Le Poisson D'avril

These fish cupcakes were featured in Cupcakes, Cookies & Pies, Oh, My! and I've been wanting to try them for some time. Since today is poisson d'avril - or April Fish (our April Fool's Day), I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to use my fish.

I used a simple Devil's Food box mix (with a few added ingredients to improve the taste. For the decorating, I used buttercream frosting tinted with either orange or green to make the fish. I had originally planned to make twelve fish, but I ate a few too many M&Ms the day before...so I only had enough for eight. Fortunately, the cupcakes didn't pose much of a challenge. I added the M&Ms to make the scales, and then flattened gumdrops for the fins. (I was rather surprised at how easy it was to flatten the gumdrops - though I did have to use toothpicks to support the rear fin.) Sadly, I felt my fish were a little lacking when compared to those in the book - though I'm assuming the authors are slightly more professional than me.)

Cake #25: Jon's Birthday

Today is Jon's 26^th birthday, so I had to bake him a cake (especially since he was so sweet and bought me a wonderful little cake back in January for my birthday!) Since he normally complains that my cakes are too feminine, I knew I'd have to make something especially manly for him.

I wasn't really sure what to bake for him... At first, I considered making him a faux pecan pie cake - a thin layer of tan-colored fondant lining a pie plate with a single-layer cake inside. (Jon happens to hate pecan pie (which I love!) Anyway, when I mentioned this idea, he didn't seem at all impressed by my idea; in fact, I believe he openly refused to eat such a cake! So, I had to come up with something else.

Jon also has a complete weakness for Hershey "Cookies 'n Cream" bars. So, I decided to simply make him a cake completely covered with candy-pieces. I stenciled his name in Oreo crumbs and then added small chucks of chocolate to cover the cake. To finish the look, I added more cookie crumbs along the bottom to form a simple border.

I hope he likes it!

Cake #24: Dirt Cake for Kids

This afternoon, I had my first "Kids in the Kitchen" for the children at my library. I had the children make very basic dirt cakes with fun gummi worms. Each child was given a cupcake (which I had baked the night before) and they began by frosting them with store-bought chocolate frosting. Then, I gave each child a plastic bag with 2 Oreo cookies; by squeezing and pounding the bags, the children made their dark soil. (The kids really enjoyed getting to smash the crap out of some Oreos!)

We made two holes in the cupcake tops by inserting a straw and pulling it back out (the kids also enjoyed sucking the cake and frosting from inside the straw.) Finally, we added two gummi worms to the holes to finish off the garden look...though I'm not sure how many worms there are in the Arizona desert!

The kids greatly enjoyed making (and eating) their little dirt cupcakes. The only thing that I didn't like was the speed at which the kids worked. From start to finish, it only took about 15 minutes to complete their cupcakes. Guess they'll just have to make two cupcakes next month!

Cake #17: I Want Candy!

I was recently showing one of my co-workers some of my favorite cakes from Cakecentral, and she absolutely fell in love with this candy cake! Since she went so far as to actually purchase the kit-kats for the cake, I feel that the least I could do was actually bake the cake.

This is by far the easiest cake I've made in a long, long time. I merely had to ice the chocolate cake in chocolate buttercream and then add the candy. To make this cake on an 8 inch round cake, it takes about 8 1/2 - 9 regular sized kit-kat bars. (I only used 8 1/2, but after seeing how much space I'd left between the candies, I wish I'd have gone ahead and used the full 9. I'm hoping that the extra spacing will at least make the slicing a little easier...) Then, I simply added about 3/4 pound of plain M&Ms to the top of the cake. Simple, huh? I'm sure this cake will be death by chocolate...but what a good way to go!