baby shower duckie cake and cupcakes

To go along with the baby shower duckie and onesie cookies that I made a while back, I also made an 8-inch red velvet cake, one dozen chocolate cupcakes, and one dozen vanilla cupcakes.  For the red velvet, I used a recipe from Martha Stewart's "Cupcakes" book, except that I baked it in two 8-inch pans instead of making cupcakes.  Then for the filling, I whipped up a batch of cream cheese frosting and spread it onto the first layer of cake.

For the frosting, I made a batch of buttercream, and then added a stick of cream cheese to it at the end (this is my favorite frosting to use lately).  Then I tinted it lightly with sky blue coloring, to match the blue in the onesie cookies that I had made.

After first adding a "crumb coat" of frosting and letting that set in the fridge for a bit, I added another layer of frosting to the top only, and smoothed it out as well as I could with an offset spatula.  Then I piped on a basketweave design on the sides of the cake.

To finish off the basketweave design, I piped on a shell border around the top and the bottom of the cake.

Next I piped on a duckie using yellow frosting for the body, orange frosting for the beak, and brown frosting for the eyes.  I filled in the duckie body with a star tip, and used a #3 tip to pipe a swirly design for the wing.

The final touch was to pipe on a congratulations message with melted chocolate!

Since the cake would not be enough to serve the guests, I also baked one dozen chocolate cupcakes, and one dozen vanilla cupcakes.  I used the same piped basketweave design to cover half of them with blue frosting, and half of them with white frosting.  Then all of them were topped with a little piped yellow duckie, the same way I did the duckie cupcakes that I made a couple years ago.

I hope the happy parents-to-be enjoyed all of the goodies!

baby shower duckie and onesie cookies

My friend Cindy has a cousin who asked me to make baby shower goodies a few months ago.  We decided on an 8-inch cake and two dozen cupcakes (blog post to come later), and also duckie and onesie cookies for the favors.  I've made onesie cookies a few times before, but had not made duckie cookies yet.  Luckily, I had recently bought this animal cookie cutter set, which included a duck cookie cutter!

I used my favorite homemade sugar cookie recipe, but you could of course use store bought.  Once they were cut, baked, and cooled, I started on making my royal icing, also from the same book.  I divided the icing into separate air-tight containers so that I could mix in the colors; I would be needing white, blue, yellow, a tiny bit of orange, and an even tinier bit of black.

For the duckies, I started by piping on an outline with stiff yellow icing, leaving an empty space for the beaks, and then filled the ducks in with thinned yellow icing. Then I piped an orange outline for the beaks, and then filled them in with thinned orange icing.

After letting them dry overnight, I piped on another orange outline on top of the beaks, and then another yellow outline over the rest of the ducks.  Then I piped on the outline of the wings, and finally dotted each eye with stiff black icing.

For the onesies, I used this cookie cutter to cut out my shapes. Then once baked and cooled, I first piped an outline with stiff white icing, and then filled it all in with thinned white icing.  Once that dried overnight, I piped on an outline with stuff blue icing, as well as blue details including buttons and a little heart in the center of the onesie.

Once everything was completely dry, I packaged them in individual cellophane bags, tied with raffia and a custom favor tag.  I hope everyone at the baby shower enjoyed them!  Stay tuned for the cake and cupcakes that went along with these cookies!

*** Update: The matching baby shower cake and cupcakes can be found here!

duckie cupcakes

I made these "duckie" cupcakes for my friend Naomi's "mini" baby shower.  Her mom planned an intimate gathering that was separate from her real baby shower, and she was doing a "duckie" theme, so I made a dozen red velvet cupcakes, and a dozen carrot cupcakes.

Her mom did such a good job with the table and decorations!

Everyone brought a dish or two, and it was all deelish!

I especially loved Naomi's deviled eggs.  I think I must have eaten like five.  Probably more.

We ended the day with games and dessert.  And lots of chatting and gossiping and catching up.  Happy "mini" baby shower, Naomi!