The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Surrender, Cupcakes! VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Charlotte, the multi-talented Social Committee chair, asked me to make a cupcake creation to accompany the ‘Wizard of Oz’ birthday spread for our Lower School faculty/staff.  My immediate response was, “Of course!!! It’s my favorite film, and I’m such a fan of the Baum books!” Ah, yes…it was only a few moments later that I realized that they would be required at approximately the same time as parent-teacher conferences/conference-note writing and such craziness.  However, I couldn’t pass on this opportunity!  I found a blog posting at Baking Bites for rainbow cupcakes and I just had to try them!  My culinary confidantes, just mixing/pouring these lovely treats was a process.  It took close to an hour to prepare them for baking, and they were overflowing quite a bit!  Muffin tops, muffin tops, muffin tops – oh, my!  Needless to say, they were too moist upon retrieving them from the oven, so I put them in the freezer to firm up just a bit.  Only two were salvageable enough that I felt comfortable serving them to colleagues.  Due to the moisture added from the gel coloring, they were super-duper tasty, but too soft to hold their shape.  If/when I choose to recreate these little darlings again (anyone need LGBT/PRIDE cupcakes?), I shall reduce the amount of oil called for in the recipe, and use only 2t (rather than 1T) per color when layering the batter in each well.  Oh, and silicon liners would be preferred.  In the end, I chose to create chocolate ‘munchkin cupcakes’ and decorated them with white buttercream and a few fondant friends from Oz.  The ‘Accident in Munchkinland’ cupcake (photo to be added soon!) was inspired by another post I found online – so much fun!

Pine Street Bakery

Edgewood, Texas

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It's no secret, this is a must stop on any visit to the family farm.  Jennifer is a self-taught culinary delight, and her quiches and all baked goods never fail to make any visit superb!  I'm not quite sure what was in her *amazing* chocolate cake, but it inspired me to bake one for this upcoming weekend.  Stay tuned...

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Cake inspired by the book by Eric Carle

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Created for the Lower School faculty birthday celebration in May.

The fondant was tinted by hand, resulting in a marbled, red color.  All other details were created in fondant as well, covering chopsticks for antennae and then painting toothpicks for the bristles on the caterpillar's back.  This was probably one of my quickest cake-creations, because report cards were due that week!

Baby Shower Cupcakes – Groovy Owls!

 

T & J are two of the sweetest people I know in Sandy Eggo, and everyone was so jazzed as they prepared to welcome their new baby, Maya, into the world with a shower at Kate Sessions Park. 

It was my first visit to the park, and Chauncey, Sam, & I were digging the ocean views and kite-flying breezes!  The theme was inspired by ‘Bumpto’s’ nursery design: owls!  All of the embellishments were created out of fondant, except the sugar eyes which were created by the lovelies at Do It With Icing.  Between the two of us, Sam and I created somewhat of an assembly line to make a plethora of owls and details for the cupcakes and cake.