Thursday, November 20, 2008

Miniature Things



Those mini cupcakes, they're wonderful little things, aren't they? A bite or two of moist and luscious cake with a creamy frosting chomp, and suddenly life ain't so bad. Here are some pics of some recent mini cupcakes, pink and blue for a baby shower and the world's CUTEST 4 year old at her Montessori birthday party presenting the minis like a tiny Asian Vanna White! I love seeing where Coco Cake ends up. Thanks for sending me pics of Hailey's bday Jessica! I died inside of cuteness.

Sunday, November 16, 2008

It's My Party, I'll Make A Cake If I Want To



Okay... so yes, it was my birthday yesterday!! And what better way to spend my day than to BAKE, BAKE BAKE! Hee hee! My fave thing is to listen to the wonderful This American Life podcast and do my baking thang.

So, for probably one year now I've been loving the hamburger cake, so much so that it inspired an entire birthday party theme: the Trompe L'oeil birthday party potluck, complete with prizes for the top four entries. So I decided... I will attempt to make the elusive and visually alluring hamburger cake! Well, not so elusive. A quick google will bring up many wonderful examples of this little guy.

For your viewing pleasure, I present the "making of" the hamburger cake... !



diagrams are often helpful to draw! so i started out with making a full recipe for vanilla coconut cake for the "buns" and a half recipe for dark chocolate cake for the "patty." i used 9 inch circular pans, letting everything cool of course before assembly!


so i made a "dam" of butercream, and i am going to fill it with ganache!

my cooled ganache-- i used coconut milk and dark chocolate chips.

my piping bags filled with three different colors of buttercream-- with different tips, one leaf tip for the lettuce, one small circle tip for the mustard and one big circle tip for the tomatoes/ketchup!

filling my first layer with ganache...

i plopped my patty on top of the first ganache layer, then did the same "dam" idea with the red ketchup/tomato icing.

next up: "accoutrements" -- mustard squigglies, "lettuce" piped on and more ketchup!! at this point i was giddy with excitement!

plop the top vanilla coconut layer on top, add some white non-pareil candy bits for sesame seeds... add a little party flag... and you have... HAMBURGER CAKE!!!


The burger cake was a real hit, and I was so happy it worked out with the ganache filling! Yummy happy burger birthday to me!

Friday, November 14, 2008

Unko Smoked Salmon Cupcakes + Friends





Sometimes, even when you do something for part of your living, such as baking boutique cupcakes, sometimes even you too might make a chocolate cupcake with vanilla frosting that looks like a swirled pile of smoked-salmon unko. Yes, even when you're practicing your decorating skills on a Friday night, you can make such a thing. But, you think to yourself, oh well. Yes, artists make mistakes and sometimes the best artists are able to fix their mistakes. Even ones that look like a very heightened pile of smoked salmon unko!!! So what I did was, I added a whole crapload (haha) of sprinkles.

But then, you also think, well hey, I also just made some rather cute Coco Choco Vanilla minis, each with an Elizabethan-collar-style light pink ruffle, like haute couture Philip Treacy-raspberry-hat-topped guards standing outside of Fashion Cupcake's villa. So you think, hey. Not too shabby. And you find the comedy in the smoked salmon unko cupcake, and then when your husband comes home from work he takes a huge bite out of it anyway!!

Teddy Bear Cupcakes





What do you do when you have the cutest little rascal of a nephew? You make chocolate TEDDY BEAR CUPCAKES with peanut butter filling! I love my little nephew Brody! I made these for his six months birthday party (yep!)... and now I am devising what I will make for his 1st birthday... Kawaii!

The ears and face are vanilla wafers, with peanut butter frosting and chocolate chips for eyes and nose. A teeny bit of royal icing makes the mouths!

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Berry Good






The Coco Cake favorite "Berry Good" has been getting a lot of attention lately, likely because of its inherent Adorability+Rather Delicious factor. Raspberry/mixed berry puree and fresh berries swirled into yellow butter vanilla cake, topped with vanilla buttercream and a cute little berry on top! Berry cute, no? Berry popular too. I tried to take a better picture of the inside of an extra Berry Good but my husband had chomped it too quickly!

Also in the pics, Berry Good nestled in its nice white Coco Cake box, on its way to be delivered to a happy birthday girl. Glad you liked them Casey!

Knot bad. Berry good. Lettuce see. Pizazz! Just for the halibut!