Monday, August 10, 2009

Sweet Baby Bubbles


This little chica cake was made for a mommy who was awaiting the arrival of her sweet baby to be! The entire cake was edible all the way from the bright orange soap and the round soapy bubbles, down to the yellow baby ducks swimming in aqua blue buttercream waves.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

La Fiesta, El Carnival and El Donut




The theme for Bianca's end of the year party was "A Day at the Carnival", I must admit I was exhausted from a week of "mucho cake" from baking Bianca's treats for school, her Favorite Things Cake and her popcorn favors I was caked and baked OUT!!! But everytime a school event or party comes around I somehow fell obligated to create something. The final creation for Bianca's last party as a Kindergarten Girl was a donut cake.










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I stacked descending layers of vanilla glazed, chocolate and powdered sugar donuts. I tried to add a Carnival theme to this delicious mound of donuts by adding colorful lollipops, circus peanuts, candy dots, sprinkles,wax soda bottles and mini sticks of cotton candy on top.

Up,Up and Away!

Bianca's 6th Birthday was celebrated at our local movie theater. All of Bianca's birthday guests celebrated in the movie theater party room by opening presents, singing Happy Birthday and eating yummy cake. After the party room the children went into the theater and watched Disney's latest 3d movie "Up". Each child was given a goodie bag filled with classic movie candy (gummy bears, mini chocolate bars, licorice, m&m's, junior mints and red hot dollars) to enjoy while watching the movie.


To take home every child was given a popcorn container filled with mini vanilla cupcakes covered in vanilla buttercream then topped with mini marshmallows representing popcorn covered with melted butter.


Underneath the cupcakes all the children would find yet more surprises, As if there sugar high wasn't at an all time MAX!!! We placed candy laffy taffy strips, a toy whistle, a bouncy ball and a small water gun.


All of the children were happy with their special treats and Bianca went home happy on her special day!

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Bianca's Favorite Things!

My Bianca recently celebrated her 6th birthday, of course many of her concerns about the party included the location, who she would invite but most important to the "Cupcake Girl" was the design of her cake. I thought that finding exactly what she wanted for this special cake would include hours and hours of probing and questions about what she envisioned in her head. I was caught by surprise when she said to me " Mommy, I want an Obama Cake". I was unsure if I heard correctly but she repeated to me that she wished to have a Barack Obama Cake. I couldn't believe that this idea came from her little mouth, I was so proud!! She wanted the cake to be red, white and blue with stars all around it and Barack Obama. I asked her if she was sure of what she wanted and she said that she was. Her special cake request was made about a month before her birthday, within the coming weeks Bianca's heart stayed true to wanting her Barack Obama Cake but at 5 yrs old she said to me "Mommy, I don't want my friends to think I'm weird for having an Obama Cake". I thought to myself "Baby you're not weird, you're just a head of your time.


So what started out as a complete Barack Obama Cake transformed itself into a Bianca's Favorite Things Cake! If Oprah can do it, why can't she? hahah! The cake was yellow cake filled with Bianca's Lemonade Stand Buttercream and vanilla buttercream for the mini cupcakes that surrounded the cakes.


As for "The List" it was as follows:

1.Barack Obama

2. Her Build-A Bear Kitty (Sassy)

3.Cupcakes

4.Tacos

5.Watermelom

6.Lollipops

7.Strawberries


8.Hearts

9.The Color Pink

10.Cake (of course) with Pink Lemonade Buttercream

Well, none the less the cake was exactly what she wanted from begining to the end and yet another fabulous cake designed by Bianca Brown.

I can't wait to see what she comes up with for her 7th birthday! Happy Birthday Bianca!!

A Sweet Treat Times Dos!



A sweet way to start the summer!! These are ice cream cones filled with rich chocolate and vanilla cake then topped with another chunky cupcake. The stuffed cone is dipped in yellow chocolate and pink chocolate candy wafers a shower of colorful sprinkles and a gumball cherry!

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

A Sweet Cupcake Built for Two !!!

My little Bianca, who seems to have every one of her family members and even her friends birthdays permanently cataloged in her memory wouldn't dare let me forget that it was her teacher "Mrs Anderson and her classmate Nancy's birthday". A giant strawberry-lemonade cupcake cake with strawberry-lemonade buttercream should surfice. We added a lake of pastel m and m's surrounding the cake and a chocolate bar sign wishing both Nancy and Mrs Anderson a very Happy Birthday!!!

Cookies con Leche Birthday Cake !!




Any of the Chica Chocolatina cupcake flavors can be magically transformed into cakes. This cake was ordered by a client whose son looovvessss!!! Chica Chocolatina's "Cookies con Leche" cupcake which is the "prima" (spanish for cousin) of the Chocolate Chip Chihuahua. Cookies con Leche is a moist vanilla cake filled with chocolate chip cookie dough, swirled with vanila buttercream, drizzled with chocolate sauce and a chocolate chip cookie finale!




Gianna's 5th Birthday Cake !

A sweet little girl named Gianna recently turned 5 years old, and her mommy made a special request for a Chica Chocolatina "Diva Cake" for her little Diva's 5th birthday.

The bottom layer was the Chocolate Chip Chihuahua Cake which is a rich chocolate cake baked with chocolate chip cookie dough and chocolate buttercream filling. The top layer was Nuevo Banana Split which is a banana-plaintain cake complete with smooth chunks of both bananas and plaintains, filled with strawberry buttercream, maraschino cherries, chocolate sauce, dulce de leche and sweet pecans!!! So yummy!!!


P.S. Gianna's party was filled with she and her friends getting glammed up and taking diva photos, when cake time finally arrived Gianna was so exhausted she could hardly stay awake "hence the forlorn expression".




Monday, March 30, 2009

CINCO DAY JAE-JAE !!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Today is my daughter Jaelyn's 5th Birthday!!! Although she had her family party at home today, over the weekend she celebrated with her friends. After two consecutive years of partying at Chuck. E . Cheese ( yes TWO!) Jaelyn finally decided on another fabulous location to host her 5th Birthday Party which was the bowling alley. After months and months of probing Jaelyn about exactly what kind of cake she wanted for this party, the answer remained the same " A chocolate cake with gummy bears and candy all around it " Would you like anything else a little more fancy ? I would ask her, "Nope !" she would say "Just all chocolate with gummy bears" So here you have it
Jaelyn's Candy Mountain Cake !



This is a chocolate cake filled with chocolate butter cream and sprinkled with ghiradelli chocolate chips. I then iced the cake in alternating layers of chocolate butter cream and rich chocolate ganache. The cupcakes are swirled with Mexican vanilla butter cream and are topped with marshmallow fondant cherries and strawberry-lemon marshmallow twists. The cake is adorned with various sweet candies hand picked by Jaelyn herself, some of her favorites include swedish fish, red hot dollars, dots and of course one of her top favorites Gumballs.



When your mommy bakes just one cake won't due, so I made Jaelyn her own personal cake which was cascaded with more of her favorite goodies.



To go along with the candy theme of the cake I made two baskets filled with sweet candy kabobs along with cupcake candy favors filled with m&m's topped off with more of those marshmallow fondant cherries. Both of these goodies were later packaged with soda pop bubbles for all of her friends to take home !! It was a sweet ending for a sweet little five-year old girl !

Uptown Teal Wedding Gown !


I made 45 of these cupcakes to be given away as favors for a bridal shower. The flavor was a variation of "Uptown Cupcake Brown" which is a chocolate cake filled with raspberry jam, dipped in a smooth chocolate-raspberry ganache. The cupcake is then swirled with a rich white chocolate buttercream sprinkled with white chocolate chips then drizzled with a double dose of raspberry and chocolate sauce and chocolate shavings. The cupcakes that I made for the bridal shower were exactly the same but the client decided that she would like the frosting to match the wedding colors which was a teal blue and to add just a simple sprinkle of chocolate shavings to add a slight more elegance. The transformation of the cupcake required a new name which I lovingly decided to call " Uptown Teal Wedding Gown ".


ROWEN LOVES MICKEY !!


The same day I had to make another celebration cake for a little boy named Rowen's 3rd birthday. This one was a replica of the clubhouse from the television cartoon, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Everything from the top of Mickey's head all the way down to his feet were completely edible !

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Green Day !!!

At least that's what my daughter Jaelyn was calling the Irish heritage celebration better known by many including my well versed kindergartener Bianca. as St. Patrick's Day Jaelyn was convinced that since all the stores, candy clothes and toys were all decked out in "green" that "Green Day" was indeed the name of this holiday. Bianca on the other hand knew better, as she recently learned all about the meaning of St Patrick's day in Mrs. Anderson's kindergarten class and had been telling me every since the week before that " Tuesday is St. Patrick's Day Mommy" and that I had better not even attempt to put anything green near her body before Tuesday, because she was saving her absolute favorite green dress shirt for that day.

Of course because she had already picked out a perfect outfit I couldn't see sending her to school without a sweet accessory!!!

Bianca's Go Green!! and Sweet!! Marshmallow Kabobs!

We scoured our local grocery store for all candies coming in green, although we didn't find a lot of candy dedicated specifically to St. Patrick's Day we did find a bulk candy bin section in the grocery store. I must confess it took almost 20 minutes to sort through 4 0r 5 bins of assorted color gummy candies but we eventually were successful! We didn't even have any run-ins with grocery store employees telling us that we couldn't pick out the colors we liked, but we needed to purchase all colors. Yea!!!
In the end we used alternating candies including (mint milkyways, green gummy bears, green swedish fish (yum!), green chick peeps,green gumdrops and we topped each kabob off with little green gummy hats. I later learned from reading the label that these gummies were appropriately called " Mexican Hats".










We tied ribbons on the bottoms of each skewer, stuck them in a lime green bucket and another holiday bit the leprechaun dust!!!










Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Happy, Happy Day of Love!!






Well Valentine's Day has come and gone yet these sweet goodies have been trapped in my camera. These are Valentine's Day candy cups made soley for a special little Kindergarten class.





I used little plastic cocktail cups and filled them with all different kinds of Valentine's day candies (m&m's, cinnamon sugar jelly hearts and swedish fish). I decided not to bake for this holiday but decided that chocolate would be more appropriate, so I melted red, white, pink and of course milk chocolate and poured them into my "grande" hershey kiss molds. I mixed different chocolate combinations for each mold so that every child got their own personal multi-colored kiss.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Spanish Honor Society Bake Sale

I am currently the standing Vice-President for the Spanish Honor Society Sorority at my school.
Although I was unable to man the table at the bake sale (hmmm...I was too busy making history at the Presedential Inauguration for Barack Obama in Washington D.C.!!!!, a difficult sacrifice I know !)


Well for the sale I made jumbo chocolate chip cookies and jumbo butterscotch chocolate chip cookies, a variety of cupcakes to adorn the table. (Coco Cabana-coconut, The Mambo-Tango- orange creamsicle, Chocolate Barcelona-snickers cupcake and Chocolate Chip Chihuahua-a chocolate cookie dough stuffed cupcake and Latin Elvis-a peanut butter dulce de leche and banana cupcake.Since it was a bake sale for a Spanish club I figured I should make something with a fun FIESTA!! feel.....so this is what I came up with. White chocolate tacos filled with chocolate cake (meat). Then topped with a vanilla cream cheese buttercream (sour cream) sprinkled with chopped Swedish fish (tomatoes) orange and green shreds of marshmallow fondant (cheese and lettuce). Still haven't heard the official word on the outcome of the sale, but I did do a little product quality control check while baking these yummies!! (u have to stay on top of your product! hahaha..) They seemed to be bake sale hits!
I have to give extra special thanks to my Mom for grabbing the wheel of the Chica Chocolatina xpress and delivering these goodies for me while I was busy celebrating victory in our nations capital. VIVA OBAMA!!

Monday, January 5, 2009

Gym Class Hero

Although the holidays have come to an end and many are preparing to take down their Christmas tree and other Santa Claus decorations the spirit of giving could not be lost in my little Bianca just because the official Christmas date had passed us. One day back in October I believe it was Bianca and I were discussing the upcoming holiday and I had mentioned to her that I wanted to give Mr Degnan her gym teacher a present (she is in Kindergarten) and if you can believe this Mr. Degnan was my gym teacher also!! And he has got to be the greatest gym teacher of ALL TIMES!! Well at least the two of us and every other kid who has been in his gym class and been present on the day he brought the PARACHUTES!!! Thinks so!!









Well anyway we decided that we wanted to make him a special treat for Christmas, but I have to take the blame and say I became too busy and never did get a chance to make his special treat. Well my Bianca upon coming upon her return to school from her Christmas vacation said " We can't forget Mr. Degnan's present! she said I wouldn't want him to think we remembered Mrs. Anderson (her Kindergarten teacher) and forgot about him. She decided her special treat to him would be chocolate-caramel covered candy apples and she requested to be able to decorate them herself and also send him a special card and that is exactly what I allowed her to do. She let me know that I could write her message to Mr. Degnan in the card but "she really really wanted to make sure she signed her own name.
After listening to what she wanted to write in the card my heart melted with her thoughtfulness and sensitivity at age 5 and I am going to secretly share what she wrote with you....shhhh don't tell her I told you.






Well here it is.











To, Mr. Degnan








I made you these candy apples, I made them out of love. I hope you like them and I hope you had a Happy Holiday!






Love, Bianca




I couldn't have said it better myself!

Feliz Ano Nuevo!

Feliz Ano Nuevo or Happy New Year for whichever way you call the start of 2009!! I am off to a good start, it was a very cold New Year's Eve and although I must say I was tempted to accept the last minute invite I received to ring in the new year at one of the "Hot Latin Clubs" in the area, I graciously declined because after my long shift at work (yes! I worked on New Year's Eve, until 9:30 p.m. to be exact.) I knew I had made a promise to 3 special people of a late night date starting around 11:59 p.m. which included- snuggly pajamas, fuzzy slippers, a great big bowl of fresh popped popcorn and a great BIG BOTTLE OF KIDS CHAMPAGNE!!!

There was NO Way I was going to disappoint and in the end, we had the time of our lives. We ate, We drank, We danced and were merry all the way into the wee night hours of 1:00 a.m. It was at this hour in which I returned from the kitchen with more kids champagne for everyone!! And realized that my 3 late night party dates had fallen fast Asleep! We were all safe, secure and together ready to take on whatever 2009 had in store for us
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