Glitter!

I started this blog because I love to bake. I love to share what I've made with the world, which I do on a regular basis on facebook, but I felt like there was so much missing. You don't get the story behind the cake, you just get the finished product. So this blog will be for the behind the scenes bits, if you will.

First I'll start with an order I delivered this morning for 4 dozen cupcakes. I first met Aubrey a little over a year ago when she contacted me to make her a grooms cake for her wedding rehearsal. I call it the poker cake... or the p-p-p-poker cake, p-p-poker cake if you're a Gaga fan.

Can't eat my, can't eat my, no you can't eat it my poker cake.

Anyway, Aubrey's sister Kacie is having a baby (a boy!) and Aubrey needed some cupcakes for Kacie's baby shower. When I met with the sisters, who are both amazingly sweet and nice, we quickly came up with a design and flavors- Snickers and vanilla cupcakes in simple but pretty designs. With glitter. Lots of glitter.

Cupcakes in various stages of filling.

I've never made Snickers flavored cupcakes before so I broke each piece of the bar down and translated it into cake. I came up with a moist chocolate cake filled with chocolate whipped frosting, caramel & peanuts, topped with chocolate ganache. I should have taken better pictures because filling cupcakes is no longer scary! All I did was take a small circle cookie cutter, press it down in the middle of the cupcake, twist and lift out. Cut the top off of the cake plug, fill your cupcake, and put the top back on. Super easy! Plus, then you have cake middle leftovers for midnight snacking.



These cupcakes also gave me the chance to use glitter for the first time. And let me tell you, it definitely won't be the last- this stuff is amazing! I made the toppers all a few days in advance so they'd have plenty of time to dry, and I think they came out perfectly. I researched the best way to use glitter beforehand and I'm really glad I did. All you have to do is thin some piping gel out with a little water, brush it on the item you want to cover in glitter, and shake some glitter on top. I used a teaspoon over a clean piece of paper to apply mine, that way I could just dump the leftover back into the jar. Very easy, and the results were beautiful. For the other toppers I actually made a piping gel/glitter mixture and piped it onto fondant discs. And yes, sang Justin Bieber the entire time in my head. I couldn't help it!

I also want to include a picture of how I package my cupcakes for delivery. I found out about this technique from a post someone made on the internet, and it has worked so well for me that I like to pass it on. If you can find cupcake inserts for your boxes, obviously you don't need this, but for some reason I can't find them anywhere! All you have to do is take a piece of wide aluminum foil (make sure it's the wide one!) and flatten it over the back of a cupcake pan, forming cups. The sheet cake boxes you can buy at Walmart, Hobby Lobby, etc. fit 2 trays, or 24 cupcakes. This way, your cupcakes don't slide around and stay perfectly decorated.

No more worrying about tipped cupcakes!