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 #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 #11: Everything's Sunny...too sunny

This weekend, I purchased the book Hello, Cupcake, one of the most original cake/cupcake books I've seen in recent times! It has so many cute ideas, and I plan on trying several of them.

These sunflowers cupcakes were one of the reasons I decided to actually buy this book. With simple cupcakes frosted in green buttercream frosting, I simply had to top with an Oreo and then use the leaf tip to make the yellow petals. Unfortunately, with the onset of summer weather (it was 106 the day I decorated these) my icing didn't stand up too well...I might have to make my buttercream a little thicker than normal these next couple months.