Three Cakes and a Dozen Cupcakes in One Night

So tonight was crazy. I had originally planned to make one birthday cake for my friend Norma. Then my job had treats to bring, so I thought a cake would be fine to make too. Then on my way home, one of Javier's co-workers orders a birthday cake from AND a dozen cupcakes! Needless to say, I had my work cut out for me. Luckily I had already made the cake part of the work cake, I only had to frost it. Also luckily, Norma and the other birthday cake were going to be chocolate along with half of the cupcakes, so I just made a huge amount of chocolate batter. My kitchen aid mixer was working hard tonight! This was the first time I actually saw it struggle a little :) The cupcake frosting was supposed to be cream cheese, so ALSO lucky me, I had just made some and had left over in the fridge! (Thank goodness for keeping stuff). So all in all it worked out well and I was in bed before midnight.

As you can imagine I did not get around to taking many pictures. But here are the final results to the work cake, the birthday cake for Oscar, and the dozen cupcakes. Norma will have her own special post :) Enjoy!

So this was for Luz, one of Javier's co-workers and I think it was for her son. She said to do something masculine since he is in his 20's. I needed some more info, so I asked what he was interested in and she says he plays instruments. So Voila! A musically inspired cake.
Oh and the filling was fresh strawberries.

Side view. I liked the way the border came out.


From the top! I also like the staff here, I was worried my piping would be too crooked, but I think my hand is getting more steady.

The work cake was a little short shrifted, just a border and rosettes, but everyone at work seemed to enjoy it, there was only 1/4 left by lunch time at 11:20am!

The dozen cupcakes. These were also for some of Javier's co-workers. They were chocolate and lemon cakes with cream cheese frosting and sanding sugar with non-pareils for decoration. I had two extra, delish!!