition to the presentation.

The top layer of this cake was chocolate with layers of chocolate ganache in between while the second layer was again chocolate cake with layers of vanilla swiss meringue buttercream frosting throughout. It was then all covered in fondant and accented with different hand cut out fondant pieces.

This order was one that was fun for me to make and a little bit challenging too. I got an email from a lovely neighbor Ronnie, whom I’d never met before. She said that her grandson was quite the sports enthusiast. He plays baseball, basketball and quite a bit of rugby. She wanted to order a set of 24 cupcakes for him to share with the rest of his baseball teammates.

Here is a little bit in regards to flavors and details:

The cupcake order consisted of orange citrus (with fresh zest mixed in) cupcake base. The frostings were half chocolate ganache and the other half fresh orange swiss meringue buttercream. Each cupcake was finished off with a small hand made gumpaste basketball, baseball, or rugby ball which had Nick’s name hand piped onto. 

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Well today is my birthday and for the past couple of years my husband has always went out and bought a carrot cake for me from one of my preferred bakeries. However, he always comments that  mine tastes better (I stuff it full of pecans, raisins, coconut, pineapple and other such goodies, which we both love and unfortunately the other bakeries don’t seem to do). So this year I decided I wanted to try a new cake style and so I made my own birthday cake. I made my traditional carrot cake but then instead of just the normal cream cheese frosting I added in orange zest and extract. Frosted it all up with multiple layers in between of delectable frosting. Then I covered it with orange and white fondant, ribbons around the base, hand piped flowers on the sides and my signature JD on the top. I was quite happy with how it turned out and how it tasted. Here are a couple of pictures for you to browse 🙂 Hope you are having a great Saturday!

This has been one of my favorite orders to create. I have a lovely little friend Gemma who I met one or two years ago now. I remember exactly how I met her as it was a very specific incident that started our friendship. My husband and I were at our weekly potluck in the park (a neighborhood tradition around here). I had put my plate of food together and was so excited to get nearly one of the last pieces of corn in the pot. I buttered up my corn and briefly turned to talk to someone for a bit. When I turned back to my plate the corn had vanished. I looked at my husband, and all around in confusion. Then there I saw her. The corn thief herself! However, she was either 3 or 4 at the time and had little blonde ringlets in her hair and really how could I take my corn back from someone sooo cute and adorable. I have gotten over this traumatizing incident in my life and Gemma and I have enjoyed doing little projects together like gardening, creating kitchen sets, playing and our most recent designing cupcakes together.

Anyhow, back to the birthday and cupcakes topic. In previous years they have always had fun themed birthday parties from what I have heard. One year she did pirates, another year was cowboys/cowgirls and this year was clearly the most creative by far. The theme of Gemma’s 6^th birthday party was Bacon and Babies. Now I had heard some people asking me why babies and bacon? Really I’m not sure but I think if I were to have a birthday party with a theme this one would be pretty high up on my list. I mean I love bacon mmmmmmm and babies and children are pretty much a huge part of my life.

So for this party Gemma’s mom sent me a link of some beautifully created cupcakes and asked me if I could do this. At first I saw them and was hesitant. However, then when I started breaking down the pictures more and more I knew that I could pull it off. However, I started to think I could do it a bit better than the picture. So after stopping by my favourite cake decorating store and spending money on new molds, gum paste, meringue powder (for the royal icing) and cutters I was ready to go. Then the fun part started I had Gemma come over for a cupcake testing, and design conference. Yes she is 6 but she knows exactly what she wants and likes best. She picked her favourite flavours, fillings, designs, and even colours. I had a little bit of input but really it was mostly all her. We then mixed up our gum paste to get the colours for the baby carriages and baby bottles and away we went with rolling out the gum paste and cutting it out etc. She had lots of fun and it was great to have my helper there with me.

Later on in the week I added the final touches to the carriages and bottles with white royal icing. The cupcakes she decided on were chocolate cake with half of them having loganberry jam in the middle and chocolate ganache on top and the other half a vanilla swiss meringue buttercream frosting.

Here are the results of our efforts. I think Gemma made great choices of her designs and flavours and theme! Happy 6^th Birthday Gemma!! I look forward to seeing what theme she comes up with next year!

This Friday was a busy one. I had two different orders and lots of different styles of cupcakes to design and create. I’ll start this off by telling you about the double birthday party. I had a wonderful lady named Tracy email me saying that she would like me to create some customized cupcakes for her two daughters who happen to share the same birth date but are 10 years apart. She wanted 15 mini cupcakes and 14 large cupcakes and if I could put some touches of purple or purple flowers on the birthday girl’s cupcakes that would be great.

This was a very fun order to create as I basically had to come up with the designs and styles myself. For the fourteen mini cupcakes I went with a chocolate cupcake base, and a swiss meringue buttercream frosting mixed with fresh blackberries (scoured from the neighbourhood) to give it a natural purple look. For the large cupcakes I did a traditional vanilla cupcake base with vanilla swiss meringue buttercream on top. To finish each of them off I created complimenting purple and white flowers, with miniature flowers for the small cupcakes. I wanted to do something a little extra for the birthday girls’ cupcakes so I created two larger purple gerber daisies for the tops and finished it off with the mini flowers of alternating colours around the sides. The little flowers were especially fun to create and I really enjoyed accenting with the colour purple. Here are a few of the pictures.

Well here we go. I decided it was time to create my own website and after a bit of help from my technical savvy friends I am ready to make my first entry. My goal is to keep this website updated with new and interesting orders that come my way. However, I figured for my first update I would include a recent order that I really enjoyed creating.

One of our lovely neighbours, Danielle, came to me with a bit of a request. She wanted completely egg free cupcakes for her daughter’s 3rd birthday party as there are allergies in the family. We talked about her daughter’s favourite colours and flavours and a bit about the birthday party scene and decor.  I was able to come up with the following completely egg free arrangement that tasted delicious and mom and family alike were all able to enjoy.

The result ended up with a decadent moist chocolate cupcake. Half of them were decorated with a dark chocolate ganache, and the other half a fresh blackberry buttercream frosting. Each were topped off with a hand piped Bernard Callebaut white chocolate and milk chocolate number three. I also enjoyed incorporating in the cute little horse cupcake liners that Danielle was able to find. (Her daughter loves horses.)

I had a great time creating these cupcakes for a very special little girl’s birthday and was quite pleased with the results.

Special thanks to my husband for modifying the beautiful large stand that he had made for me months before. The stand originally fit 200 cupcakes and he shortened it so that it fit a smaller order beautifully. He also created a sign holder on top for the birthday sign that I made to fit into perfectly.

Click on the photographs to view enlarged images