Peacock Wedding

It's official, my first wedding is now in the books!

Congratulations again to our good friends Sean and Annette!

Saturday April 14th they tied the knot.

I was a bit nervous and intimidated, not only by the fact it was my largest order to date and not only because it was a wedding (more pressure!), but because it was our friends' wedding! I wanted to make sure I did a good job and everything was perfect for the bride.

 Saturday morning I packed up the car and woke my husband up to help me deliver the goods. He even helped unload and set everything up.  

Annette wanted to keep it simple with white and chocolate cupcakes. I made half white vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream tinted peacock blue/green and half chocolate cupcakes with chocolate buttercream.

They requested a small cake topper to cut into for the cake cutting. It was white vanilla round cake with vanilla buttercream covered in marshmallow fondant with hand painted peacock feathers, adorned with matching ribbon and charm.

This was my first time ever doing any hand painting!! Annette actually gave me the option to just use real peacock feathers or to leave it without. I was going to use the feathers but decided the week of the wedding to give painting a try....so I Googled ideas. It was pretty simple, use the colored gels from any craft/baking store in the color(s) of your choice with a bit of vodka (it dries faster than water and doesn't leave your fondant wet), along with a good paint brush or a few depending on how many colors you use.  So I went for! And I must say, I'm pretty pleased with they way it turned out ;)

 I even made the cupcake stand, which I will post directions on a how-to soon.

It was a lot of fun but a lot of work. I'm just glad the bride and groom were pleased!

My Easter Bunny

This cake caught my attention because it's not your ordinary Easter cake. Who doesn't love a big fluffy butt? Especially a bunny's butt!

My husband even wanted me to make it. Plus it's semi-homemade...from a box that is!

Happy Easter!

Bunny Butt Cake
Source: Betty Crocker

• 1 box cake mix
• water, oil and eggs called for on cake mix box
• tray or cardboard covered with wrapping paper and plastic or foil
• 1 can frosting
• red color color
• 1 large marshmallow, cut in half
• 3 cups shredded coconut
• green food color
• 2 strawberry or cherry taffy candies
• 1 fruit roll-up, orange or berry punch
• 3 green colored sour candies, seperated into strips
• contruction paper

Heat oven to 325°F. Grease 1 1/2-quart ovenproof bowl (8 inches across top) with shortening; coat with flour (do not use cooking spray). Lightly grease 3 muffin cups in regular-size muffin pan. Make cake batter as directed on box. Pour cake batter in 3 muffin cups, filling two-thirds full. Pour remaining batter into 1 1/2-quart bowl.

Bake cupcakes 17 to 21 minutes, bowl 47 to 53 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes. Remove cakes from muffin cups and bowl; place rounded sides up on cooling racks. Cool completely, about 1 hour. If necessary, cut off rounded tops of cakes.

Spoon frosting into large bowl. Add red food color to make desired pink color. Place bowl cake on tray cut side down; spread 1/3 cup frosting over cake. Use frosting to adhere cupcakes to bowl cake for feet and bunny tail. Use toothpicks if necessary. Place marshmallow halves, cut sides down, on tops of 2 cupcakes to make heels of feet. Spread thin layer of frosting over side and top of cake to seal in crumbs. Freeze cake 30 to 45 minutes to set frosting.

Spread remaining frosting over cake. Sprinkle with 2 cups of the coconut; press gently to adhere. Shake 1 cup coconut and 3 drops green food color in tightly covered jar until evenly tinted. Surround bunny with tinted coconut. Use rolling pin to press strawberry candies into 2 large rectangles. Cut 2 large ovals and 6 small circles out of candy. Press onto bottoms of bunny feet, using frosting if needed.

Roll up fruit snack to make carrot shapes. Cut green sour candies in half crosswise; press into large end of each carrot to make greens on carrot. Cut ears from construction paper; wrap ends that will be inserted into cake with plastic food wrap. Insert into cake. Remove ears, plastic wrap and toothpicks before serving. Store loosely covered.

Our Reveal!

We recently had our 20 week doctors appointment and ultrasound, in which we were luckily enough to be able to find out little Dex's gender! We decided to have our families over for dinner to reveal baby's gender to everyone at once and in person! Since I'm a little bit of a baker I wanted to try making a new type of cupcake but that could still be used for that very purpose. So I went with was is called a Hi Hat Cupcake.

This is what they are suppose to look like...

but mine were a complete FAIL!

The marshmallow frosting turned out a disaster, I don't think I got it hot enough or maybe the gel tint ruined it, I don't know. But I wanted to show I still make mistakes and things don't always go as planned in the baking world. I usually don't share many of my failed attempts at dinners or baked goods but this one was a complete and utter flop!

I, of course did not fully prepare these cupcakes a head time, I decided to wait to put them together after our appointment with only an hour and a half in between till our families were to arrive.  Poor planning on my part!

Fortunately for me, even though the frosting never got to the consistency I needed it still tasted wonderful so I tinted it and made it the filling inside the cupcake.

It's all about improvising! 

 Plus, I always keep left over frosting in the freezer and was so thankful I do so, I already had extra chocolate cream cheese frosting in there so I quickly defrosted and whipped up to top off my cupcakes. They turned out awesome!

The blue cupcakes are my failed attempt at the frosting not going my way. The chocolate are my improvised version.

We waited until after we ate dinner for the reveal....to help build the anticipation of course ;)

We gave Carter the first cupcake to bite into so he could reveal if his new cousin would be a girl or boy.

 Cupcakes reveal BOY!!

The large majority thought for sure it was a girl, but everyone is thrilled to have another little boy in the family.

We are so excited to meet our little man in August!