Monday, September 27, 2010

Changes....

This is a post that I do not like having to write.
Due to a shortage in supplies locally in my area, I have had to resort to ordering a lot of my supplies online. Because of this factor, I am going to have to raise my prices, starting October 1st.
For anyone that has already put in an order or wants to get an order in before the 1st, I will honor the current pricing. But any order placed AFTER the first of October will have the new pricing.
I am not going to post the new prices on my blog, but if you are interested and would like to know what they are, please email me at: sweetbites25@hotmail.com and I would be more than happy to let you know what the new prices are.
Thank you for your continued support and I am sorry that I have to do this at this time.

My Intern/Halloween Pops revisited!

Over the weekend, I had my very first Intern! Actually the intern is my cousin Marcie! She came all the way from Colorado to spend the weekend learning how to make cake pops and to take what she learned back home with her and start her own business there! Goofballs that we are, we did not take any pictures to show that she was here! I should have taken some while she was working on her cake pops! She did so great and I am so proud of her! You guys will have to check her out sometime! I think she's in the process of setting up a facebook page and when she does, I'll broadcast it here so everyone can check them out!
NOW, on to the cake pops! I thought it would be a fun idea to work on some Halloween/fall cake pops since that's the upcoming holiday/season. Plus, I had a few new ones I wanted to try out and needed to get some of my halloween ones back up so orders can begin!!

We started out pretty basic with some pumpkins and ghosts!
Then moved on to some awesome looking Frankensteins!


And last but not least, I have been wanting to try making scarecrows for so long now! I COULDN'T WAIT to post these little guys!!!! AH! I love them!
I had a blast with my cousin and I wish her the best! I wish that we could do this more often!


50th Birthday continued!

I mentioned in the previous post about getting 2 50th birthday cakes in one week...well, here is the other one!
My Bestie Kelli Jo ordered this one for her MIL's birthday over the weekend and said that they were going for a total black and grim looking birthday theme. I immediatly knew what I wanted to do!

I made a vanilla cake, with chocolate ganache and strawberries in the middle, and buttercream frosted it in the dark green. The tombstone and reaper are made out of rice krispie cereal and fondant. I sponged the tombstone with watered down black food coloring to give it the stony appearance.
I then made "Yolanda" out of fondant and placed her in the grave made of oreo cookie crumbs made by my food processor. Then I piped on all that wonderful looking grass you see!

I love this pic with the creepy grim reaper in the background!


I wanted her to look terrified of being buried! I think I did that look perfectly on her face!




He turned out awesome. Next time though, I might do the skeleton face instead of all black...




50th Birthdays

Boy, this past week has been filled with cake! Cake, cake, and more cake! How weird is it that I would get 2 orders for 2 50th birthday cakes in the same week, due at the same time and being picked up at the same time? Crazy, I know! Fun part with these cakes though is that they were at the total opposite ends of each other as far as design goes!
For example This one:

was designed for a bold red head, going for more of a glamour look!
I covered the cake in white fondant, added black fondant stripes to look like zebra print, made the purse out of rice krispie treats, covered in purple fondant and then...
Topped it with feathers and rhinestones, and added white gumballs around the bottom to look like pearls! This cake was definetly fun to make! I hope the birthday girl like it as much as I did!


Saturday, September 18, 2010

PUMPKIN!!!

Mmmm...my favorite part of the fall weather? All the yummy pumpkin pie things you can do!
Last year I attempted to make this recipe from Bakerella called Pumpkin Pie Bites-they were a total flop b/c I did not follow the recipe the right way. Live and Learn.
So I decided to give it another try this year....
SO MUCH BETTER!

Here they are!
So good and just the right amount of pumpkin pie!


There are so many things you can do with these! You could top them with chocolate swirls, or whipped cream, or you can even pipe on chocolate pumpkin faces for Halloween!

I had enough batter to make 24 bites AND a small mini pumpkin pie!



Just so you can see the actual size of a bite-here is one next to a regular cupcake!
These bites are just the first in a line of pumpkin posts! Stay tuned for more!





Pizza anyone?

I love making fun cakes. And anytime I get to use my skills to work with fondant, I get even more excited. I've never taking any classes and anything I do is self-taught through watching how-to videos on you tube to just practicing and playing around.
That being said, these two cakes I was asked to make are the first cakes I have ever made that are entirely covered with fondant. This was not easy and I think I figured out now how to do it better for next time!
I was asked to make these cakes for twin girls who were having a pizza party! The mom wanted the cakes to also look like individual pizzas. These were ALOT of fun to make. I am a big person for using only edible things on my cakes, cake pops and cupcakes and I will go to great lengths to make sure everything is edible if I can. So my first thought was....
What kind of candy can I use on these cakes that will be edible, but also realistic?

Once I covered the cake in fondant, I used a sponge and patted on watered down brown food coloring to make the crust look. I then dyed buttercream frosting red for the "sauce". For "cheese" I grated up white almond bark.

Each girl wanted their own kind of pizza. For Rosie, she got a lemon cake with lemon curd butter cream and a cake that looked like a pepperoni pizza. Lily wanted a veggie pizza that tasted like chocolate cake that I paired with cookies and cream frosting.
The "veggie" pizza had green and black gumdrops that were rolled out to make green bell peppers and black olives. Red and Yellow starbursts were rolled out and cut up to make chopped red and yellow bell peppers, and then mini marshmallows were used to make button mushrooms using brown food coloring painted on for details.


The "pepperoni" pizza had all the same toppings as the veggie with out the red and yellow peppers, but also had to have pepperonis as well. I made those out of melted red candy melt that I sprinkled brown grated candy melt and swirled around into the red with a toothpick. I did this using my mini muffin pan. I then stuck it in the freezer to harden up and flipped them out and put them on the pizza.





Then I wanted each girl to know which pizza was theirs in the respective boxes so I made labels that kind of looked like restaurant labels. they loved it so much that one twin jumped up and down so hard she fell! I love seeing the reactions in person!



Cupcakes!

I've been making ALOT of cupcakes lately, and I gotta say....
I LOVE IT!
I love making new and tasty cupcakes!
Below you will see three of the new ones I've made!


Chocolate cupcakes with cookies and cream frosting and topped with an Oreo!
Chocolate cupcakes with Peanut Butter frosting and a small piece of Reese Peanut Butter cup mini.



Super Yummy Vanilla cupcakes with chocolate frosting and fall sprinkles!




All of these cupcakes have been great hits! Next cupcake to try: Pumpkin with cream cheese frosting!!!!




Monday, September 13, 2010

Roller Skate

I love any opportunity I get to work with fondant. I would definetly say, the more I get to play with it, the better I get! I love homemade marshmallow fondant.
However, I was extremely nervous about doing a rollerskate for the cake below. There's a lot of detail in a skate if you didn't know! So, what we decided on is that I would do a regular sheet cake and put a skate on top of the cake with purple and pink flowers all around. Not too bad right?

Here's the first look at the skate taking shape! I made the base out of rice krispie cereal treats and then covered it in with a little black fondant at the top, and then white fondant around the rest of the shoe. Then went back over the front of the skate with a bit more white fondant for the tongue part and then made some pink fondant to complete the shoe. I used more black fondant for the bottom part and then a bit more white for the lace rings. I used a lighter pink for the laces and then when it was done, I used a fun tool that makes a stitch look to make the "stitches" around the skate and on the laces.
I then made a huge purple flower for the skate to sit on and covered the wheels and toe stopper with the same pink fondant as the laces.


I thought it was a cute touch to add the lighter purple flowers onto the skate


The little girl wanted some pom poms on the skate too! I LOVE how these came out! I rolled out 2 small fondant balls and used needle nose tweezers all over them to make the pom look!


Finished cake! Pretty good I think for never having done it before!





GO BIG RED!

The best part of the fall season approaching is FOOTBALL SEASON!!
And in Nebraska, football season is HUSKER season!!!! Woot Woot!
So in honor of the season, I am offering Husker Platters!!!

In each platter, you will find: 10 cupcakes with footballs on them, 10 football whoopie pies, 10 Sugar cookies ranging from footballs, to the Nebraska "N", to helmets and jerseys, and of course, what platter would be complete withouth football cake pops?????
football cake pops!

Cupcakes can be done like the above picture, or with a fondant Nebraska helmet.


Example of some sugar cookies! Can also do helmets and jerseys.




Chocolate football whoopie pies! YUM!
Contact me at sweetbites25@hotmail.com for pricing details!




Thursday, September 2, 2010

Ahoy ye Matey!

ARG ye Land Lover! There's Pirate afoot!
I probably had some of the most of coming up with these cake pops for one of my sorority sisters this week.
She ordered them for her Dad's birthday. I asked her if she would like them in an arrangement or if she wanted them just in a box, but I was secretly hoping she'd ask for an arrangement, and she did! So, I ran to Hobby Lobby, found a wooden chest, painted it myself and put the pops inside!

Here's Black Beard himself!
And one of his first mates!

Along with Black Beard, there are 3 first mates, 2 "former" first mates (even in death they are devoted to him), 2 skull and cross bones, 4 pirate flags and where would a pirate be without his 4 bottles of Rum?


Side view of the chest. I wanted to put those chocolate gold coins in the bottom, but I couldn't find any. so I had to settle for plastic ones. Boo. Maybe next time I do something like these, I will be able to find them. I might also do a few treasure map pops. I forgot about them until now.









Bachelorette Party

UGH, I really need a new camera. This isn't the best picture. I swear they are cuter in person!
A bridesmaid contacted me about doing cake pops for a Bride's Last Night Out! Of course there were the signature Lil' Chubby pops. If you dont know what these are or want to know what they look like, you can email me and ask for a picture. I do not want to post them on my blogsite in case I might offend someone or if a child might be looking at the site.
I had done some g-strings and bra cake pops a couple of weeks ago, so the bridesmaid and I thought it would be kind of cool to do some corset pops to go with the chubbies.

Like I said, not the best picture of it, but you can kind of see it. I used a heart shaped mini cutter to form the pop, dipped them in pink melt, then the tops in flesh tone color, piped on the outfit, dumped fuschia sprinkles on top to give it some glitz and then outlined in black candy melt. I thought they turned out pretty cute!
I really need a new camera though. :(

Baby Shower for a little boy!

Hello! I know it's been a few weeks since I have posted anything on here, but I promise you, I've been SUPER busy!
So, onto the fun stuff!
I recently got asked to do cupcakes AND cake pops for a baby shower. I've done a few baby showers before, but they have always been for a baby girl-which don't get me wrong, that's great and all, but I was starting to wonder where all the little boys were!
I couldn't believe that I haven't done anything for a baby boy shower yet!
So I was thrilled to work on these!
Baby faces with pacifiers and tiny baby feet. The cupcakes were a new vanilla cake recipe I tried out and I LOVED them! So Yummy!
And of course, what occassion is complete without cake pops???? We did baby faces and baby bottles. I've done lots of baby bottles in the pink for girls, but I was really excited for the change to blue! lol.