College Cupcakes

A little bit of back-blogging today! I've had problems with uploading pictures.

Back in May, my good friend Alison's little brother graduated from SMU here in Dallas. Alison asked me to make graduation cupcakes for Owen and I was honored! Here is how they turned out.



Alex and I didn't make it to Owen's graduation party, but I hear the cupcakes were a success! Congrats Owen!

Dad's 60th Birthday Cake

So I've been wanting to do this post for some time now, but I tend to have problems uploading pictures with Blogger.

Anywho, back in May, my Dad celebrated his 60th birthday. Mom arranged a surprise party for him at our favorite restaurant, Giuseppe's. We had quite a crowd! Dad's coworkers, Lori and Randy, me and Alex, Stan and Carol, and Jeff, Ryan, and Shannon! The extra special treat was having The Abbott family in town from Virginia.

I tried to make Dad a Splenda Cake (see my previous post!), but that didn't turn out so well. So I decided to make a giant cupcake cake. After quite a bit of laboring, here it is:



Here is Dad with his birthday cupcake!



Everyone had a great time celebrating Dad's birthday. There is nowhere that I would rather be than spending an evening with my family! Here is a parting picture of me and Alex....

Me as a 1930s Wife?

Apparently I would be pretty good at it, who knew?!

60 As a 1930s wife, I am Superior Take the test!

So much for a Splenda Cake

So I tried to make a Splenda cake for my Dad's birthday....I had the special Splenda cookbook and everything. The recipes I used were for a yellow cake and cream cheese icing, with Splenda replacing granulated sugar. That was really the only change made from a normal cake recipe. I thought it would turn out just fine. Turns out, the cake had a cornbread consistency, and the cream cheese icing tasted like I had just softened some cream cheese, no real sweetness to it at all. What a bummer....here's a couple of pics. Alex was my guinea pig, as usual, and he didn't think it was BAD, but didn't think it was good either. :)





At least Alex is still okay with being my guinea pig after that bomb of a cake! :)

Baby Shower Cupcakes

One of my co-workers is VERY pregnant with her first baby, to be named Luke, and I was asked to make the cupcakes for the shower. Here they are:



Pineapple cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, topped with cotton candy sprinkles. This was a personal request from the Mom-to-Be. She is due in a little over a week. Congrats Jenn!!

Fondant Cake #2

My Brother's Decorating "Lesson"

I had made an extra layer cake iced with buttercream for my cake decorating class, but I ended up not going to class that week. I brought along the cake to my parent's house on New Years Eve in case we got the urge to decorate it. My brother Jeff decided to have a go at it.

Here I am showing Jeff different tips and what they do...



And here he is watching intently.....



And he's off! (Under my watchful eye, of course.)





Well, after much effort and thought, here is Jeff with his creation.



Well, I guess I taught him well....here I am with Jeff's masterpiece.