Happy Birthday Beff and Scotty!

It was recently my best friend Beth's birthday. And just before that it was her brother, Scott's. Beth loves a good mustache so I've had this cupcake planned for months! I did a vanilla cupcake with strawberry cream cheese frosting ( her favorite ) and the mustache is made out of chocolate! I printed mustache templates out that I found on google and melted chocolate in the microwave. I scooped it into a ziploc bag and cut the tip off. I laid the templates on a sheet pan and placed wax paper over. I just traced/ filled in the template and put the tray in the fridge to harden. Everyone loved them! :)

Happy Birthday Monica :)

I did these cupcakes for my friend Gianna's sister, Monica. She turned 18! We wanted a cute, classy cupcake for this occasion and I think they came out great! It's a Reese's Surprise cupcake, topped with cream cheese frosting, edible glitter dust, and edible purple and black flowers. This frosting was my fluffiest. It was a very proud moment ;) The cupcake liners are Reynold's foil brand. They are my favorite! They're really thick and sturdy and the cupcake doesn't show through the white parts. I highly recommend them. :)

Happy Birthday Colton!

I'm seriously slacking on the cupcake making/blog updating! I'll be a cupcake machine in the near future. A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of making cupcakes for one of my favorite boys. Colton had his birthday party at the golf course in town and I wanted to make cupcakes to match. I used the grass tip for the frosting and the golf balls were white gum balls. So simple and so cute :)

Wine d'Vine 2010

This was my second event! :) I had help from my new friend Claryce and I don't know what I would have done without her! The event went great. It was a fundraiser for cancer patients in the Central Valley. There was tons of people there and I think it will be great exposure for the Cakes for Days name. We had four cupcakes at the event. Three new ones and one returning flavor. Pumpkin spice, cherry jubilee, chocolate with white chocolate ganache, and strawberries and cream. We got some great pictures and some great compliments!
Cross your fingers for some orders! <3

Caramel, Chocolate, Toffee Take 1

I'm slowly crossing cupcake ideas off of my cupcake brainstorm list. I decided to start with this one. This is a caramel filled cupcake with little heath pieces mixed into the batter, topped with a chocolate toffee frosting. Right before baking, I pushed a caramel chew in the center of each cupcake. When they are finished, the caramel stays gooey and yummy! The cupcake recipe I used didn't come out very good. The cupcakes were way dense. The frosting was a Hershey's chocolate frosting and it was pretty good! I called this post Take 1 because I plan on revamping this cupcake in the near future. After seeing the finished product I had a few ideas on how to make it even better. All in all, I think this flavor combination was delicious and once it is perfected this cupcake will be available on the Cakes For Days menu. :)

If you haven't already, go "like" Cakes For Days on facebook! www.facebook.com/cakesfordays

Just When You Thought It Was Safe....

to go in the water!!!! ba dum...ba dum...ba dum.ba dum.ba dum!
I did these shark cupcakes for one of my best friend's birthdays. It was this past Sunday. Happy 19th birthday Nikkay! The cupcake is chocolate. The frosting is cream cheese. I put 2 drops of neon blue food coloring and it turned out pretty. There is streaks of white and that's what I was hoping for. I used my Pampered Chef butter spreader to create the look of waves. That thing works wonders. It's my favorite thing to frost cupcakes with. The fin is a chocolate covered mint cookie. The cookies are square so I just cut the corners off and placed them on top. I used mint cookies because Nikki loves mint! :) she also loves sharks and the week devoted to them! Everyone enjoyed them at her party and hopefully people will love them at yours ;)

Tell me what you think <3

This post is so late because I started the culinary academy this week. Busy busy!

Gianna Joy + Cakes For Days Event :)

Gianna Joy has been my friend since elementary school and she recently put out her first EP. Her voice is amazing. She writes her own songs, sings them, plays the guitar, and plays the piano. She basically has it all! This past Saturday we decided to join forces and see what happens when music and cupcakes collide! Our event was a hit! We hope to do it again soon ;) I made 100 cupcakes. 4 different flavors. Cookies and cream, Reeses surprise, pink velvet, and vanilla with strawberry cream cheese frosting. This was Cakes For Days debut and hopefully good things will come of this. Congratulations again Gianna! I'm glad I got to be apart of your release party <3 If you haven't already heard her music, check her out on facebook! www.facebook.com/giannajoy

Tell me what you think :)

Who's Your Daddy!?

I did these cupcakes for a wonderful lady that works with my dad. Her name is Veronica and she is expecting a little one verrrryyy soon :) Her lovely co workers planned a surprise baby shower for her and hired me to do the cupcakes! I made 36 total. 12 golden vanilla, 12 chocolate, and 12 strawberry. The vanilla and chocolate are from the Taste of Home magazine and the strawberry recipes is one that I found online from Sprinkles. The frosting is canned vanilla frosting, heated up in the microwave. To get the smooth, shiny finish: microwave the frosting for 10-12 seconds stopping to stir every so often, dip the top of the cupcakes into the frosting, let all excess drip off, quickly turn over and place on wax paper. I love the way the frosting looks! Unfortunately, the foil cupcake liners I used pulled away from some of the cupcakes and made them look not so cute. Oh well, the taste will definitely make up for it ;) Congratulations Veronica! And thank you to all the amazing girls at Sprig Electric <3

Tell me what you think :)

PS. I apologize for the bad picture quality. I finished these up at night and had no natural light :(

Lemme See Your Grill :D

This post is dedicated to one of the cutest couples I have ever had the pleasure of knowing, Cortney and Philip <3 Cortney's birthday is today and Philip's is a little later in the month, but I did a joint baking adventure for them this weekend. :) Since Philip loves his Jeep so much, I decided to recreate the grill of it in cupcakes! I made 2 jumbo muffin sized cupcakes for the lights and mini cupcakes for the rest of the grill. The cupcakes are vanilla, but taste like sugar cookies! It's a new recipe I found and it is a keeper. I also put some dinosaur sprinkles in there as a surprise. The white and green frosting is just a simple buttercream. The black frosting is chocolate cream cheese. It is AMAZING. For Cortney, I did chocolate brownies with a peanut butter mixture, drizzled with chocolate and topped with pieces of Heath. This recipe is from my Hershey's cookbook and it is one of my favorites. I hope you both enjoy your goodies. Happy birthday!! :)

If you want the recipes or just want to tell me what you think, email me or leave a comment :)

"Say Watermelon..." "....Waterlemon?"

I did this post in honor of my favorite little boy, Nathan. Every time he says watermelon it comes out waterlemon. It is one of the cutest things I have ever heard. I found this idea on Wilton's website. I felt it went perfectly with the summer ideas i've had going on. I used a strawberry cupcake because it was pink and went with the color scheme. I made the Wilton butter cream frosting again and colored it using Leaf Green and Christmas Red food coloring from Wilton. The green is piped with piping tip #3 and the white is piped with #5. The seeds are mini chocolate chips turned upside down. Due to the summer heat and my kitchen window offering the only good light in the house, the frosting looks kind of melty :/ They're still delicious though :) I really liked the way the green has white spots. It looks very realistic. Tell me what you think.

Reeses Surprise Cupcakes

These cupcakes are one of my new favorites! I came up with the idea by myself, although I know it's not the first of it's kind. I didn' t use any specific recipes. The cupcake is Betty Crocker Butter Yellow cake mix. I added some peanut butter into the cake batter until it had the desired peanut buttery flavor. I spooned the batter into the cupcake pan about half full. I then went through and pushed the mini reeses peanut butter cup in, top down. I covered the reeses with a small spoonful of batter and put them to bake. The topping is a chocolate ganache. I used 3/4 cup of semi sweet chocolate chips and 1/2 cup of heavy whipping cream. For the garnish, I cut the tops of the mini reeses off and turned it upside down and placed it in the middle of the cupcake. These cupcakes turned out even better than I had imagined. :)

Tell me what you think!

Our Flag Was Still There...

Happy fourth of July everyone! I found this cupcake idea on Wilton.com. This website is AMAZING. They offer tons of cute ideas and sell all the tools you need to make the ideas come to life. For the cupcake I used Pillsbury 4th of July Funfetti (my favorite). I made the Wilton butter cream frosting using the recipe I found on their website. Sadly, it didn't come out of the piping bag as smooth as I would have liked. I used piping tip number 27, the star tip. I substituted 2 fondant stars for 2 piped stars. In the end, the cupcakes are perfect for celebrating this important holiday.

Tell me what you think! :)

You Can't Spell Summer Without B-B-Q!!

Aren't these mini barbeques the cutest!? My future sister in law, Shevon, told me to check this recipe out. She found it on the Family Fun magazine website and I am so glad i did! With help from my little sister Madison and my friend Karina these little barbeques turned out great!

The cupcakes are actually brownies in cupcake liners! I used Betty Crocker brownie mix. The grate is white frosting mixed with some black food coloring. I used red and yellow sprinkles for the charcoal. The hot dogs are hot tamales and the grill marks were made with black food coloring and applied with a toothpick. The kabobs are caramels and Dots cut into pieces held together by a toothpick. And lastly the chicken (or pork chop) is a caramel molded into the shape with a little white frosting used for the bone.

Tell me what you think!

Feeling Kinda Corn-y Today?

Today, my friend Karina and I tried our first recipe out of the Hello Cupcake cookbook. This book is full of wonderful ideas and I plan on trying most, if not all of them. So here it goes, corn on the cob cupcakes! It's yellow cake, white frosting mixed with Wilton gel food coloring, yellow and white jelly beans, a starburst for the butter and sugar sprinkled on top! I found the corn holders at Target for 3 dollars ;) This was a blast to make and very simple! Perfect for summertime barbeques. :)

Cookies and Cream Cupcake

I used a chocolate cupcake and white butter cream frosting recipe that I found in a Food and Wine magazine back in 2008. I crushed oreos and mixed the dust in with the frosting. I then topped the cupcake off with an oreo half. If you're interested in the recipe let me know at miranduh007@gmail.com

:)