Cakes by Lucy

Maple cupcakes

2010-11-25T19:24:00.000-08:00

Another fabulous recipe from my Martha Stewart Cupcake book. Have I mentioned how much I love this book!?? Probably a million times. The pictures are so fabulous and inspiring, and she has the cutest ideas ever!!! I made her marshmallow Turkey cupcakes last year, and although they were cute, they were a pain in the butt! All of those little Turkey features drove me crazy!!! So I decided to try the maple cupcakes.

Here's a fun fact, maple syrup is PRICEY!!! I couldn't believe it. Over $20bucks at Safeway for a relatively small container! I almost nixed the maple cupcakes right then and there, but I figured they might just be worth it. I think they were! I took them into work, and I think my co-workers agreed.

They weren't your average cupcake. They were almost like a muffin in that they weren't super sweet. The maple buttercream was decadent!! I think my brother nailed it by saying that they tasted like a heavily buttered waffle. Delish!

As most of Martha's recipes are, they were slightly involved, but worth making at least once! The marzipan leaves were a cute idea, but not totally necessary. I didn't have the right size cookie cutter, so my leaves ended up being a little warped. I think I need a little practice with Marzipan for future projects :)

Something different

2010-11-21T18:32:00.000-08:00

Lately, I've been feeling adventurous and baking some pies! My family is a BIG pie family, so I think it's kind of weird that I had more of a cake/cupcake calling. Maybe it's because I know I'll eat the whole pie if I make it, and I really like fitting into my clothes.

I've made a few pies over the summer using the ready-made pie crusts. However, I went to a cooking demo with my friend Maria recently. It was hosted by King Arthur Flour company. We had such a great time! After the demo I was so inspired that I came home and baked a pie the next day. Voila- a homemade apple pie with homemade crust! It was delicious, messy and lots of fun!! I'm definitely hooked.

Bradley is too!

Halloween cupcakes continue!

2010-11-21T18:23:00.000-08:00

It seems that I got a little cupcake crazed this Halloween! My friend Maria, and blogging expert!!, sent me this fabulous link with all sorts of creative ideas! I only tried one of them due to time, but I would have loved to try them all! Next year!

These were the cupcakes i tried from the website. I followed the recipe for the chocolate cupcakes, which originated from Country Living. MAJOR disaster. I don't even know what happened, except that I didn't have a German Chocolate Cake mix. I didn't think it would make a huge difference if I used a Devils Food. Well it did, and these poor cupcakes turned into mini grand canyons. I tossed them and repeated it with a basic chocolate box mix. The frosting was a chocolate buttercream. The webs were actually very easy! I tried using a pastry bag to pipe them, which was also a huge mess! I stopped half way through and went back and used a ziploc bag like the recipe suggested. Much better! It was so easy and clean after that!

I made these chocolate with buttercream frosting cupcakes for Momma Linda, one of the Unit Secretaries that I work with! It was her birthday, and she lovess cupcakes! I had these adorable Martha Stewart treat boxes that I was dying to use! The treat box with the cupcakes in it was a big hit!

Double Chocolate Pumpkin Cupcakes

2010-11-21T18:14:00.000-08:00

These cupcakes were RICH!

They really turned out more like muffins almost because they were so dense. I love the idea of chocolate and pumpkin together, so this recipe seemed perfect. I used my own cream cheese frosting, but I bet the spiced frosting per the recipe would be pretty good! I would definitely leave out the chocolate chips next time. They overpowered the pumpkin flavor for sure. I'll probably play around with this recipe again next year.

Happy Birthday Uncle Mark!

2010-10-15T09:14:00.000-07:00

I had the privilege of making a cake for my Uncle Mark who just recently celebrated a large birthday! The big Five-Oh :)

He's loves baseball, so I knew I wanted to try and make a baseball cake of some sort. He also happened to be sporting a very funny hat down at the beach this past summer, so I thought I'd take advantage of some of the pictures we took from that!

The cake turned out pretty cute I thought, and seemed to be a big hit!

Praline Cupcakes

2010-08-23T14:15:00.000-07:00

I recently traveled to New Orleans with some girlfriends, and when I needed a sweet break from the spicy, delicious cuisine, I found an adorable cupcake shop! Of course I can't remember what it was called, but it was very much like Georgetown cupcakes.

So today I saw some pecan pralines in Trader Joe's, and had to bake me some praline cupcakes! Here's the recipe I found: http://thefrostedcakencookie.blogspot.com/2009/03/gimme-some-brown-sugar-and-praline.html. I used the cupcake recipe, but made my own cream cheese frosting. I put a pecan praline on top.

Cupcakes turned out a little drier than my amazing one in New Orleans, but the cream cheese frosting made it ok! I'll have to try a different recipe next time, but all in all, they were pretty darn good!

The Kitchen's Chambord Layer Cake

2010-08-23T14:09:00.000-07:00

I've been feeling adventurous in baking and decided to break away from the boxed cake mixes that I normally use. I feel like boxed cake mixes are really good and can sometimes taste better than homemade! Plus, they're a lot less work. However, I ready for a little bit more of a challenge!

I decided to use Don (hubby), Joe (brother) and Don's new coworkers (never met them, they can't judge me yet!) as my guinea pigs. I went with The Kitchen's Chambord layer cake from Country living (recipe here: http://www.countryliving.com/recipefinder/chambord-layer-cake-recipe-3841). It was a three layer white cake with black raspberry preserves between the layer and a yummy, light pink Chambord frosting. Chambord is a black raspberry liquor (very delicious by it's self and in champagne).

I thought it turned out really well. The cake baked well and was relatively flat. It was easy to handle and layer. I loved the look and the taste of the preserves in the middle, and the frosting was fab. It was a big hit at home and at Don's job :)

Summer Cupcakes!

2010-07-17T06:42:00.000-07:00

Two of my coworkers celebrated their birthdays in the last two weeks and by special request, I was in charge of cupcake making!

For Remika, she wanted Red Velvet and cream cheese frosting! I found the best new cream cheese frosting recipe. These may have been my best tasting and looking cupcakes yet!! Can I have a job at Georgetown cupcakes now please? Maybe one day!

For Tonya, I made yellow cupcakes with hot pink frosting and pretty sprinkles. They turned out so cute!

Happy Easter

2010-07-17T06:38:00.000-07:00

I made some simple cupcakes for our family's Easter dinner. A classic white cake mix and my favorite Swiss Meringue Butter Cream. They turned out perfectly! I loved them displayed on my tiered dessert platter next to the pretty flowers! Martha would be proud!

Worst cake ever...Sorry Joe!

2010-07-17T06:28:00.000-07:00

My poor brother! All he told me for his birthday cake that he wanted some kind of chocolate and marshmallow. Easy enough, right? WRONG! Very Wrong!

I made a rich dark chocolate cake and had attempted to make a chocolate frosting. The cake turned out very yummy, and the frosting tasted really good as I was making it! Unfortunately, when I started frosting the cake, the marshmallow was so sticky and so heavy that it started literally pulling the cake's layers apart. Finally, it formed a huge crater in the middle of the cake. Not only that, it almost pulled your teeth out trying to eat the frosting!!!

Sorry Joe! I'm going to make it my mission to find a better marshmallow frosting for next April :)

I'm embarrassed to even show these pictures, but it's so pathetic that it's funny! Enjoy!

Christmas Cookies!

2010-07-17T06:23:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite traditions is making Christmas cookies every winter. This winter, I made sugar cookies, Russian tea balls and chocolate chip cookies. My favorite part is eating the dough :)

A Taste of Spring

2010-07-17T06:10:00.000-07:00

Fast forwarding to Spaghettin Night 2010 at my cousin Emily's house...

I made a Coconut Cake with ginger lime curd. The frosting was a variation of cream cheese/coconut. The whole cake was covered with coconut. Very yummy and fresh for a cold day in spring! Recipe found at cake central.

Happy Turkey Day..8 months later!

2010-07-17T06:02:00.000-07:00

I'm blaming my lack of blogging on moving into a new house and having a new focus...wallpaper removal and home repair!

These are the cupcakes I made for Thanksgiving (2009). If I can remember correctly, I took these cuties in to work to share with my coworkers...who are becoming cupcake connoisseurs by now. I test out all sorts of new recipes on them, and i'm pretty sure they enjoy it!

Again, I got the idea for these cupcakes out of my new favorite cupcake book. (Same as the Halloween monster cupcakes)

They were a lot of fun to make, and they are so cute!! They are a little difficult to travel with. I think I lost a few turkey feathers and beaks!

A Different Kind of Cake

2010-07-17T05:53:00.001-07:00

Instead of butter and sugar, this cake's made of diapers and a secret surprise inside holding it together! I made this diaper cake for my cousins Hannah and Steve who have already had their baby girl, Lily, for awhile now. (Sorry for the LATE LATE posts)!

The diaper cake was so fun to make and turned out so cute, that I had to share it. Interested in making one for an upcoming baby shower? I followed these fairly easy instructions:

http://alphamom.com/family-fun/activities/how-to-make-a-unique-diaper-cake-ha/

P.S- Most diaper cakes use baby lotions or bubble bath as the inside support/base, but this one uses champagne!!

Happy Halloween!

2009-11-01T21:45:00.000-08:00

I recieved an awesome cupcake book from Germana for my birthday this year! It had some awesome ideas for Halloween cupcakes, so of course I had to try them for the two parties we went to. They turned out cute and were a lot of fun to make!

A Special Cake for a Special Occasion

2009-11-01T21:28:00.000-08:00

I attempted my first multi-tiered cake for a very special occasion... Aunt El and Uncle Bruce's 40th wedding anniversary! It was a fantastic party and I felt so honored to be able to make the cake for them.

The cake was a 3 tiered white, almond cake with raspberry filling and Swiss meringue butter cream. The layers were wrapped in black ribbon and topped with red roses to go with the black,white and red theme.

Happy Birthday!

2009-11-01T21:21:00.000-08:00

I took a little break this summer with baking, but started back up with a birthday cake for my Uncle Larry's 60th birthday!

It's a Girl!

2009-05-17T14:26:00.000-07:00

My best friend Jess told me that she was responsible for arranging a baby shower for one of her co-workers. I haven't had many opportunities to make a baby shower cake/cupcakes, so I jumped right on it!

I got the idea for the baby rattles from a Betty Crocker Recipe. I used lolipop sticks and gumdrops as the base. I loved how they turned out!

Happy Easter!

2009-05-17T14:19:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the late posts...things just got busy around here!

This cake was made for our Easter celebration this year. It was a lemon cake with lemon curd filling and buttercream frosting.

DVT Awareness!

2009-04-04T07:43:00.001-07:00

March is DVT Awareness month for the healthcare world. DVT stands for Deep Vein Thrombosis, aka-blood clot. It's a very serious complication that can be easily prevented. The unit i work on held a DVT day where we decorated socks and celebrated DVT awareness. I made these DVT cupcakes to help people get into the celebration!

Spaghetti Night 2009

2009-04-04T07:30:00.000-07:00

I had a chance to try out another Martha Stewart cake at Spaghetti Night 09 this year. This turned out to be one of my favorite cakes of all time! I used an almond cake recipe that is no-fail! I made Martha's Swiss Meringue buttercream.

For the icing, I just started the rossettes on top with the plain colored buttercream. Then, I added a little bit of green food coloring and did a few more rossettes. I kept adding more color with each line of rossettes, so it has a cool faded look. It was a really neat cake!

St. Patricks Day Cupcakes

2009-04-04T07:20:00.000-07:00

I made these cupcakes for Germana, who was going to a St. Patricks Day Parade! They are chocolate with buttercream icing. I used a glitter gel icing for the clovers. They were a big hit!

St. Patricks Day Cupcakes

2009-04-04T07:13:00.000-07:00

I made these cupcakes for Germana, who was going to a St. Patricks Day parade with friends. They're chocolate cupcakes with butter cream icing and glitter icing clovers.

Happy 9th Birthday Grace!

2009-02-08T17:34:00.001-08:00

My cousin Grace celebrated her 9th birthday this week and we all went over to her house to help celebrate. Grace just redecorated her bedroom in pink and green, so i decided to use these colors in her birthday cake. The cake was Devils Food chocolate (per her request!) and the frosting was hot pink butter cream. I used green ribbon around the bottom and glitter clip on butterflies for decoration. It's one of my favorite cakes so far. I think Grace liked it a lot too!

Superbowl XLIII

2009-02-08T17:21:00.000-08:00

I made these cupcakes for Germana and Roger's Superbowl XLIII party. I used a chocolate cream filled cupcake recipe from Food and Wine Magazine. The chocolate cupcakes turned out a little drier then I hoped, but the cream inside helped. The frosting was a buttercream. I used chocolate covered almonds and white icing for the footballs.

Mike and Max's First Birthday!

2009-02-08T17:02:00.001-08:00

My good friend Katy's twin boys celebrated their first birthday in January. I had the honor of making their birthday cakes! Each twin got a 6inch chocolate cake with blue, buttercream frosting. I also made a sheet cake for the rest of the party guests. The party was a lot of fun, and Mike and Max seemed to love the cakes...or at least getting as messy as possible from them!

The party was a lot of fun, and Mike and Max seemed to love the cakes...or at least getting as messy as possible from them!

Christmas 2008

2008-12-27T20:21:00.000-08:00

I made this gift box cake out of a Devils food chocolate cake mix and frosted it with the Swiss Meringue Butter cream. It was yummy!

Happy 14th Birthday Maggie!

2008-12-23T09:43:00.000-08:00

This cake was my first real trial with fondant. I used the premade Wilton fondant. It didn't taste very good, but it was easy to work with and the cake turned out pretty! I used pre-dyed Wilton fondant for the butterflies.

Christmas Tree Cupcakes

2008-12-23T09:34:00.000-08:00

These cupcakes were made for our Christmas party this past weekend. I got this cute Christmas Tree cupcake holder from Germana . The cupcakes were delicious and the display was a big hit!

Gobble Gobble

2008-12-10T11:10:00.000-08:00

I made these Turkey Cupcakes for our Thanksgiving dinner. They were originally intended for the kiddies, but they turned out to be a big success with everyone! I got the idea online from a Betty Crocker website. The cupcakes were yellow cake and the icing was buttercream. The feathers were candy corn...my favorite!

Halloween Creations!

2008-12-10T11:03:00.000-08:00

I made several Halloween baked goods this year. Unfortunately, I was unable to take pictures of the Frankenstein/Pumpkin cupcakes i made for work. Here are pictures of the other two:

I made these "Ghost Cupcakes" for a Halloween party we went to. The cupcake is a devils food cake and the topping was a whipped Meringue Icing. I had A LOT of technical difficulties with the meringue, and in the end it was a melting ghost mess! They looked cute at first, but I definitely won't be using that recipe again!

I made this Red Velvet/Buttercream cake for my co-workers. Frankenstein was a big success!

Whipped butter cream cupcakes

2008-04-26T08:26:00.000-07:00

These cupcakes were made for the Unit Secretaries at work, in honor of Administrative Assistant Day. They were chocolate cupcakes with a whipped, butter cream topping. I grated a little unsweetened chocolate over the tops. Easy and delicious!

Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cake

2008-04-26T08:19:00.000-07:00

I made this "Chocolate Covered Strawberry" cake at the beginning of April for my brother and my grandmother's birthday! I started with a strawberry box cake mix. I split and filled the cake with butter cream and fresh strawberries. The outside of the cake was covered with butter cream as well. I then made a chocolate ganache and attempted to drip it over the top of the cake. It wasn't as runny as I had hoped, so I had to give it the appearance of dripping over the sides myself. I decorated it with butter cream and fresh strawberries! It was a really yummy, rich cake. I loved how the inside was pink! A great cake to make in the beginning of spring.

Easter Flowers Cake

2008-03-24T17:15:00.001-07:00

I made this cake for my family's Easter celebration. I used a delicious "Almond Cake" recipe that I got from my friend, and fellow baker, Stacey. It was basically a white cake mix with a few added ingredients, including almond extract. The frosting was butter cream. I got the idea for the ruffle and pearled border from my Martha Stewart magazine. The flowers, I came up with myself. This is one of my favorite cakes I've decorated so far. It turned out just how I had it in mind: Pretty and springy!

St. Patrick's Day Cupcakes

2008-03-16T18:01:00.001-07:00

I made these green cupcakes for my co-workers on St. Patty's Day. I dyed a white cake mix green with food coloring. The cupcakes look a little yellow in the picture, but they really look green in real life. The frosting was green butter cream. I tried to make the icing resemble a four leaf clover. Very fun and easy!

Drill/Graph Cake

2008-03-10T20:01:00.000-07:00

This cake was made for Germana's brown bag lunch at work. She wanted a cake with the lunch's logo. The last picture is what the cake was based off of. I overestimated the black icing dye and so the cake turned out quite a bit darker, but I like how the bright colored graph lines ended up standing out more. I used 2 yellow cake mixes and made two 9X13 cakes. I filled and frosted the cake with Swiss Meringue buttercream. It was a tricky, but fun cake to make!

Pineapple Cake

2008-03-04T08:50:00.000-08:00

I made this Pineapple Cake for my brother, Joe. He loved the icing on the Daisy cake and he loves Hawaiian things! I had quite a bit of icing left over from the Daisy Cake. I made a Butter Cake Recipe and let it cool completely before I cut it into a pineapple shape. Don and Rocky (the raccoon) enjoyed the leftover scraps of cake.

Martha Stewart Cake

2008-03-03T12:51:00.001-08:00

I made this Martha Stewart "Daisy Cake" for Spaghetti Night '08 at my cousin Emily's. The cake itself turned out tasting and looking good, but it was a PAIN to make. It was my first homemade cake, and the first time I made an icing other than butter cream. I thought Martha would make it easy, but of course she didn't. I got the recipe from a little magazine/booklet that I picked up at Michael's. This cake was on the cover and looked so gorgeous! Unfortunately, I didn't have the right icing dye OR icing tips in my Martha Stewart cake decorating kit...go figure. The cake was a Yellow Butter Cake and the icing was a delicious, heart attack inducing (hello, 8 sticks of butter!) Swiss Meringue Butter cream. I ended up baking the cake twice because the first cake was raw in the middle. The icing was amazing to work with. It went on so smooth and was easy to make it look flawless. The end result might have been more of a Chrysanthemum cake rather than Daisy, but it was yummy!

Monster Cupcakes!

2008-02-17T15:02:00.000-08:00

I made "Monster Cupcakes" this Saturday for a family get together. They were a big hit with kids AND adults! the cupcake part was a French Vanilla mix. The "fur" was buttercream. I used Wilton tip 133 to make the fur, and just different size circular tips for the eyes and pupils. I tried to position the pupils different ways to give each Monster a different expression. They were very fun and yummy!

Grace and PopPop's Birthday Cake

2008-02-08T10:24:00.001-08:00

I made this cake last night for my cousin Grace's 8th birthday. It was a combined party for Grace and my PopPop. We had 8 small candles for Grace and a big "8" and "2" for Poppop.

I used a friend's "Ho Ho Cake" recipe for the cake portion. Instead of frosting the cake with chocolate like the recipe and "ho ho's", I used buttercream so that I could make it pretty. The polka dots are made out of fondant and dusted with silver sparkly dust. It didn't show up too well in the pictures or in person.

Ho Ho Cake:
1 Box Devil's food Cake Mix
1 Cup Water
1/2 Cup Oil
4 Eggs
Mix well and pour into three round cake pans. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes. Cool well.
Filling:
1 8oz Cool Whip
1 8oz Cream cheese (softened)
2 Cups 10x sugar
Beat cream cheese with sugar. Fold in Cool Whip. Spread between cake layers.

Spread 1 can of chocolate frosting* evenly over entire cake. Refrigerate.
*I've made this cake previously with chocolate butter cream frosting. I'm sort of against canned frosting.

Cakes I have made so far: Part 4

2008-02-08T10:20:00.001-08:00

Superbowl XLII cake! Go GIANTS.

Just made this cake last weekend for the Superbowl. I'd like to think that it helped the Giants make their win. It was a 9x13" chocolate (for dirt, of course!) sheet cake. It was frosted with buttercream frosting. The only part left off the cake was the "Giants" endzone. Yay!

Cakes I have made so far: Part 3

2008-02-08T10:15:00.000-08:00

Another cake made for Maggie. This one was for a farewell party being thrown for Lauren, my pseudo-sister, who is moving away. It was a 9x13" sheet cake-yellow, if i can remember correctly. It was frosted with buttercream frosting. It had "Maurice" and "Yo Mamma" written on the sides per Maggie's demands. From what I heard, it was a hit at the party. Especially when Lauren smashed her face into it. Lovely!

Cakes I have made so far: Part 2

2008-02-08T10:05:00.001-08:00

This is probably my favorite cake so far! For taste and for looks. Red velvet cake is so pretty and it tastes so good!

I made this cake for Christmas 2007, and it was a big hit! I got the recipe from The December 1998 edition of Southern Living Magazine. Basically it's a white/redvelvet marble cake with peppermint cream cheese frosting...YUM! I garnished the top and bottom with crushed and whole candy canes, starlight mints, and sugared mint leaves and maraschino cherries.

One of my favorite things about this cake, besides being delicious, was how pretty it looked when you cut a slice out of it. I thought it was the perfect dessert for Christmas!

Cakes I have made so far: Part I

2008-02-08T09:47:00.001-08:00

The first cake I made that I took a picture of. It was made for my sister Maggie's party. For those of you who aren't familiar, the saying and the llama are from the movie "Napolean Dynamite". 2 Layered 9" round yellow cakes with buttercream frosting.

Welcome to my Cake Blog!

2007-12-10T10:24:00.001-08:00

Cake making/decorating has seem to become a hobby for me lately, so I thought...I mean, my computer savy husband thought...that a blog would be a great way for me to show off cakes that I have made.

I've always liked to bake, but it was really a good friend of mine at work (Stacey!) who got me interested in decorating baked goods. I have yet to take any cake decorating classes, but hope to soon. I am just enjoying playing around and being creative. And eating icing... Hope you enjoy seeing them!

Lucy