Owl You Need is Love

Howdy all. Please forgive how backed up my posts have become, April for some reason is always a busy baking month, why? I have no idea! But in the midst of the chaos, I have done tons of baking and have been lagging in getting it posted.

My dear friend, Abbey, turned 18 earlier this month! Yay! Yay! Yay! She deserves three "yay's" because she truly is that fantastic! I don't think I know a more genuine person than Abbey, she is really one of the greatest people around.

Happy Birthday, Abbigail Sunshine! :)

Abbey and I have been friends since grade 7, so needless to say we have a lot in common. Tea being one of those shared loves. For a Christmas party last year, I made some Chai Tea Cupcakes. And they were a huge hit, especially for Abbey!

So when her birthday rolled around she put in her request for these cupcakes. And that's just what she got!

I'm huge into Pinterest, because let's face it, it's fantastic! So one day I stumbled upon a tutorial for making some adorable clay owls. Well, I'm not really into clay but the similarities to fondant are impossible to miss! And from there I'm sure you can figure out what happened.

The end, thanks for reading.




Just jokes. I made a tutorial for you guys!

I made some marshmallow fondant. Okay that's a lie, I had left over fondant from another cake so I just used that but same deal-io.

So basically you just need some fondant, a circle cookie cutter (mine was about 2.5"), a pen or marker cap, a smaller point thing (like the end of a paintbrush), and a toothpick.

If a picture's worth a thousand words...than take a look at this:

I made them in all the colors I had left over just to make it more fun...because colors are fun!

And from there I just slapped 'em on some cupcakes with those yucky little ball things that nobody likes but they look pretty. Fashion over function, people. Ha, only when we're talking food.

 

On a side note, check out this stellar mug! I made it. Say whaa? Yeah I did. Okay I painted it but that's basically making it! In Winkler we have fantastic pottery studio, Clay Owl, where you pick your piece and paint it up. It's wonderful, if you're in the area I highly recommend spending some time there.

 

Wanna know what happened on Wednesday?

 

this....

 

 

...happened. Yes, that's a house wrapped in wrapping paper. 26 roles to be exact. When someone has a birthday the whole block should know it, and Travis had a birthday so we just wanted to inform everyone of it.

Happy Birthday, Travis!

Well I'm about to embark on a crazy busy weekend, so I'll catch ya laters!
Stay golden,
Sydney xoxo

Always Time for Polka Dots

Phew, I have so many posts to write! I've been waiting for peoples' birthdays to pass so I could  blog about their cakes...and patience is not my strongest virtue. But the weekend has passed and that leaves me with 3 adventures to blog about! Woohoo, gear up for a busy next few weeks here!

 

My polka dot themed cake came together quite nicely. I didn't end up using the little balls of fondant, but I got over it pretty quickly! And to my delight, the cake was the exact height of two rows of the fondant circles...thank goodness!

So how does one go about making a polka dot cake? Well let me just show you the method to my madness!

Sprinkles: make the world go 'round! And they make cake look pretty too! My fear when I add sprinkles to cake batter is that everyone will think it's one of those "fun-fetti" cake mixes....*shiver,* never I tell you! Never!

Vanilla was the selected cake flavour with a real raspberry filling. A filling which was....EASY! Wooooo!

Raspberry Cake Filling:

• 2 cups raspberries (fresh or frozen)
• 3/4 cups white sugar
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch

*Heat the raspberries over medium heat until they are soft and mushed (a very correct cooking term)
*stir in the sugar and cornstarch, heat until thickened
*Taste test it and add more sugar if necessary
* Let it cool before spreading between cake layers

After the filling I just iced with my vanilla butter cream and placed the fondant circles around the cake!

Okay, are you ready to hear a funny story? Ha, okay here goes!

So on the top of the cake I had piped in white icing "Happy Birthday Itsy!" and than planed to place colored sugar on the lettering to make it stand out. Well...do you know how much time it takes to place each individual grain of sugar?! Answer: faaar too long!

So I ditched that plan and decided to use food coloring to "paint" each letter. It look pretty cool, I must say.

Until the next day....

...all the food coloring had spread across the top of the cake! The top of the WHITE cake! My mother found this disaster when she woke up and quickly scraped the lettering off! This left a cool tye-died effect (I pretend I wanted it to look like that).

 

Well, anyways, I ended up running around town trying to find some nice candles, which is surprisingly difficult! But I found some cute ones from Co-op and the cake was saved!

And no one has to be the wiser..well except all of you guys. But you can keep a secret, right? Good, I thought so. You're all gems.

 

This is the beautiful birthday girl! Today she turned 11! Woohoo, what a fabulous age! Happy Birthday, Itsy!

 

Thanks for stopping by again, feel free to check out my new page I've added to my blog, "Where Have all the Cakes Gone?" A page featuring some of my work with their owners...I'm not sure if owners is the right word, but I lack a better one therefore it will have to do.

 

Toodles,

Sydney