Leslie's Lil' Pumpkin Patch

This was my third cake in three weeks.  I had survived to the final round!

I made Leslie's wedding cake, so it was really fun to be able to make her baby shower cake as well.  The shower was in the fall and the theme was pumpkin patch.  And when you are making a cake full of pumpkins, what better flavor to use than pumpkin?

I decided to make cake pops for the pumpkins.  I used this recipe from Pop Sugar for pumpkin cake and it turned out really tasty.  I used their cream cheese frosting recipe as well.

I have a baby cakes machine, but this time I did the traditional cake pop procedure - mixing the frosting with the cake.  I formed the balls and put them in the freezer for a short time.  I melted some orange candy melts, stuck the shortened lollipop sticks in the candy, and then stuck them in the cake pops.  I put them back in the freezer to make sure the sticks would stay in the pops when I dipped them in the candy.

I dipped them in the orange candy melts put them in styrofoam cups to dry.  Cake pops are hard - I can never get them to look smooth!

For the cake, I wanted to make part of of it pumpkin and part yellow cake.  I wasn't sure if everyone would want pumpkin cake, so I need to have more than one option.

I got this nifty little tool at Hobby Lobby.  You put it in the pan, then pour in the batter on each side.  Then you quickly remove the divider.

The pumpkin batter was a lot more dense than the yellow batter, so I put that in first and kind of smooshed the divider up against it.  It was a little more difficult to do than I thought because the divider wouldn't stand up on it's own.  But it did the job!

Now, the yellow cake did bake over the pumpkin part just a tad.

But as you can see, it was just on the top.  When I cut it in half, it looks great!

I filled the yellow cake part with raspberry whipped cream filling and the pumpkin part with cream cheese frosting.

Then I covered the whole thing with green buttercream frosting.  I didn't worry about making it look smooth on the top because I was going to add grass piping.

I piped the grass and added the pumpkins.

Of course they look a little boring and plain.  So I added some leaves and vines to make them look more like pumpkins.  This is also a great way to cover up errors and bumps on your cake pops.

Now I needed to make the baby inside the pumpkin.  I made one really large cake pop and covered it with orange fondant.  Then I made a smaller, round, ivory ball for the head.

It didn't look that great - you can see where I had trouble with the fondant.  But I knew I was going to add details to it, so I didn't worry about it.

Next I made some fondant hands.  Basically you just roll a little ball of fondant and then smoosh it down into a circle.  Then using your fondant sculpting tools, you make the fingers.

I used a round cutter to cut out some cake for the hat.  I covered that in orange fondant as well and made the brown stem.  You can also see where I've pinched the nose on the baby's face.

I added the ears and the hat.  I used a toothpick dipped in black food coloring for the face details.  I also used pink petal dust for the cheeks.  I didn't put the baby on the cake until I got to the shower.  Then I piped some green leaves and vines to add a little more color and to cover up those ugly spots on the fondant.

I got this really cool mold or impression mat that makes fondant look like wood.  You roll out your fondant, then you roll it over the mat.  Viola!

A few days before, I used it to make the sign,

and the fence.  I let them dry for as long as possible.

Then I carefully brought them to the shower and added them to the cake.  The fence really adds a lot - I think it came out really well.

So glad little Avery is here and healthy and that I could make her baby shower cake!

Under the Sea

If you ever need an event planner, look no farther.  No, not me.  My friend Hillary is amazing at this stuff.  She was in charge of this shower for my sister-in-law and it was probably the best decorated shower I have ever attended!  Seriously, she has a gift.

So Hillary asked me to make some cupcakes for the shower.  The theme was Under the Sea - a Shellabration.  She found these super cute turtle cupcakes on Pinterest.

But I didn't really want to make 48 turtle cupcake toppers.  So I decided to do some starfish and shell cupcakes as well.

The shells were easy.  I used the Wilton shell candy mold and made sets of light blue, dark blue, green, and "sand" (aka peanut butter flavor) candy shells.  They turned out great!

The starfish were also really easy.  I used a star cutter and cut out thick orange fondant stars.  I used the wrong end of a piping tip to make the smiles.  I let the stars dry on the flower drying rack so that they would be slightly curved.  For the eyes, I dipped a toothpick into black food coloring and the stuck it into the star.

The turtles were slightly more complicated, but they were very cute.

I used the circle cutters for most of the turtle.  The small one made the feet.  I just had to cut off one side and reshape them.

I used the large cutter for the blue background and the medium cutter for the head and body.  I just made the head smaller.

I used the wrong end of a piping tip to make the smiles.  I used gum glue to attach the turtle to the blue background.

Then I added the legs.

I used piping tip 3 and cut the circles in half to make the little spots to go on the turtles back.

I also used a toothpick dipped in black food coloring for the turtles' eyes.

They dried overnight and then I just had to add them to the cupcakes.

I got a new cupcake stand that holds more than my old one and is a platform.  So we put brown sugar on it to look like sand and added a few candy shells.

We also placed some cupcakes on the tables as part of the centerpieces.

The cupcakes fit in great with the decor!

Edible Diapers

Unless you have absolutely no contact with babies or people who have babies, you probably are aware that cloth diapers are all the rage right now.  When my parents had us kids, they used cloth diapers.  But back then it was just the rag that you pinned together.

Nowadays, they have all these fancy diapers, with inserts, that come in all sorts of fancy colors and sizes.  My sister-in-law was due at the end of March.  She and my brother decided they wanted to use cloth diapers, so they registered for these:

Bum Genius Diapers

Super cute!  But who wants to give one diaper for a shower gift?  And yet, they are probably the most needed items on the registry.  So my mom threw a diaper-themed shower for our side of the family.  (Annnnnnd we are finally getting to the point here.)  Naturally, at a diaper-themed shower, one must have diaper themed cake, or in this case, cupcakes.

But no one has ever done diaper cupcakes before!  Okay, so I finally found one person on etsy who sells diaper shaped fondant cupcake toppers.  But that's it.  I could not find anything cake-related with diapers.  There are the creepy baby cakes where the babies are wearing diapers.

Trust me, they get a lot creepier than this.

 And the diaper cakes/cupcakes that are actual diapers.  I would not recommend trying to chow down on these.  So, what to do?

Cute, but not the taste I was going for.

I had ordered two diapers for the shower and when they arrived, I realized how simple it would be.  I would make cupcake toppers that look like the packaged diapers!

So I rolled out some different colored fondant.  I eyeballed a T-shape with a knife, then folded it up like a diaper.  I made the buttons using tip 12 and the stitching with my roller tool.

The only tools I needed (besides a knife).

Fastest fondant item I have ever made!

Some close ups:

 I whipped up the cupcakes, put on the diapers, and they turned out great!

We put them in a "B" for baby.
At the time, we didn't know her name.

Passing out the cupcakes . . .

Elisa is enjoying hers!

Kylie is here now and let me tell you, those huge cloth diapers look very cute on her little bum.  Love you Kylie!