Two Sweet Blessings

This weekend I had the honor of making not only mini cupcakes for a little guy's second birthday, but I also made his new baby sister a beautiful pink rosette cake.  Their parents apparently have super hero powers, and are throwing a joint birthday/welcome-to-the-world party for their children, only one week after baby girl was born!  Pretty impressive.

I was so pleased when this new mama asked me to make this cake for her baby girl -- what a great way to welcome a new baby into the world - with a beautiful cake!  I also got to sneak a peak of the baby when I delivered the cakes to them.  I think my creations will have a hard time standing out next to that little angel!  She's like a perfect snowflake.

While decorating these cakes, it was very important to me that the colors were perfect.  Once you learn how to make buttercream rosettes, they make for pretty quick work.  The most time consuming thing about this cake is tinting the frosting.  It is very important, because the ombre look of the cake adds sophistication, and is perfect for the birth of a sweet baby girl.  I have found that it takes a lot of thought and planning to make sure it is done correctly, especially if you're also going to be tinting frosting other colors for another project, like my blue cupcakes.

Whenever working with color, start with your lightest color and work towards the darkest.  For example, I first rolled out the white sugar paste and cut out the shape for the monogram.  If I had first tinted the dark pink or blue frosting, and then cut out the monogram shield, I may have gotten residual blue or pink on the white sugar paste.  After completing the monogram plate, I then made a large batch of buttercream, and split it into three equal portions.  I first tinted the lightest pink, using a very small amount of pink gel food coloring.  Once I was certain the color was right, I tinted the medium pink.  Once I mixed it up, I compared to the light pink to make sure it was what I wanted.  Keep in mind that tinted frostings deepen after sitting a few minutes.  If you go too crazy, all the sudden your colors may be too dark.  Repeat for the darkest pink, and then you're ready to go!

I started at the bottom of the cake and made the darkest layer of pink roses.  Then the middle, and then the top!  Then pipe on the monogram, top the cake with the monogram plate, and you're all done!

I then moved on to decorating the chocolate cupcakes.  I wanted these to be "sky inspired" cupcakes, so I split my buttercream in to two equal batches, and used the same strategy as above to tint a light blue and dark blue.  I then filled a 12" piping bag with the light blue, cutting the tip off the bag, and also filled and cut a second 12" bag with the dark blue.  Then, I put both of the bags in a 16" bag, after cutting the end off of that bag, and inserting my 1M frosting tip.  This gives you the swirl of the two colors.  I love the way it turned out!  Adding rainbow sprinkles completes the look for the birthday cupcakes!

I loved these projects because they brought together the elements I love most about cake making: a special celebration for special people, delicious flavors, artistic expression, and beauty.