Cake #30: A Howling Good Cupcake

Although I'm leaving for vacation in a couple days, I still somehow got roped into baking the birthday cake for one of my co-workers. Since I was a little pressed for time, I decided to bake cupcakes so that the bake time would be reduced. Fortunately, the co-worker celebrating her birthday is a big supporter of wolves (she and her husband apparently do a lot of volunteer work trying to preserve the wolf's habitat.)

Anyway, I had been wanting to make these "wolf" cupcakes from Hello, Cupcake for awhile, so I thought this would be the perfect occasion. To make the wolf, I cut a large marshmallow to make the snout and ears. Then, I covered the entire cupcake in chocolate frosting using the leave tip. For a finishing touch, I adding a few M&Ms for the nose and eyes.

Cake #26: Give a Hoot

This past weekend, one of my co-workers celebrated her birthday, so I decided to make some Owl cupcakes, from Hello, Cupcake, in her honor. Later this month when I have my "Kids in the Kitchen" program, I plan on having the children make these owl cupcakes. Since I was unsure of exactly how these would turn-out, I decided to kill two birds with one stone by using my practice cupcakes for her birthday celebration.

To make these cupcakes, I began by coating each cupcake with a base-layer of store-bought chocolate frosting. I then added two frosted-halves of Oreo cookies with a small Junior mint for the pupil. For the beak, I simply used a yellow M&M (the book called for a banana Runt, but for some reason I couldn't locate any Runts at my local stores!) Finally, I finished the face by adding some chocolate-frosting "feathers" with my leaf-tip #352.

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!

Cake #8: German-y Goodness

Today was the birthday of one of my coworkers; as the new resident baker, I volunteered to make the cake for the celebration. When I asked my co-worker what type of cake he preferred, he said German chocolate. Now, I was really just asking him what favor he preferred...I was planning to use basic buttercream and decorate as I have in my classes. However, since it's his special day, I worked my magic and came up with this scrumptious cake!

I torted an 8x3" round cake into 3 layers and added the traditional coconut/pecan icing between the layers and on top. For the sides and borders, I used a basic chocolate buttercream. I had also planned to add several colorful piece of sugar art formed with color-flow icing; however, when I saw how formal my cake looked, I decided not to use the brightly colored pieces. Thankfully, the cake tasted delicious and was a big hit!