Special Mention...

Joel's actual birthday fell on Wednesday, April 11th, which was dress rehearsal for the YD Spring Show. He graciously came to take photos for us and with the help of Eva, we celebrated with a delicious cupcake!

Later that week, we celebrated an amazing show at the YD cast party.  Rebecca and Molly did an AMAZING job baking and designing the cupcakes. 

Piece de resistance

April is a special month and a big one for birthdays.  My friends Kristina, Jennie, Adam, Julius, as well as my wonderful boyfriend Joel all celebrated their birthdays in the span of a few days.  We had a lovely little party and I knew the cupcakes had to be outstanding to stand up to all this birthday cheer.  A page in the book that had always caught my eye was Van Gough's Starry Night.  I had to complete it over 2 days.

The first day I separated and mixed all the colors, putting them in baggies in the fridge.  The second day I baked the cupcakes and began the artwork.

Happy Birthday!!

Cadaver Ball (aka Med School Prom)

Yale has an annual Cadaver Ball to celebrate the end of Anatomy for the first year students. It is the equivalent to a Med School Prom.  We had a little party beforehand and I made these cupcakes.  

Red velvet cupcakes with a black and white theme.  The centers are oreos on the big cupcakes and chocolate covered cherries on the mini cupcakes.  

Strike!

Two more wonderful friends,  JBae and Eileen, were having a birthday and we all like to bowl together.  Hence, Bowling Cupcakes! These are large vanilla cupcakes with small cupcakes and donut holes on top...all dipped in vanilla frosting.  The red decorations are fruit roll-ups!  

The first few!

Chocolate cupcakes for the bowling balls.

Final Product!

Blowing out the candles :)

Joel enjoying a pin!

Birthday Boy and Jon Jon...nom!

M&Mmmmmmm's

Mini-dipped cupcakes, decorated to look like M&Ms.  Fun-fetti cupcake mix.  

Valentine Choclates

As a second raffle item, and since Valentine's day was quickly approaching, I decided to also try making mini-cupcakes that resembled a box of chocolates.  These were tricky only because they required a little more creativity and variety.

The mess my kitchen was in half way through.  You can see all the bowls for dipping sprinkles! 

To get some of the cupcakes shiny, you heat up some of the frosting in a bowl (15-20 seconds) and dip the cupcake in it.  Once it dries, it has a nice glossy finish. 

The finished boxes!

Some of the lucky raffle winners! Yum!

Sunflowers and Ladybugs

My revolution in cupcake decorating came with a wonderful Christmas gift from my dear friend, Sammy. The book, entitled "Hello, cupcake!" is a very simple step-by-step book on the techniques of decorating.
  (http://www.amazon.com/Hello-Cupcake-Irresistibly-Playful-Creations/dp/0618829253/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1335291430&sr=8-1)
No fancy equipment needed! All you need are ziploc baggies, toothpicks, food coloring, and the various candies/cookies to make the creations.
A good friend asked me to bake something for an upcoming raffle to raise money for running the Boston Marathon (she raised a ton of money to benefit MS) and I thought this was the perfect time to attempt a new creation.

First up, Sunflower Cupcakes! I love sunflowers, and there were minimal ingredients needed.

You can see what their cupcakes look like in the background.  The cupcakes are chocolate with vanilla icing dyed green.  

The center of the flowers are Oreos with yellow petal additions (made using the corner of a Ziploc baggy reinforced with scotch tape).  

The ladybugs are red M&Ms with a small amount of black frosting piping to give the details.

The cupcakes were a huge hit at the raffle!

The old cupcakes

Birthdays and special events call for a tasty treat to celebrate...I almost always oblige with cupcakes! I have made many cupcakes and usually I write something cute and appropriate on the top.  This first post is to show the beginnings of my cupcake decorating days.  

Back in January, my friend Jon Jon celebrated his 26th birthday at a bowling alley and here are some delicious chocolate cupcakes ready to be eaten! 

Happy Birthday Jon Jon!