A Sporting Good Birthday

The FIFA Women's World Cup began today with games from Group A.  Germany and France won the first games, besting Canada and Nigeria.  The US plays their first game on Tuesday as a part of Group C.  

I'll be honest, I haven't followed women's soccer since Mia Hamm was running up and down the pitch and Brandi Chastain was ripping off her jersey after scoring the winning goal.

Last year during the Men's World Cup, I was forced to know what was going on after every match, every second of the day.  It was hard to carry on a conversation with Andrew without some mention of soccer or Landon Donovan or Ghana.  So naturally when his birthday rolled around and happened to coincide with the final weekend of the World Cup, his cupcakes played better than the US team.

Devils Food with Peanut Butter frosting for this FIFA fan!

The final match up between the Netherlands and Spain.

The soccer balls and flags were all made out of fondant.  The Spanish flag was decorated using food markers.

Birthday boy attempts to blow out his candles which was quite a feat with the giant fan next to us that was attempting to keep the restaurant cool on an EXTREMELY hot Seattle summer evening.

Spain won the World Cup by a score of 1 to 0 and this soccer fan had to eat his hatred of the Spanish national team :)

Thank god Andrew's birthday was mostly vuvuzela free except for what was streamed live into his living room during the telecast of the match.  We'll see you in Brazil for 2014!

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Tom & Nicole Get Hitched

Tom and Nicole got married last weekend in what was absolutely the most easy-going and laid back wedding I've ever been to.  And it was absolutely wonderful!

When I asked them a few weeks ago what type of cake and cupcakes they wanted, their response was "Oh whatever you want to make."  I ended up giving them a list and making them choose though.  Their choices ended up being chocolate with peanut butter filling and marble (chocolate and vanilla), both with vanilla buttercream frosting.  Yum!  The decorations were left to me to decide on and I'll be honest, I had a fabulous time dreaming up what to do with their wedding cake!

I started with the marble cupcakes because they can keep longer than ones with peanut butter filling.  

Vanilla, chocolate, top again with vanilla and swirl!

For the marble recipe I used Martha Stewart's recipe from her Cupcakes book.  This is a wonderful, no fail recipe and will always taste delicious.  Martha shows her cupcakes topped with a dusting of confectioner's sugar, but I personally prefer a dollop of fluffy buttercream.

The wedding colors were technically red and light blue, but if you've ever tried to create red frosting you'll know that it more often than not turns out as a darker pink.  The pink ones are the marble and the blue are the  yummy chocolate and peanut butter.

Quickly (and carefully!) trying to get the display set up so I can run and change before the wedding starts!  The table cloth kept trying to fly away in the wind which just made it extra exciting :)

Can we now get a drumroll as we unveil the finished product?

Tom and Nicole's love birds perched atop their milk chocolate nest.  Tom's bird has a baseball cap on and Nicole's must have just gotten off work in her nursing hat.

The happy couple loved it which is much more important to me than the accidentally pink frosting or any other mishaps that could occur.  

Congratulations Tom and Nicole!!

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Best Alcoholic Cupcake?

If you could pick any booze flavored cupcake to have, what would you pick?  

Of all the flavors that I have made, Irish Carbomb and Margarita are my two favorites.  But there are so many wonderfully crazy cocktails out there and I can't even imagine how delicious they would taste in baked form.  So I need your help - fill out the poll to the right and if the flavor you would most love to taste isn't an option, leave me a comment and tell me what the best one would be!

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The Dog Days Are Over

The dog days are over, the dog days are done...

This song was played at a wedding I attended last weekend and it has been stuck in my head ever since.  I had actually never heard the song until it was showcased on Glee one week (which is admittedly where I hear most pop music!), but it's definitely grown on me.  And it seems appropriate now that summer is finally (hopefully) here to stay.

I've never had a dog myself, but I want this one so bad I could cry!  Okay, okay, maybe not CRY...but you get my point.  Look how cute!

I could try to make her in cupcake form, but somehow I don't think it would be as cute as she is.  For a former roommate's welcome home surprise, I did make her favorite dog out of flour and buttercream.  A little more practice and it'll look so real it might bite!

The idea was taken from 'Hello, Cupcake!' where they have a wonderful section completely devoted to dog cupcakes!  This pug has Tootsie Roll ears, strawberry Starburst tongue, Jelly Belly eyes and nose with buttercream fur.  

(Neither one is real!)

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Curious Kind of Birthday

He was a good little monkey and always very curious.

Do you remember the first time you read a Curious George book?  For most of us, those books were written before we can remember or were even born (1941), but it is definitely something that we all have in common.  Heck, George could do everything!  He went to school, to the doctor and even to the moon!

Little William loves George.  I would bet good money that "George" was among the first ten words he ever spoke :)  Even though he was as sick as he could be on his 2nd birthday, he still just wanted George.

One of my favorite fun facts about Curious George is this:

Hans and Margret Rey narrowly escaped the Nazis by fleeing Paris in 1940 only hours before the Nazis invaded. They bicycled out of the city with the original manuscript of Curious George on their backs.

I'm not sure what is more impressive, that they escaped the Nazis on bicycle or that they managed to remember to grab George on the way out.

George won William over!  Yellow cake with chocolate and peanut butter frosting that makes his face.  Jelly belly for a nose, black licorice for a mouth, and mini Nilla Wafers for ears.  That's some 2nd birthday party!

What was your favorite birthday cake or party theme as a kid?

When I was maybe four (mom can correct me on this), I made her bake me a wedding cake complete with a bride and groom bear couple for a cake topper.  It doesn't get much better :)

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