pumpkin spice mini cupcakes with brown butter cream cheese frosting

Okay, wow. I just checked the date on these pictures, and turns out I made these about four years ago, but never had a chance to blog about them. Whoops!

Anyhow, sooooo I made these little mini pumpkin cupcakes four years ago! I had leftover pumpkin puree from something or other (I can't remember at this point!), and so I decided to turn that into mini cupcakes. Just for fun. So for the batter I used Martha Stewart's trusty pumpkin cupcake recipe from her "Cupcakes" book (also used for these Halloween Jack-o-lantern cupcakes, as well as this pumpkin layer cake with piped roses).

For the frosting, I took my basic cream cheese frosting (recipe in my book, The Hello Kitty Baking Book), but instead of regular butter, I browned the butter by melting it in a pan over medium heat, waited for it to brown, and then chilled it until it because solid again. Then I let it come to room temperature before incorporating it in my frosting. (Yes, sounds like a lot of additional work, but SO worth it for that brown butter flavor!!!)

To get the cute little dollop-shaped frosting on top, I used a pastry bag fitted with just a coupler (or you could also just use a large round tip). Holding the bag upright above the center of the cupcake, squeeze your frosting out slowly, and use a pumping motion to keep the frosting moving outwards. Once the frosting has spread almost to the diameter of your cupcake, stop squeezing the piping bag and slowly lift the pastry bag up and away from your cupcake, to give you that cute little point on the top.

And there you have it! Super simple yet tasty. And perfect for Halloween, or even Thanksgiving! Enjoy!

tiered peaches and cream layer cake with handmade gold fondant letter toppers

In addition to the blue bunting smash cake and Korean hanbok cookies that I made for baby Aaron's first birthday, I also made this tiered monogrammed cake for the party! Irene had wanted a white tiered cake topped with Aaron's initials in gold letters.

For the fondant letters, I started making them about a week in advance, to give them time to dry in time. I rolled out white fondant to about 1/8 inch thick, and then used a ruler and a pizza cutter to cut out long strips of fondant, with I used to form my letters.

Next I used this gold edible cake paint, or "cake graffiti", to spray my letters a pretty gold color.

I ended up spraying multiple coats, to get a nice deep gold color.

For the cake itself, Irene wanted the same cake that I had made for her baby shower - a fluffy vanilla cake filled with fresh nectarines and homemade whipped cream. So I baked up my favorite vanilla cake (recipe in my book, The Hello Kitty Baking Book) in two 8-inch cake pans, and then doubled the recipe to bake a larger set of layers in two 10-inch cake pans. 

Once cooled, I sliced each cake layer in half horizontally, giving me four 8-inch layers, and four 10-inch layers. Then I filled each layer with freshly whipped cream and fresh sliced nectarines.

Here's the 8-inch cake being assembled, and then frosted with cream cheese buttercream.

And here's the 10-inch cake being assembled.

After chilling both layers, I stacked them (with bamboo skewers inside to hold the top layer in place, see this tiered circus carnival cake for a picture of what I do with the skewers). Then, the final touch was placing the gold fondant letters on top (secured with a bit of frosting on the bottom of each letter).

I loved how the lettering turned out!

At the party, Irene did such a great job on setting up the Korean "dol" table! And look how cute the Korean hanbok cookies that I made look plated on gold trays next to the tiered cake!

Here's a quick photo collage of the party.

And a precious photo of the family :)

Happy Birthday, baby Aaron! Your party was spectacular!

korean hanbok cookies for a baby first birthday 'dol' party

Along with the blue bunting smash cake that I made for my friend Irene's son's first birthday party, I also made these Korean hanbok cookies! Irene was going to have a traditional Korean "Dol" table set up, so we thought it would be adorable to have plated Korean hanbok cookies (colored to resemble her son's Korean hanbok outfit for the party!)

I of course did not have a hanbok cookie cutter, so I asked my hubby to make me another custom copper cutter (yay hubby!). Armed with my shiny new cutter and a few batches of my favorite sugar cookie dough (recipe in my book, The Hello Kitty Baking Book), I cut out my shapes, baked them at 350F until golden (about 10-12 minutes), and let them cool.

Once the cookies were cool, I started on the royal icing (recipe also in my book). I tinted the majority of it navy blue (Americolor royal blue gel coloring, along with a few drops of super black and violet), and piped the outline of the vest with stiff navy icing.

Then I filled it in with runny navy icing. Next I piped the details of the inside shirt with white stiff icing, and then filled it in with white runny icing.

Next I used stiff pink icing to outline the pants and a bit of detail on the vest, and then filled in the pants with runny pink icing (by the time I started on the next set of icing details, it was dark out so please excuse badly lit pictures!).

Next I outlines the sleeves with stiff brown icing, then added yellow dot details along the vest, as well as a yellow stripe and red stripe on the sleeve (done with medium stiffness icing).

To finish the rainbow sleeves, I filled in the remainder of the stripes (blue and green medium icing), and used red stiff icing to pipe a sash-style belt. And then (several hours later) it was done!

They came out better than I had expected!

Wheeeee!

I'll leave you with a few pictures from the party ...

... and I of course had to include a picture of little Aaron in his adorable Korean hanbok outfit, with his matching cookies!

Happy first birthday, sweet Aaron!!!

baby first birthday carrot cake (with applesauce instead of sugar) smash cake with handmade fondant bunting

My friend Irene has a son named Aaron, who recently just turned one! For his first birthday party, Irene asked me to make a few goodies, one of which was a carrot-cake smash cake for baby! To decorate, we decided that I would make a fondant blue bunting with his name on it, along with a big fondant number "1" for the cake topper.

About week before the party, I started making the topper, so that it would have enough time to dry. I basically took a big hunk of white fondant, rolled it out to about 3/4" thick, and then cut the number "1" out with a paring knife. (I did it this way, instead of shaping it, because I wanted the nice sharp edges).

To help smooth the fondant out a bit, I used square-edge handle on a fork, along with some cornstarch to prevent sticking.

Next, I started on the blue fondant bunting. After tinting my fondant a pretty shade of blue, I rolled it out really thin, and then used a pizza wheel (and a ruler) to cut out my triangle shapes. Then I used white royal icing to pipe letters onto each triangle of fondant (not pictured).

For the cake itself, I started on it two days before the party (I typically give myself one day to bake and cool the cakes, and then one day to frost and decorate). Irene wanted a cake without sugar in it, so I found this recipe from Natasha's Kitchen for an applesauce carrot cake. However I omitted the honey, and added a few squirts of agave instead, and I also made homemade applesauce instead of store-bought.

I also bought organic carrots to grate into the carrot cake (only the best for baby!).

I baked the cakes in four 6-inch round cake pans, and let them cool before filling and stacking them with freshly whipped cream.

Then I covered the tops and sides with cream cheese buttercream (crumb coat, chilled for 30 minutes, and then then final coat).

To finish off the cake, I used a Wilton #7 tip to pipe little beads of frosting along the top and bottom of the cake.

To secure each bunting triangle, I piped a small dot of frosting on the back of the triangle, before placing it on the cake.

And the final touch - the big fondant number "1"!

In the next few posts I'll have more on the rest of the goodies that I made, but in the meantime here's a picture of the birthday boy as he investigates his cake! He's SO cute!!!

Happy First Birthday, little Aaron!