Blueberry Basil Mojito…Cheers to My Big Sister on Her Birthday!.
Wendy asked me to do these cupcakes for her friend’s 50th birthday. She wanted me to include Tracy’s name and the caption ‘on the ‘move’ as well as some 50’s. Her friend Tracy has a passion for travelling and she was about to embark on another adventure after celebrating her 50th birthday. I made some cute sugar paste suitcases by joining two oval pieces of sugar paste together and adding straps and handles to each suitcase. I added an orange letter to each green suitcase and a flower to the 2 yellow suitcases leaving the yellow ones slightly open while they dried. I added a 50 to the cupcakes with the yellow suitcase in the matching lime green and a funky orange blossom with green centre to tie in with the green, yellow and orange colour scheme. Of course no suitcase is complete without a tag on it so the tags were a perfect way to include the ‘on the move’ caption. I made the 3 orange tags and added a yellow sugar paste ribbon and tiny green blossom to each one. The perfect way to photograph these cupcakes was on an old map I had and a few odd coins from my own travels.
Cupcakes2Delite is officially a year old today as it was exactly a year ago that Wendy and I sat together and launched my new blog. As you know I had a foot op a week ago and have been off my feet since then so any baking, photography etc is strictly not allowed. I have really been missing my baking and my blogging and took the time today to just go through old pics and posts only to realise by chance that May 19th, a year ago was the beginning of my new adventure into baking and blogging. I can’t believe how far I have come in a year as my creativity both in the ideas for the cupcakes and the photography has done an about turn right under my nose. In a short time I have learned so much from so many creative and wonderful people that have ventured into my life in the past year, some of them I chat to daily and others I know only through their books or their brilliant blogs. What a creative adventure this has turned out to be and what a pleasure to have so many friends, fans and followers.
These Honey and Pistachio Cupcakes are a perfect way to celebrate a year of research, reading, questioning and laughing my way through new cupcake ideas. No I am not Superwoman and did not quickly make them today, but made them a few weeks ago for an incredible group of ladies who inspire me in so many ways on a weekly basis, my Wednesday scrapbooking gang! I bought these exquisite Wilton’s Yellow Petal cupcake holders http://www.wilton.com/ from the Chocolate Den and I wanted a cupcake that would suit the dainty green, yellow and white colouring of these cases. I made an experimental Honey & Pistachio Cupcake as being a bit colour obsessed I thought perfect match in colour with these flavours! The creamy cream cheese icing and dainty yellow flower do the final justice to the cupcake holder and the cupcakes were drop dead delicious even if I say so myself (I wish I had one now)!
You would not be seeing my cupcakes in different ways each time I blog if it was not for Lisa Nadene, my scrapbook teacher, friend and photography guru. She is the one who taught me that photography is not about just pointing a camera and hoping for the best but it is about a passionate relationship between the photographer, the camera and whoever or whatever is being photographed. Of course Lisa adds in the extra nuance of the perfect backdrop to her subject matter. I asked Lisa to take these photographs of my cupcakes and they are so perfect and inspirational for this anniversary blog. Lisa has captured everything I wanted to show off in these beautiful cupcakes.
Thank you to:
My wonderful husband Eddie, by far the best fan of my cupcakes, thanks to you for the brilliant camera and my Kitchenaid and allowing me to follow this adventure!
My 2 beautiful children, Teigh and Ceire, always willing tasters and pride and joy of my life!
My true friends who are my best critics, best fans and who provide the inspiration, gifts and laughter to get me through each challenge and project that comes my way! So many to name here but you know exactly who you are!
My customers who inspire me with their themes and ideas and their attention to detail when ordering for special occasions!
Wendy – well without you there would be no blog and life would be really dull!
Lisa – again your passion and inspiring ways have translated into everything that is beautiful about my blog!
Russell and the makers of all the beautiful cupcake stands as what would a great cupcake be without a perfect stand to show it off on!
The creative and passionate shopkeepers who willingly share their ideas and creative tips with me and all the other bakers out there!
All those brilliant authors of books, magazines, blogs, facebook pages who share their ideas so selflessly with everyone thus inspiring me to learn new techniques and try out new ideas, you are the absolute gems of this industry!
Happy Anniversary Cupcakes2Delite!
The inspiration behind these cupcakes comes from a picture that Sonja put on my facebook page. I looked at the picture and thought, wow really cool cupcakes but don’t think I would be able to make these as they look really tricky. My blogging guru who gave me the inspiration and kick-start to begin this blog said, you really must make some pleeeez. Another friend with huge faith in me wanted me to do the same so here you go girls, this is my cupcake high-heel shoe! Alen and Karen are the phenomenal team behind the Hello Cupcake blog and books which inspire and motivate countless bakers around the world http://blog.hellocupcakebook.com/ They create the most fun cupcakes I have come across in all my cupcake research. These shoe cupcakes are featured in their new book, Cupcakes, cookies, & pie, oh my. I haven’t been able to get the book yet so went purely on the picture of these cupcakes. I baked a cupcake in a pink cupcake case, flat iced the cupcake and then dipped it into pink coloured sugar crystals. I removed a small section of the cupcake for the sugar paste sole of the shoe to rest on and added a rolled wafer biscuit (strawberry flavour of course) for the heel. To give the shoe a touch of whimsy I added 3 lime green sugar paste flowers with pink centres.
I love the fun look this cupcake has and couldn’t resist photographing it here with a pink and white polka dot background. This cupcake is totally appropriate to blog this week as I have to put away my dancing shoes, in fact all my shoes, as I go into hospital for an operation on my foot on Friday and won’t be baking for a couple of months. I am sure I will find creative ways of blogging in between so to all my followers please hang around for cupcake inspiration of a different kind.
True friends are as precious and as inspiring as beautiful roses. The perfect ones only enhance our lives with their kindness, generosity and understanding. I am privileged to have many wonderful and precious friends in my life and yesterday I was inspired to say thank you to one particular friend, Michelle, through these cupcakes. Michelle was the first person to fall in love with my cupcakes and she enthusiastically ordered from me before Cupcakes2Delite was even a thought in my head! In fact the first photos I took of my cupcakes were cupcakes I made for Michelle’s husband, Marco’s, 50th birthday last April and Michelle and her family’s excitement over my cupcakes helped to sow the seed for my new business.
Michelle is a humble, generous and brilliant friend and she is a lover of all things beautiful, so it was appropriate to do these pastel pink roses for her cupcakes as I knew she would love them and spend time admiring their daintiness.
Thank you Michelle for being such a fantastic friend and for loving me and my family so unconditionally, you bring as much joy into my life as would any beautiful rose.
Julieta ordered these pastel pink, green & yellow cupcakes for her daughter, Michelle’s, birthday celebration today. The pastel pink and white polka dot cupcake cases were perfect for this colour scheme and I baked vanilla cupcakes with a rich creamy vanilla icing. Once again I made a variety of flowers to make each cupcake unique. The yellow flower is cut from embossed yellow paste and then has an embossed smaller blossom in a contrasting pink and is topped with a small sugar paste round centre. For the pink daisy below I punched out a larger embossed daisy from pastel pink sugar paste, added a medium embossed blossom to it and topped it with an embossed daisy centre in yellow, popping it onto the cupcakes with a trickle of green sugar pearls.
The green flower I cut out from embossed green sugar paste with a five-petal easy-rose cutter. I allowed it to dry into a slightly curved shape and then added a pink rolled rose to the centre. The pink sugar pearls complete the look on this cupcake.
Thank you for your order Julieta and I hope Michelle has fun celebrating with all her friends today and enjoys her gorgeous pastel cupcakes until they are all gone!
cupcakes2delite 