bakerella's cake pops!

disclaimer: i can not take any credit for the creativity in this project!

bakerella, my favorite website, makes these awesome cake pops! i've been wanting to try to make her cake pops for a while now, so last weekend i had a free sunday, so i decided to give it a shot!

since we are just days away from thanksgiving, i decided to do her turkey pops (here is a picture of her version)...
and her cupcake pops in thanksgiving colors (her version in this picture again)...
of these 2, which do you think would be easier? i definitely thought the turkeys were going to be impossible and that the cupcakes would be super easy. boy was i wrong! the rest of these pictures are my cake pops...

the turkeys you had to act quickly before the chocolate hardened, but they were so easy and turned out so cute!...

kissing turkeys!

but the cupcakes were so hard to get in that perfect shape!

i think they looked more like acorns than cupcakes!

i wrapped them up in little baggies and brought them to our thanksgiving luncheon at work.

i think i will be trying these again soon! they were fun!

pumpkin cupcakes

when i found this recipe on real simple, i just couldn't resist!

(these photos are inspired by one of my newest idols, bakerella)

my ingredients with a little variation from real simple...

one 18.5-ounce box yellow cake mix (plus the ingredients called for in the package directions--except for the water!!! i also substituted egg whites for the eggs and did about 90% apple sauce/10% oil---you could probably skip the oil all together since the pumpkin is so moist)

1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

one 15-ounce can pumpkin puree

tw0 8-ounce bars cream cheese, at room temperature

2 cups confectioners’ sugar

24 pieces candy corn

pre heat oven to 350° f

prepare the cake mix as directed but instead of the water called out in the cake instructions, substitute the can of pumpkin puree and add the pumpkin pie spice

line two 12-cup muffin tins with paper liners (mine were probably a bit larger, so i only got 18 out of the mix)

fill the muffin tins about 2/3 full and bake at 350° f for 18-22 minutes (mine took the full 22) or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out clean

let cool on a dry rack

mix up the powdered sugar and cream cheese

(i actually found that you could add more powdered sugar to make it less runny)

dip in icing or spread on with a knife (knife was trickier, but looked the best in the end)

top each cupcake with a piece of candy corn (and try not to eat the rest of them yourself like i did!!)

girly flower cakes

this past weekend my friend lisa and i took on quite the challenge...making 2 (not 1) birthday cakes for a little girl birthday party! their only request was that we use lots of red, yellow, gerber daisies and sunflowers!!

to make the flowers we used gum paste! dyed it, rolled it out, & cut it with the flower cutter. 2 petals were used for each flower.
then the center was a circular cut out that was pressed against a metal colander.

so simple! and cute!

we made about a dozen big and 8 small for each cake.

the next few steps (baking, icing, decorating, etc.) i forgot to take pictures of (oops!), but here is the one i did get because charlie (lisa's english bull dog puppy) was biting my pants while i iced the cake! he is such a cutie!

the finished product! this was a chocolate cake with butter cream icing.

the 'red cake' was a strawberry cake with more butter cream icing (we went through a lot of butter cream!!)

this was such a fun project that i think i would enjoy doing more of ;)

sarah & steve's wedding cake

sarah & steve's wedding cake was absolutely beautiful!

i loved their cake topper too! super cute!!

it tasted awesome too! the filling was delicious! i ate all of mine!

steve and i at tower grove park

'the list serve' girls :) we had such a great time!

lisa and jen's birthday

for friends lisa and jen's combined birthday celebration, i made my very first from scratch chocolate cake! the cake turned out really good too! there were 4 layers with raspberry filling in between and butter cream icing! i covered the cake in fondant and decorated with colored fondant polka dots! the top has an "l" and "j" for the birthday girls (can you tell?)!
the birthday girls!

mike & katie's wedding cake

at mike & katie's wedding we had a very delicious cake!

i had such a great time hanging out with jenni & nickie!!

my 26th birthday cakes

i had an amazing 26th birthday in dallas this year! my friends were soooo nice to get me a cake from the frosted art bakery in dallas owned by one of my favorite cake artists, bronwen weber! i can't believe i got a cake made by her...she is like my cake idol :) the cake looked awesome, and it tasted even better! it was a vanilla cake with white chocolate icing in-between the layers, and chocolate icing on the outside. probably the best cake i've ever eaten!!

we celebrated my birthday with our friends at a murder mystery dinner!

it was based on the tv show "dallas", and there was even audience participation! i was the "lucy" character :)

there was also actors playing a couple of the main characters. here we are with "jr" :)

i was lucky enough to have 2 birthday cakes this year! steve also got me a cake from dairy queen...it was delicious!!!!!

lauren and nick's wedding cake

lauren's wedding was so beautiful! the sunflower cake was really pretty! it went well with their theme too!

all of us girls!

yummmmm.....