Rainbow 'round me

As my sweet niece Lucy's 2nd birthday approached, my sister and I started talking cake ideas.  When she mentioned 'maybe something with rainbows?', I jumped on it.  I've been wanting to do a rainbow cake for a while now, and was excited to have the chance to finally do it!  Since the birthday girl had 2 birthday parties, we went for some fun rainbow cupcakes for the family party.  I just loved how it all turned out--I think it was one of my favorite cakes to date.  Bright, cheerful and happy... just like the birthday girl!  

All photos courtesy of my sister of Alyssa Brown Photography

Vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream, topped with a rainbow of Starburst jellybeans 

with marshmallow clouds!

Love this picture...rainbow themes are the best--so many options for bright, colorful candy and decorations! We found some cute colorful napkins, plates, and striped straws at Target that were perfect.

And my favorite part...the rainbow reveal inside!  Love the bright rainbow layers. 

Rainbow cupcakes...vanilla buttercream with candy tape rainbows and marshmallow clouds.

The sweet birthday girl!

Tie-dye rainbow colors inside the cupcakes!

Thanks for reading!  Have a sweet week,
Rianne

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Hoo's turning one?

I couldn't resist the pun. So bad, I know. I almost forgot to blog these owl cupcakes--I saw a picture of some owl cake pops the other day and was reminded of the cupcakes I made for my sweet little niece for her first birthday!

The 'Hello, Cupcake' cookbooks are always full of fun, creative inspiration...and since they use a lot of supplies you probably have in your house (rather than professional decorating supplies), they're written for the home cook. You should definitely pick up a book or two of theirs and check it out for inspiration! These owl cupcakes were from one of these cupcakes and have always been on my 'want-to-bake' list, so I was ecstatic when we decided on these for L's 1st birthday! I love how each one has its own character.

 Photos courtesy of the talented Alyssa Brown Photography.

Chocolate cupcakes with Oreo and Junior Mint eyes, Reese's Pieces noses, and chocolate cream cheese fur.  Yum! 

Happy birthday sweet L! (PS--isn't the banner my sister made adorable? Love banners!)

'

Thanks for reading!

Rianne

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Wedding bells!

As I blog this, I can hardly believe it's been almost a month since my "little" brother got married...it was such a happy, elegant, fun-filled day that I'm sure everyone will remember for a long time. Since Jon, Ally, Mya and I were all in the wedding, along with my cupcake/treat making, it was a busy day, but worth every minute of busyness! And now the happy couple is enjoying life in Hawaii, making us all jealous with pictures of gorgeous beaches, summery clothes and tans ;)

The week of the wedding was busy preparing the treats for the wedding. There was making fondant flowers, baking cakes for the cake pops, making and decorating the pops, baking cakes, making icing, baking cupcakes, decorating cake and cupcakes...I was so in my element :)

Reece and Krissy asked for vanilla cupcakes in lieu of a cake...but every wedding has to have a cake, right?! So I make a small cake topper for the top of the cake stand (which Krissy and I made together--fun, hey?!) which was chocolate with peanut butter buttercream and a filling of Reece's Pieces...covered in fondant. I loved how it turned out...simple and elegant--just like the rest of the wedding! The cupcakes were iced with a vanilla buttercream and topped with pearl sprinkles and little black fondant flowers...so pretty and simple.

The cupcake tier with the cake topper!

Photo courtesy of my talented sister of Masters Touch Photography.

Close up of the cake topper...simple and elegant. And my first time covering a cake in fondant...mostly a success! :)

Vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream; topped with pearl sprinkles and fondant flowers.

Photo courtesy of my talented sister of Masters Touch Photography.

Krissy decided to do a dessert table, which was such a fun idea. People could fill up little paper bags--personalized for the wedding--with all kinds of treats. She collected all kinds of candy in her wedding colors--white, green and black--and then we added to that with cupcakes and cake pops. She asked for 100 cake pops--chocolate and white--decorated very simply. I decided to make them all white and decorate with elegant swirls and lines in black and green, and just loved the finished product....let me tell you, that was a LOT of cake pops! But I'm almost positive there were none left over! :)

Cake pops! I loved the spanish moss as a filler in the cake pop pots.

Photo courtesy of my talented sister of Masters Touch Photography.

In case you wanted to know what 100 cake pops looks like ;)

As much as I love making cakes, it's so much more fun when it's for people you love, and especially for an event like this! Congrats again, Reece and Krissy!!

My gorgeous new sister (seriously, isn't she beautiful?) and I!

Photo courtesy of my talented sister of Masters Touch Photography.

Have a great week everyone...can you believe it's almost June?!!

Thanks for reading!

Rianne

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Flowers and frogs

These cupcakes were made for 2 different birthday girls. I love how cupcakes can say something about the person.

The flower cupcakes were for the daughter of a friend--a sweet, happy young lady. They left the design up to me--they just wanted something fun and girly. I'd been wanting to make fondant cutouts for a while, so here was my chance! I decided to go with pink and purple icing, topped with white fondant flowers...feminine, fun, and sweet! To balance those out, I also did some purple swirl cupcakes with white pearl sprinkles.

I offered to make frog cupcakes for my little niece. She is a fun, spunky, energetic girl with a big love for frogs. I found an idea online and tweaked it to make it my own...big eyes, and a cute red tongue. Doesn't get cuter than that! :)

Thanks for reading!

Rianne

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Love-ly treats

I love Valentine's Day. I know it's over-hyped and over-marketed and over-everything, but for me it's a day to say 'I love you and I appreciate you' to the people that I care about!

So with Valentine's Day in mind, I planned a few things I thought I'd share!

1. Cute little Valentines for Ally to hand out to her friends. They were super fun, easy, and cheap to make--and were a hit for all her little friends! She loved giving them out--and I always want to encourage her to love giving. Some we put suckers in, others cake pops...but yummy either way! :)

2. Heart shaped cake pops. My younger sis shares a love for baking and decorating, so we often try do some baking together around the different holidays...so for Valentine's Day, we decided to make heart-shaped cake pops!

We pushed chilled cake balls into a heart shaped cookie cutter, then put in the sticks, chilled again in the freezer, and finally coated them! We decided to put a little conversation heart on them for some extra cuteness.

3. A Valentine's Day party for some girly-girls! I have some amazing friends--godly, helpful, kind women--and they have girls that are all around the same age as Ally...it's so fun to see them all grow up together and become good friends. We planned a little party for them--a scavenger hunt, cupcake decorating, and lots of treats...what could be better?!

Scavenger hunt...on the lookout for the next heart-shaped clue...and goody bags at the end!

Ally's hairstyle was her pick from online for 'heart hairstyles'...not super obvious, but cute anyways.

All the girlies with their decorated cupcakes!

Photos courtesy of Laura, of Menu In Season

4. Strawberry cupcakes with strawberry buttercream....um, YUM!

This has been in my 'to try' recipe pile for a while, so Valentine's Day was the perfect opportunity! I thought I'd share the recipe since it was such a hit!

Strawberry cupcakes with strawberry buttercream

Photo courtesy of Laura, of Menu In Season

Strawberry Cupcakes

Yield: 34 cupcakes
Ingredients:
2¼ cups all-purpose flour
½ cup cake flour
1 tbsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2¼ cups sugar
1½ tsp. vanilla extract
3 large eggs plus 1 large egg white
1 cup milk
2½ cups finely chopped fresh strawberries*

For garnish:
Additional fresh strawberries

Directions:
To make the cupcakes, preheat the oven to 350˚ F. Line cupcake pans with paper liners. In a medium bowl, combine the all-purpose flour, cake flour, baking powder and salt; whisk to blend.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the butter, sugar and vanilla. Beat on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Beat in the eggs and egg white one at a time, mixing well after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture in two additions alternating with the milk, mixing each addition just until incorporated. Gently fold in the chopped strawberries with a spatula.

Divide the batter between the paper liners, filling each about ¾-full. Bake until light golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 25-28 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through baking. Allow to cool in the pans a few minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Frost cooled cupcakes as desired*, and garnish with fresh berries or berry slices.

For frosting, I simply added strawberry puree to my favorite buttercream recipe. I whipped up the buttercream, then placed about 3/4 c. of hulled, sliced strawberries into the blender and pureed until smooth. I then slowly added the puree to my buttercream, and voila--strawberry buttercream!

Recipe from Annie's Eats, originally from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes

How was your Valentine's Day? Did you do anything special?

I couldn't resist putting this picture in...but she fits the theme since she's sweet and lovely! :)

Photos courtesy of Laura, of Menu In Season

Sweetly,

Rianne

P.S...be on the lookout for a 'deere' cake post coming soon!

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Sugar, spice and everything nice

Writing this post takes me back 13 years. Back when I was only 11 and on one of my first babysitting jobs. Little did I know that that job would lead me to some of my closest and dearest friends. Esther was only 6 when I started babysitting...a sweet little girl who could manipulate me into playing games, reading books and staying up late; over the years we've become very close--bonding over long van rides, various hair updos, shopping, camping, baking, cleaning, running, volleyball--and now she's a great friend. Not only is she gorgeous (see below), she's beautiful on the inside...sweet, generous with her time and clothes :) , and loving to her family and friends. Full of sugar, spice and everything nice :)

Photo by Alyssa Brown Photography

So when her 19th birthday came around, I knew I needed to make something special to celebrate her special day. Since she loves purple, I decorated with a purple and black theme. Fun, sweet, and elegant.

Pretty cupcakes ready for consumption :)

I love the double colored swirls on this one.

Reverse spiderweb design.

Happy 19th birthday, Es...we love you!

Rianne

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Look who's 1!

It seems like just yesterday that this little man was born. As the youngest of 9, there's no shortage of love for this little guy...and lovable he is. Always smiling, easy-going, and ready with lots of kisses and hugs for my little Mya, it's been so fun to see him grow up into a little toddler--walking and starting to get into things!

Seriously, how handsome is he?!

So, after talking with his mom, I decided to go with turtle cupcakes, since they are the theme of his bedroom.

These sea turtle cupcakes were pretty easy to make...I just iced the cupcakes and used different candy--gumdrops, peach rings, spearmint slices and mini chocolate chips--to make the turtle!

I love my cupcake tower...look at all these cute turtles ready to be eaten!

Happy 1st birthday, Ty!

Have a sweet day!

Rianne

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Hole in one!

One night, as my sister-in-law and I were paging through my 'What's New, Cupcake?' book, a page caught our eye--and we instantly knew this particular cupcake idea would be perfect for her golf-loving husband. So when his birthday--30th birthday, nonetheless--rolled around, we both knew what cupcakes I needed to make for his birthday!

Here it is...a golf course made up cupcakes. How great is this?! I had to get these done on a busy holiday weekend, so thankfully my wonderful husband helped make some of the little, fiddly things...he rocks!

The golf green was made up cupcakes dipped in green decorating sugar.

Aren't these golf balls adorable? The recipe called for a gumball covered with white sprinkles, but gumballs were nowhere to be found. So my hubby warmed some Mambas up in the microwave, shaped them into balls, dipped them in corn syrup and covered with white sprinkles. And they were so worth the work!

The sand pit was made up cupcakes dipped in graham cracker crumbs...so realistic!

That's all for now...I have a few other projects coming up, so stay tuned!

Have a sweet day!

Rianne

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How cute is this?

Seriously, it doesn't get cuter than this! :)

On vacation in Oregon, we went shopping at a beautiful outdoor mall--the Old Mill District. A cute little boutique called out to us, and we were not disappointed--it was full of cute, creative cards, knick-knacks...and cupcake things! These amazing cupcake holders by Meri Meri caught my eye, and I couldn't resist purchasing them!

I just love the details...little shutters, a window to peek into the 'Patisserie', the little overhang. A cupcake lover's dream :)

I held onto the package for quite a while, not willing to use it for a small occasion...but when the birthdays of two wonderful, sweet friends came up, I knew the occasion had come! I decorated some yummy chocolate cupcakes with my favorite buttercream icing and topped with some pretty roses!

Have a sweet day!

Rianne

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Black Cats!

How great are these?! Black cats over harvest moons. Although I'm not a huge Halloween fan, these were definitely fun to make!

I was excited when this client called me--it was a lady who had picked up a business card from my mom's booth at the Northwest Washington Fair. She wanted cupcakes for a Halloween Bunco party she was hosting. After giving her a few ideas, she opted for the black cat cupcakes...another idea from my What's Next, Cupcake? cookbook (greatest cupcake book ever!).

The cupcake flavor choice was devil's food cake...one of my favorite recipes!

To make the yellow moons, I slightly melted yellow icing and dipped the cupcakes in, which gave it a nice, smooth look. The cats were a little more involved...I traced a template from the cookbook, melted chocolate wafers, and filled in the template with the melted chocolate. Immediately after that, I sprinkled black sugar all over the cats and put them in the fridge for a few minutes to set. Finally, I piped on yellow eyes, attached the cats to the cupcakes, and boxed them for pickup!

Thanks for reading!

Have a sweet day :)

Rianne

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Monkeying around

Sock monkeys have taken over! When a client contacted me to ask if I could make sock monkey cupcakes, I had to google 'sock monkeys' to remind myself what they were. Turns out, sock monkeys are super popular right now! Ever since I looked them up, I've noticed sock monkey products everywhere--at Michaels, in toy boutiques, on Etsy. And why not? What's not to love about a cute, stuffed sock monkey?!

Rachel, a wonderfully talented photographer, requested these sock monkey cupcakes for her son's first birthday. She wanted the cupcakes to match the theme and colors of the plates she ordered, so away I went!

Since this was only my second time using fondant, I was a little nervous as to how they would turn out...especially since I had a 3 hour time slot to get icing made and cupcakes baked, iced, and decorated! Thankfully, it all worked out...the fondant was a little easier to work with than I expected, and I was done in time! Phew!

Cutest monkey lips ever! One of the times big lips are in :)

A dozen and half sock monkey cupcakes finished and packed up, ready to deliver!

Have a great day!

Rianne

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