Monday, September 28, 2009

Weekend Birthday Celebrations!

Don't you love surprise parties?  I do.  (Not having one thrown for me, but being "in" on the surprise!)  A friend was celebrating the Big Three-Oh on Friday, and her fiancée put together a small gathering of friends to surprise her.  Unfortunately, he could not answer the favorite cake flavor question, so I had to resort to Facebook sleuthing.  Ugh!  Luckily I was able to find a note about the birthday girl's favorite ice cream flavor being mint chocolate chip, so I decided to go on that.  Finally, something good came from those ubiquitous Facebook quizzes/20 things about me/etc.!



Mint chocolate chip cake: A velvety chocolate cake topped with whipped mint chocolate chip ganache (which ended up melting/softening very quickly!  It did not hold its whip.  Tasted great though.) and whipped icing.  Lettering cut from rolled mint chocolate candy clay.

I was also commissioned to make cupcakes and a main cake for a little girl's first birthday party, which had a rubber ducky theme (how fun!).

Golden vanilla and rich chocolate cupcakes are topped with either plastic ducky picks...



...Or molded candy duckys.


The centerpiece cake was an almond pound cake baked in a 3-D rubber ducky pan.  In my rush to get everything packaged and ready for delivery, I forgot to snap a picture of him.  It's really too bad, because he ended up "dying" before the party.  After delivery, I was informed that the ducky started leaning at its destination...and then...*gasp* his head fell off!  :(  I'm not sure what happened here; I even made a practice duck the previous week because of my fear of tipping and/or decapitation.  The practice ducky stood proudly for 2 days before I finally cut him up, but he didn't have to endure a bumpy car ride!  I didn't think my driving was that crazy...

3 comments:

  1. Those are too cute! I only wish they had a mold for the devil duckies I collect. My fav is the pirate devil duckie. That would make one wicked cupcake.

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  2. I am in love with those bubbles under the ducky! How in the heck did you do that!!!

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  3. Hi LollyChops! To make the bubbles, I piped out blobs of a crusting buttercream with various sized tound tips (I think it was Wilton 5, 10, and 12 tips). When the blobs have crusted over slightly, gently pat down the points with a cornstarch-dipped finger. I'd pipe out maybe 6 cupcakes before I went back to the first one to pat down the points to make bubbles! Hope that makes sense :)

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