Red Velvet Cupcakes

Long time no blog! I would say that I'm super busy and hardly have time to sit and write a post but that would be a lie because all I do is sit around and do nothing....okay maybe not nothing but you get the idea.

I have a bunch of exciting new projects lined up which I can't wait to blog about. If your not much of a reader and just want to see updated pictures of what I create, take a look at my Facebook page and while your there, might as well like the page to keep updated :) Shameless self promotion.... I know

Anyway, I took a crack at a Martha Stewart Red Velvet Cake recipe. I can't remember the exact link and forgot to take it down so I don't feel right sharing the recipe but I'm sure a simple Google search would yield the same results.

I decided to fancy them up with some gum paste flowers and try some two toned icing as well. This was also my first time trying Swiss Meringue Buttercream. I was pretty nervous about trying it because I'm quite comfortable with my super sweet buttercream icing but decided to take on the challenge. I only made half a batch at first and was surprised by how easy and yummy it was that I made another half batch to equal one batch :) I will blog about the process later but let me just tell you that the result tasted DIVINE! It tasted like silk and butter had a baby in my mouth. I could have ate the whole bowl myself!

HOWEVER, I didn't like how it tasted on the red velvet cupcakes. The cupcakes were quite sweet which made the SMBC taste not as sweet and too rich. I would like to try the SMBC on regular white or vanilla cupcakes and see how that works out. Or maybe I just didn't make it right and that's why it was that way.

Let me know what you guys think! And check out my Facebook page if you get a chance :)

Monkeying Around

Okay guys its time to get serious. Theres no time for monkeying around and tomfoolery (where the hell did I hear that word and why am I using it?)

I recently received a request for some cute little monkey toppers for 2 year old baby twins. These were a complete joy to work on because they totally distracted me from the rest of the cray cray that is my life. I'm going to start using more hip words like cray cray and oh em gee because apparently I'm getting old and thus feel the need to connect with the inner youth in me. BOO YEAH! Wait do they still say that?

I used chocolate fondant for the bodies and skin coloured fondant for the rest of the bodily features.

I followed this tutorial and I think they came out cute as a button. I absolutely hated the skin colour fondant I was using. It smelled gross and was so much harder to work with than the fondant I use regularly. It was also overpriced and came with very little in the packaging. Overall, a very bad product.

But this post is about monkeys and not fondant.

I wanted the girl monkey to be wearing a tutu but when I tried to wrap it around her, since she was sitting down, it just ended up looking like a frilly weird skirt. So nixed that idea and gave her a blanket instead.

I wish I could have made the whole cake so that I could tie in the theme of the cake to these monkeys. I also made a few letter blocks out of fondant but didn't manage to get a good picture other than with my phone and lets face it, with my crackberry, it may as well not be a picture at all.

I hope the twin babies and their mommy liked them!!

Happy Baking!