Red Sox Cake

 For my Dad's 50th birthday, guess who was in charge of the cake?  Yours truly.  His only request was "chocolate."  While I could have just picked up a chocolate sheet cake, I figured I should make him one of my cakes...since he is my dad and all :)  After thinking long and hard, I decided that baseball season was close enough and that I was going to make him a Red Sox cake. 

I covered the cake with white fondant.  Then I cute a large circle out of white fondant.  Then I cut red "Socks" out of fondant and decorated them with white royal icing and white fondant. Then I piped blue and red baseball seams on it.  Finally I finished the cake with blue shell borders. 

Flower Cupcakes: Bridal Shower

 The bride's request was to have vanilla cupcakes with chocolate frosting (her fav)...and she wanted her bridesmaid colors to be included (green, purple, and yellow).  I thought this would be a challenge because I wouldn't be able to tint chocolate frosting.

 I cut purple and green circles out of marshmallow fondant.  Then I used a flower cookie cutter to make imprints of flowers (lightly) on the circles. This gave the fondant some texture and was going to match the daisy I added to each one.  Since I still needed to tie-in the color yellow, I added my favorite embellishment, DAISIES! There were beautiful and simple...

Zoo Animal Cupcakes

For a baby's first birthday, what could be better than zoo/jungle animals?  I cut out the background using a round cutter and green marshmallow fondant.  Then I scoured my kitchen for the right shapes to use as cutters for the animal parts.  After much searching, I remembered seeing "homemade cookie cutters" on www.pinterest.com using soda cans.  See my tutorial of how to create your own cookie cutters, or in my case, fondant cutters.  I used my own cutters to create these adorable zebras.

 Next I used yellow and orange marshmallow fondant to create lions.  For all the cupcakes, I "painted" all the details by hand using food coloring gel.

 The next cupcakes I created were the giraffes.  I used yellow and beige fondant.  I had to free hand the ears and the horns.

 Last, what zoo is complete without monkeys?  I created the monkeys using brown and beige marshmallow fondant.  Then I painted on a variety of monkey faces.  Below are the 2 dozen cupcakes and the baby smash cake for the birthday boy!

Baby Zoo Smash Cake

 This is a smash cake for a baby's 1st birthday.  It goes with the zoo animal cupcakes.  For a smash cake, I always cover with buttercream (rather than fondant).  I used one of the giraffe cupcake toppers on the cake and decorated with coordinating green icing. 

Football: Chocolate Covered Strawberries

       I just wanted to share a VERY SIMPLE football treat that anyone can make.  These strawberries were covered with melted chocolate.  I usually dip them while they are on skewers and then stick the other end of the skewers into floral foam (to keep the strawberries from being flat on one side).  Once the chocolate dries you can pipe on the details using either melted white chocolate or royal icing.  They are treats that are going to impress with very little work!