Friday, July 31, 2009

Allergic To Fish Fish Cake!


Super cute Adele from Dace (incidentally one of my favorite Vancouver clothing brands) ordered a hilarious cake for her boyfriend Ryan's birthday bash: a fish cake on a platter complete with lettuce and tomatoes, as Ryan is very allergic to the real thing! This fish cake stressed me out beyond mental reason-- I think I worried about it for two weeks straight, and could not sleep the night before the beginning of Fogerty the Fish's production, this being my very first fish cake. I drew out my design and tried to think like a little cake engineer: how would I make this large sheet cake look like a ridiculously adorable fish about to be eaten for dinner??

Thanks to my husband and jack of all trades Richie for helping me carve my fish Fogerty into a nice fish shape! And of course for helping me "lay down the roof tiling" on my little fishy's scales. You are the best RT!!!

Here is the "making of" of Fogerty the Fish. Enjoy!!

Pre-Fogerty: diagrams, diagrams help me lots.

First, a giant sheet cake! Eggless chocolate cake, with vanilla buttercream.

"The first trim is the deepest"

The second trim is much better: Rich Trawick to the rescue! Master Carver!

Delightful carved away cake, to be eaten at a later time by probably Rich Trawick

Freshly frosted once again, post-carve!

Two different colors of green fondant later, the cake is covered, with fins intact...


Much later: the finished product!! Tomatoes and lettuce, and Rich helped perfect the scales!


"Le Poisson, le poisson... Hee hee hee haw haw haw!"

Close-up of my cute little tomatoes and veined lettuce.

"Qui, moi, Fogerty??" looking sad with his gift for Ryan, the tomato topped cupcake.

Adele, hope Ryan had a great birthday party!!! Til next time blog world,

xo

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Pink, White, Silver, Brown... Pretty!!!








Loved doing this. Loved it. A phone call from Whitehorse in the Yukon Territories of Canada-- a pink, girly birthday for a special 17 year old!! A custom cupcake stand even! Oh boy. It's great to have such freedom in creating something truly special and unique-- and to have people trust me in the design process in coming up with that something special. The request was for pink, cream and chocolate colors, with some sort of "bling" element-- anything a 17 year old girl might like. I made pink flags out of heart craft paper, and adorned these little sticker rhinestone things to them. I also made this custom stand and made a matching Happy Birthday flag. I love how it all turned out!

Thanks Susan for calling me-- I hope the cupcakes were a gorgeous hit!

Monday, July 27, 2009

Matcha Matcha Man









Matcha makes me think of: Macho Man Randy Savage from my childhood days of watching WWF Wrestling, and the Village People tune!

And of course, that taste that can only be described as itself: matcha green tea. Engine Digital requested some matcha buttercream topped cupcakes for Kele's birthday, as well as some lactose free chocolate ganache cupcakes for Adrian's birthday too!

Saturday, July 25, 2009

Super Gorgeous Wedding Cupcakes!









After a stylish Vegas wedding, Maryanne and Dennis' wedding reception was held today on this beautiful, hot Vancouver afternoon! A few years ago my oldest sis (now mommy to the ridiculously cute and hilarious Brody!) Leanne had her stagette party in Vegas. Ten or twelve of us descended upon Paris Hotel for a weekend of, let's say "eye-opening!" experiences!! It was tons of fun!

Maryanne obviously has great taste because she chose the cutest combination of cupcakes for her party: Coconut Dream, Lemon Love with lemon buttercream, chocolate buttercream cupcakes with Belgian chocolate sprinkles, and vanilla cupcakes with vanilla creamcheese frosting and silver dragees! I thought all these flavours looked so gorgeous together! I love how WILD Coconut Dream seems. Like Albert Einstein hair.

Congratulations you two! Now you have a fun place to visit on every anniversary-- Vegas!!

Friday, July 24, 2009

Banana Chocolate Chip Cupcakes





I had a super duper craving for banana chocolate chip SOMETHING. And, since I was having my work pals over for a BBQ, I thought-- well heck! There are two brown and spotty bananas attracting fruit flies over there. I'm gonna show those bananas a thing or two. I quickly made up a recipe using the basics-- beat butter and sugar, add banana, add eggs and vanilla, add dry ingredients, beat on low until blended... then I threw in the rest of a huge bag of chocolate chips. No measuring here. A minute after they came out of the oven I took a little knife and cut into one. Then I ate one. Then I covered the cupcakes with chocolate ganache, and topped with a fresh raspberry. Then I ate another one.

"SELF CONTROL!" Nice one Lyndsay... !!! Over the winter I developed what I called my "buttercream belly", from tasting so many of my own little baked goods. This last month I've been huffing it big time at the gym and outdoors trying to whittle the old buttercream belly down. Meh, sometimes you just can't help but chomp two cupcakes in a row. And I'll have one later for dessert, heehee!!

Will this flavour make it into the Coco Cake Cupcakes Hall Of Fame and Order Page? I gotta revise and test it a bunch first!!!

Bye for now,

xo

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Matcha Green Tea Buttercream Cupcakes!



Extreme deliciousness alert: if you are bonkers for green tea like meeeee, you will love Coco Cake Cupcakes' very pretty matcha green tea buttercream topped chocolate cupcakes. Delightfully delicous and naturally green from the real matcha green tea paste I made!!! I am in love with these little brown and white stripey cupcake liners too, and the Belgian dark chocolate sprinkles on top! These puppies have since been added to the Coco Cake cupcake flavour lineup, and will be updated soon-ish on my new website! (coming soon when I have time to finish it, oh boy...)

Monday, July 20, 2009

Blue Pup, Little Flower, Cupcake Party







Yuki phoned me to request something special for her sister's baby shower, so I came up with a cute little colour palette and theme of blue dogs and sky blue, white and yellow, to match her very lemony Lemon Love Coco Cake cupcakes!

I just love how the light blue and white lettering turned out... kawaii!! Best of luck to your sister, Yuki!

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Fish and Chips, Cute Wedding At The Beach!






Drive about 40 minutes outside of Vancouver and you can get to so many crazy little destinations. Crescent Beach is in White Rock and it's where we would sometimes go when we were kids to go crabbing and play in the sand and eat fish and chips at the beach. There is an adorable little strip of street at the end of "Crescent Street" which has an organic cafe and grocer, ice cream shops, fish and chips shops and a few nice looking bistros. This was the setting for Hayhlee and Mitch's wedding. I met Hayhlee first at Indie I Do at my Coco Cake cupcake booth, and she was very cute and sweet! The wedding colour palette was purple and green, a great combo I thought!! Hayhlee sent me two samples of her wedding invitation to show me the colours; I ended up using the paper to make two cute little flags for her cupcakes.

Hayhlee requested mini chocolate cupcakes, some frosted with peppermint buttercream, and some frosted with creamcheese frosting-- a delicious combination! The cupcakes were on display, but were also the wedding favour, housed in little mini takeout boxes at the end of the night!

Congratulations Hayhlee and Mitch!!