Bridal Shower Cupcakes

I got this cute little cupcake stand as a gift from my sister. I thought it held a dozen cupcakes, but I was wrong. It holds 13, which is a little awkward since muffin/cupcake pans typically hold 6 or 12.

Anyway, big sis and I hosted an adorable little bridal shower for our friend, Kim. And I decided to make some cupcakes. These are lemon cake with buttercream and yummy raspberries on top.

A Little Old Fashioned

I think my current favorite cake flavor combination is yellow cake with whipped cream and strawberries. It’s right up there with my all time favorite desserts, strawberry shortcake and cheesecake. 

That’s where I pulled my 4th of July cake inspiration from. I wanted something classically delicious and not so highly decorated that people didn't want to cut into it. 

In honor of the holiday, I brought some blueberries into the mix.  I love love love making whipped cream at home. It makes me never want to buy whipped cream ever again. When you add fresh berries to that, its magnificent - so simple and yummy. 

My husband, who is constantly pushing me to be more inventive and over-the-top with my decorating, complimented me on my decorating skills here, saying it reminded him of a cake that his grandmother spent all day slaving over and that he could easily see it layered and turned into a beautiful wedding cake - which I’m planning to do as soon as I have a little more free time. 

Strawberry Short-cupcakes

Since I made the graduation cake a few weeks before with strawberries and fresh whipped cream, I’d been wanting to turn it into a cupcake.

I’d never filled cupcakes before, so I was a little scared it wouldn’t turn out well, but I used an inspirational recipe for the “mash” originally used in a Strawberry Cream Cake as a jumping off point and it ended up working really well. I thought it would be too liquidy and make the cupcakes soggy, but surprisingly, it stayed put! Hooray!

We had a little drama with the whipped cream. The heavy whipping cream carton was stamped to sell by 7.25.11…but there was no way that stuff was still safe to consume. It started to come out of the carton in a huge rancid smelling glob. It was quickly tossed and I was without the ingredients to make whipped cream. :(

It was easy peasy to run out to the store and get replacement cream, but I am still befuddled as to how the original cream went bad so quickly.

I want to eat this right now

Hillary's Graduation

Shortly after creating the facebook page for my cakes, I got a message from a family friend that their daughter was graduating with her Master’s from USC and they would like if I made her a white cake with fresh whipped cream and strawberries. 

Now, My husband is a little stumped as to how I went so long without making my own fresh whipped cream, especially since it was pretty much amazing and the easiest thing to make ever, but this was my first time and I was a little scared. 

In a fit of insanity, I also thought it would be a great idea to ice the entire cake with whipped cream and only used buttercream for the decoration. While this way tastes fantastic, buttercream doesn’t like to stick to whipped cream, so the freezer became my best friend while making this cake. It was in and out of the freezer every time I had to make a change. 

Labor Day

This was the first time I ever made my own ganache…or really bothered to learn what ganache is. They say it all the time on the Food Network, but I always just assumed it was just another word for chocolate frosting. That’s not the case. Chocolate ganache is magic. It’s just chocolate and cream.

I also had my husband help me make roses for this one. It was his first time. He’s now aloud to help me with baking and cake designs whenever he wants.