Pies from the past (Part 6): Banana Creme and Mixed Berry

I decided to mix it up a bit and post some pictures of pies I made for someone's birthday last year.  I was asked to make a pumpkin pie, but I couldn't find any pumpkin in the store since it was summer time.  Instead, I got some fresh berries to make a raspberry/blackberry pie and then made a banana cream pie.  Both pies went over really well, but the banana cream was the hands down favorite.  I think it was the first time some of the people had ever had a banana cream pie, so it was good to see people trying something new and liking it.  The berry pie tasted good, however, it came out really watery, so that pie will need some more cornstarch and perfecting.

Cakes from the Past Part 5: Fried Rice experiment

The next post is going to be the first improv cupcake that I've made.  I used some of the ideas in my Hello Cupcake book and with some traversing of the supermarket was able to come up with the fried rice cupcake.  These were made for one of my boyfriend's room mates who is Chinese and likes food (whether it's his or your food that has been in the fridge for a while).  We tried to come up with some ideas that would best personify him or at least remind us of him and for whatever reason it was fried rice, so we went with it.  The only things we did to make it more like fried rice was to add chocolate sprinkles for some burntish rice, green skittles for peas, orange starburst cut up for carrots and broken up chocolate pieces to make it beef fried rice.  Lastly, we needed some chopsticks to go in to make each cupcake like an individual bowl of fried rice.  At first I was going to use pretzel sticks, but they were either too short or too thick.  After roaming the isles of the grocery store I found some snack sticks made by Pringles.  They're pretty tasty on their own, but they look similar to chopsticks if you use your imagination.  Some people even tried to use the "chopsticks" to eat their "fried rice" with a little success.

This picture is kind of blurry, so it's hard to see, but the cupcakes are all on a tray.












Here's a closeup of the cupcakes and yes, the person awkwardly eating their chopstick in the picture is me.

Cakes from the Past Part 4: Camel Cup-Cake

I'm going to post a birthday cake I made for my former roommate.   The cake was made after I found this cupcake kit that allows you to make cupcakes in different shapes that you can assemble to make a larger picture. The kit came with three designs: a turtle, a bear, and a fish.  My friend saw the kit and decided that she wanted me to make a cake for her from these in the shape of a camel (in relation to a really cute stuffed camel she brought me from Israel).  It turned out really cute and she really enjoyed it.

Cakes from the Past Part 3: Fun with Fondant

The next cake I'm going to post is the one I made for my boyfriend's birthday.  It was my first attempt using fondant and it came out pretty well.  Using fondant is kind of like using play dough which made it really fun.  For the actual cake, I got a strawberry cake mix and covered it in coconut frosting to make a strawberry coconut cake (inspired by a popsicle).  Once I covered the cake, I realized I had leftover, so I had my friend who is way more artistic than me cut out letters for his name and a dinosaur that turned out looking like Reptar from Rugrats.

I was messing around with a bottle cap and realized that it would make a good cookie cutter for the fondant, so I added the colored circles on the side.

Here you can see the inside of the cake with it's strawberry and coconut.  Also, my boyfriend, the handsome young man, seemed to enjoy his birthday cake. :)

Cakes from the Past Part 2: Pumpkin Cupcakes

The next past cake I'm putting up is some cupcakes that I made for my room mate's birthday.  She enjoys pumpkin flavored things, so I decided to make her some pumpkin spice cupcakes that look like little pumpkins.  The design directions said to use green licorice, but since I couldn't find any, this is how they came out.

It's a whole pumpkin patch!
However, without the green licorice shoe strings, I was unable to make curling vines to connect them.

Here's a close up showing the sprinkles used to coat the first layer of frosting and then the decorative stripes and green icing top for the pumpkins.

Cakes from the Past Part 1: Owl Cupcakes

This week is pretty boring for me.  Everyone went home, and I am left, because I got a job (which I'm excited for, but causes a lonely week for me).  As a result, I decided that I'm going to put up some pictures of cakes/cupcakes that I have made before starting this blog as a way to document them and give me something to do this week.

So, to start, I will start with the first cupcake I tried making from the Hello Cupcake book that my grandma gave me for my birthday.  I thought I would try something that seemed easy and more assembly like, because I did have some friends over to help me make these.  We decided on going with the owl design.  After that, it was just picking up the ingredients and then getting started.  However, my roommate Megan decided to jinx us and say, what if all the Oreos and chocolate cake mixes are all gone?  Low and behold, we get to the store and due to a sale on Oreos and chocolate cake mix, the Oreos were all gone, so I had to get the generic cookie sandwiches and I just happened to snag the last chocolate cake mix.  The next problem came with the Runt's candy banana.  We couldn't find any Runt's at all, so we substituted them for yellow Starbursts that we cut into fourths.

In the end, they turned out pretty cute.

 

The final group of owls with funny eyes.  Can you find the one that doesn't belong?

 

It's a robin!

As you can see, we ran out of some of the decorations, so we ended up with with three cupcakes and Starburst that we decided to name: buttered brown.