Veggies and Cupcakes

This past weekend I made Carrot Cake cupcakes for my friend Denton's birthday.  Denton is an amazing cook and he and his wife are pretty much the biggest foodies I know, so I wanted to find something a little more unique, but that still sounded delicious.  So I took to one of my favorite recipe sites, pickycook.com and found a recipe for Carrot Cake cupcakes with Vanilla Mascarpone frosting.  I have to say, after a little doctoring of the frosting, I was very pleased with the finished products! And I think everyone will agree that they go well with wine and italian food.  

Happy 35th, Denton! 

The recipe said it makes 14, but I disagree, I  like big cupcakes 

Yummy! 

Cars Cake

As I mentioned in my last post, this past weekend I had the distinct pleasure to do a "Cars" cake for my friend Kim's son's second birthday. Kim and I have known each other for over 20 years and I cannot associate my childhood without thinking of Kim. Amazing how we both ended up in Dallas!

Colton's cake was a two-tier cake with the bottom layer French Vanilla and the top layer Devil's Food Chocolate.  I did chocolate buttercream between the layers with vanilla buttercream covering the cake. The track around the top of the cake was black fondant and the cars were the birthday boy's. Kim had a great idea in putting M&Ms on the top of the cake underneath the Lightening McQueen car to look like gravel.  We chopped up the M&Ms and lined with black M&Ms and it looked really cool. Such a fun cake and so glad I got to be a part of it.  Happy Second Birthday, Colton!

Before the "Colton" banner

Side view of the finished product

From the front

Things to Come

So, I've been a little absent lately and I apologize for that, but I promise things are going to start picking up again soon.  I am so excited for this week as I have two very exciting things going on.

1. I'm going back to cake class on Thursday.  I swore after I finished grad school I would never step foot into a classroom again, but cake class is totally different.  First of all, there's no grading.  Second, the end result is a delicious treat.  I'm struggling to find the downside.  Anyway, this class is Basic Fondant.  While I have played with fondant a couple of times, it's still not something I'm entirely comfortable with.  I'm really looking forward to practicing covering a cake, making bows and whatever else they decide to teach us! Look for my "cake class" posts.

2. A couple of weeks ago I received an email from one of my oldest friends (seriously, since we were 4) asking me to do her son's second birthday cake. My husband and I don't have kids of our own yet, but I know with certainty that a kid's birthday party is a BIG deal! So, you can imagine my shock for her asking me for this honor.  The party is on Sunday and the cake is going to be a Cars theme.  Kim and I have been planning this cake for a couple of weeks and are meeting on Wednesday to iron out the details.  I promise to post pictures as soon as I can, but in the meantime, wish me luck!

Until next time!