Hooray for Bollywood!

I think I have to say that this cake order is one of the most interesting ones I've had in a long time. A couple of weeks ago, I got a message from a long time client, Ratna asking if I could make either cupcakes or a cake for a party she was throwing for her sister. Her sister was moving to Wisconsin from California (I hope she's ready for Wisconsin winters!) and the theme of the party is Bollywood Bash.

The picture Ratna sent me was of some very intricately decorated cupcakes with flowers and paisley designs painted on the frosting. I immediately began to feel overwhelmed - I've never even done that kind of painting before. But did I give up? Nope! Instead I did a search and found a reasonable alternative that was much more in the realm of my skill set. After some back and forth, we agreed on cake flavor and frosting color. Then it was just up to me to get the needed materials. It took me a while to find the gold beads, but I found them at Cook's, a baking supply store right here in Milwaukee. The paisley design was made with a leaf cutter, and I attached the beads with gum glue, which is a mixture of water and gum paste. I had initially thought of making royal icing, but decided to give gum glue a try and it worked!

Here are the final cupcakes. And there is much more to the color scheme than meets the eye - these cupcakes are color-coded! To add variety to the chocolate cake, Ratna asked me to add filling to the cupcakes. And then I devised a color scheme to help the party guests know which cupcakes had which filling. Orange - peanut butter buttercream. Pink - peppermint buttercream. Purple - coffee buttercream.

A big welcome to Ratna's sister - I hope you love Wisconsin and had fun at your Bollywood welcoming party!

Halloween Cupcakes!

Last year in the middle of November I was grocery shopping and right there on the clearance table was a box of Halloween funfetti cake mix for 75 cents. I looked at the expiration date and saw that it didn't expire until December of 2012, so I bought it, figuring that I could make cupcakes for one of my kids to take to school for a Halloween party.

Well, fast forward to the beginning of September this year, when I discovered at the school open house that my daughter's K4 teacher is anti-cupcake. Gasp! Well, I guess I can understand where she is coming from. After all, I know all too well the mess that comes with giving a 4 year old a cupcake, and when you multiply that by 15, it would be quite a lot for even two adults to clean up! My son, being in the 2nd grade, is too old for silly kid parties at school (how is he growing up so fast?), so I had to come up with a way to use that cake mix and do it fast. I thought of making cake pops, but by the time I volunteered it to the teacher, she had already gotten offers from two other parents to bring Halloween treats and wanted to keep it at that.

So back I was at square one... what to do with this cake mix? Well, my hubby mentioned to me a few days ago that one of the ladies he works with, who did cake decorating when she was younger, was asking how my cake decorating was coming along. Bingo! I baked them up, decorated them last night and sent them to work with my husband this morning. He came home with an empty tupperware container, saying that "They were a big hit!". And of course I left out two for my kids to have after their dinner tonight. What kind of mother would I be if I didn't? :)

Here's the entire assortment:

 And a close-up of the mummy cupcakes - lots of fun!

Happy Halloween!!