Mama Is No Cake Boss But...

Hey y'all.  I thought I would share with you all my love for baking and decorating; but as you will soon see, I am no Cake Boss or an Ace of Cakes gal and I doubt I will ever be a contestant on Cupcake Wars.  I just love to bake all kinds of goodies and I love to keep learning and exploring.  I've always had a passion for baking but finally attempted decorating in just the past couple of years.  Having kids certainly spiked the interest and I'm glad.  It's fun, relaxing yet stressful but I love it.  As soon as I have some free time I am going to sign up for some cake decorating classes.  Why not, right?

Here are some of my wannabe Cake Boss attempts:

1.  Cookie Monster and Elmo cupcakes.

I made these last year for my daughter's third birthday.  What three year old does not love the fun and loving characters from Sesame Street.  I had seen so many cake and cupcake versions of various SS characters that I decided to bite the bullet and try some cupcakes myself.  I did countless searches on Elmo and Cookie Monster cakes and cupcakes to get tips and tutorials.  I also researched how-to videos on YouTube.  For two weeks straight I studied and planned how to make these fun treats.  This is how they turned out:

Cute huh?  They were a hit and my baby girl was happy.  :)  I wish I could say I made them entirely from scratch but I was so nervous about the presentation that I played it safe and made them out of a box mix.  I did, however, make the cookies and the frosting.  I made cream cheese frosting because I prefer it to buttercream, used orange gumballs for Elmo's nose and used mini marshmallows and upside down chocolate chips for the eyes.
Tip: I used a toothpick to pierce a hole in each marshmallow before inserting the chocolate chips.

2. Oreo Cake

I made this cake for my hubby's birthday this year.  He's a big Oreo cookie fan so I thought I would give this a shot.  I spotted this cake on Pinterest and it wasn't hard to make.  Quite easy actually since there is no real decorating.

3.  Pink Princess Cupcakes

I made these this year for my girl's fourth birthday.  You can read more about these in this post.

4.  Dallas Cowboys Cupcakes

My boy is a huge Cowboys fan (we are raising him well) so I made these for him to take to school.  He wanted Dallas Cowboys cupcakes and I kinda scratched my head on this baking project because I really did not know what to do.  Then it hit me and I thought "Duh!" when I realized I could easily place a blue star on each cupcake.

I rolled out some blue fondant and used a mini cheese cutter in a star shape to make the infamous Cowboys star.  Again, I made cream cheese frosting and I used a chocolate cupcake recipe from Better Homes & Gardens magazine.  I thought they were pretty plain but my boy loved them and that was the goal.  If you look closely (well you really don't need to) it is obvious that I am no pro.  Some of the stars were not perfect cuts and I left some powdered sugar on a few stars.  In one of the many YouTube tutorials that I saw, the professionals use powdered sugar to roll out fondant.

5.  Baseball Cake & Cupcakes

Another sports passion for my boy is baseball.  It is the highlight of his week when he has baseball practice and games.  So this year the theme for his birthday party was baseball.  Now this is where I really tip my hat to the pros because the pressure of pulling this off nearly gave me some grey streaks.  I'm sure they showed up but I did not see them because I was pulling my hair out trying to get this done.  Here is the baseball field shaped cake:

I made the pennants, frosting (cream cheese) and the dirt was made out of graham crackers.  Oh but I did have a little oopsie after I finished frosting the cake.  See that crack in the middle?  grrrrr.  Total rookie mistake.  I'll talk more about his baseball birthday party in my next post.
I also made cupcakes and here is a pic of the one and only that was left.

The baseball was a plain donut hole dipped in white melted chocolate and I used a red icing writer pen to draw the red lines.  I tried to draw stitches to make it look more authentic but the icing was too thick and it just sloppy.  So I left a straight line.  I wanted to make grass frosting with a grass decorator tip but I was so nervous and the party was a few hours away that I skipped it.  I regretted it but I know these baseball cupcakes won't be my last.  :)  I got this idea from my Better Homes & Gardens cupcake mag.

I do have more pictures of other attempts of mine but I can't find them.  I really need to organize all my photos in a simpler manner.  But these next two pictures are of a cake decorated by my kids with my help.  You see, my daughter watches many of those YouTube tutorials with me and one day she saw a bunny cake video.  Right away she told me that she wanted to make one for Easter and her big brother was on board too.  I was so proud that my kids were already influenced by my work in the kitchen that I was all warm and fuzzy inside.  Seriously.  So with that said I made two round chocolate cake, assembled the cake, and frosted it.  My mini Cake Bosses took over with coconut, jelly beans, a large marshmallow and my boy made the bunny ears.  He used the same template I used on my Bunny Treat bags and glued them on to lollipop sticks.  Check it out for ya self.  Yes, they really did decorate it by themselves.  I guided them and supervised them including the making of the grass.

Didn't they do a great job?  I'm so proud of my babies!  :)

So that is my baking and decorating experience so far.  None of my projects are perfect (or even close) but my kids don't know any better.  They think I'm freakin' awesome so I'll just continue to let them think so.  :)