Happy Birthday, Lupe!!!!

Today is Lupe's Birthday!!! We celebrated last night at the London Gastro Pub in Monrovia. It was a surprise for her, and she was really surprised :) I made her a cake and I remembered her telling me before that she liked lemon flavored things. I have never made a lemon cake before and am not a fan of lemon flavored things, but I wanted to try it out and expand my cake horizons. I used a recipe I found from the Brown Eyed Baker's Newsletter. It is a Dorie Greenspan recipe and I stuck with the original lemon flavor. For the frosting I did not want to do a cream cheese again which is what the recipe called for. So I made a Lemon Butter Cream using the recipe from the Magnolia Bakery Cookbook. I had some raspberry puree I had previously made (The Cake Bible, Rose Berenbaum) so I used that for the filling too. This was also my first time make a 4 layer cake! It was easy and made the inside of the cake look really elegant. I will definitely be doing more of that in the future :) I was really pleased with the end results of this cake. It even tasted good, for being lemon that is! I was really glad to help make Lupe's day special.

Happy Birthday Lupe!!

Equalizing the batter

Lemon Butter Cream Frosting.

Mixing the colors. This frosting sucked in the color! They came out very deep and dark but still pretty.

Getting ready to pipe.

The first cake I made with filling was a mess because I did not learn to make a dam. Now with this tip under my sleeve, my cakes and filling stay put!

See, no mess! Well, except for the drips from the spoon on the side!

Getting taller! 4 layers.

I started using a bench scraper for the sides. Works really well! And I decided to stop using doilies under the cake, they make it hard to frost and do not add to the look of the cake at all.

All done! My drops flowers were not as pretty as usual. Not sure why the tip was not cooperating. My writing is getting better though. It is like trying to learn to write all over again in Kindergarten. But this time learning how to write with a fist and not your fingers.

I am pretty pleased with my shell border too. My squeezing pressure is becoming more even.

Aww she looks happy!!

Making a wish!

A poor pic, but I wanted one of the inside after slicing to see the layers.

Marisol's Baby Shower Cake

Javier's co-worker, Marisol is having a little baby boy in October. So their job is having baby shower for her tomorrow. They ordered a cake from me. A red velvet with cream cheese frosting cake. I love red velvet, but am not a fan of cream cheese frosting. I don't care for the taste, texture, and the fact that is it hard to work with for a decorated cake, but this one was delicious! I used the cake a frosting recipe from the Magnolia Bakery cookbook. This was also the first time making a 12 inch cake. Usually my cakes are pretty small but it came out well and I managed to measure the correct amount of batter.

I went with a duck theme. I like ducks and think they are pretty cute for baby showers. I practiced my writing a lot this week to produce a nice cake. The cream cheese was not easy to frost the cake with but I used a regular buttercream for the piping when I saw how hard it was to work with. It was fun to make and everyone seemed to enjoy it :)

That is a lot of batter!

I practiced my lettering a lot this week.

Whoa!!! Butter and Cream Cheese galore!

The finished product.

Javier's better picture.

The baby shower.

The mommy-to-be, Marisol.

Class # 4: Roses

Sorry for the brief entry. I am still working on my final and just started teaching this week, so I have been extremely short on time. Tomorrow is my final is due so I'll be more available for a few weeks until fall semester starts. Ughh!! Anyway, I managed to get to my cake class last night. We learned how to do roses. They were fun, and challenging. I will definitely be practicing these along with the other piping techniques during my brief break from school. I really liked the roses. My pics are not the greatest, smashed rose on top, but it was nice when I left class :) The cake was good too. I made it with a left over yellow cake and left over chocolate with mango filling. It was a hodgepodge of leftovers but it worked!

Next week there is no class, but I am sure I'll be baking it up during my break. Can't wait.

Mexican Hot Chocolate Cupcakes

Today was the Cook's Club gathering that Vanessa invited me to. It was a lot of fun. It is a group of women that get together almost every month and make food to share with a theme and then we share all the recipes. This month the theme was Mexican/Italian Foods. Me being a baker quickly volunteered to make a dessert. Initially I wanted to do tiramisu cupcakes but forgot to buy cream for the frosting. Instead I search for a recipe online for Mexican Hot Chocolate cupcakes since I knew I would have all those ingredients. This recipe comes from readersdigest.com if you want to look it up. They were really good, and a hit at the gathering. I enjoyed this afternoon getting away from schoolwork for a bit, meeting new friends, and sampling everyone's delicious creations. Looking forward to the next one! Again sorry for such a short picture entry, summer school ends this week, but my job starts again, so I guess it is going to be a struggle to get out some detailed posts. It will happen!!

Spiderman Cupcakes

So Javier has been talking up my skills at his job. Two of his co-workers ordered cupcakes from me last Thursday. I have been so busy with school I did not take many pictures, but just wanted to show you all how they came out. They were really cute and I am excited to make more of these in October for a birthday party.

Class #3: Cupcake Night

Tonight marks the 3rd cake class and the halfway point of this beginning series. I can't believe how fast it is going by. I have been majorly stressed with school work this week. It is our "finals" week and I have so many projects to wrap up, I have been really overwhelmed so it was nice to get away for a couple of hours and do something fun.

I baked 12 "Brooklyn Blackout" cupcakes. I got the recipe from Ann Byrns Cupcakes! from the Cake Mix Doctor. It was really easy to make and they baked up in about 20 minutes, which was awesome since I have been so busy. I also make a double batch of buttercream icing with numerous colors. Oh and don't mind the soccer cupcake papers, they were leftovers from the World Cup and I needed to use them up!

Class was a lot of fun tonight. I think we are all becoming very comfortable with each other, which is really nice. I hope the same girls take the next intermediate class too. Everyone was cracking jokes and just having a good time. One girl, Valerie, made apple pie cupcakes for us to nibble on as we decorated.

Tonight we learned how to do a shell border, a dot border, hearts, drop flowers, make clowns, baby buggies, bears, balloons, ladybugs, caterpillars, and just had a chance to experiment with the tips. I did not bring the camera to class, but here are the after pictures. Enjoy! You can tell which pics I took, and then which ones Javier did. I just wanted to get this posted.

Oh and we learned to fill cupcakes too! I used Bavarian cream for my chocolate cupcakes.

All the frosting colors!

All the cupcakes together :) The clowns were so tall they smashed as I closed the lid.

Bear (I took this pic)

Drop Flowers and Balloon (Javier took the rest of these pics)

Lady Bugs!

Clowns (I know they are a little scary)

The trio.

How Pretty!

Baby Buggy (that is supposed to be a pacifier in the mouth!)

The filling, yum!