Bieber Bangs of Seduction

First off... Beiber? Beaver? Bieber?

However he spells his name, another little girl has fallen prey to the Justin Bieber phenomenon that has been labeled "Bieber Fever." It's got to be the hair... I mean really, it's unreal! When I was asked to do a Justin Bieber birthday cake, all I could literally think of was his bangs... so I did just that!

While doing a little research for the best Bieber-bangs photos, I realized his hair looks exactly the same in each photo. Creepy! I decided on one of the images and scaled it up to almost actual size, or at least big enough to fit on an 8" round cake. I printed it and cut it out to use as a template. I then traced his hair onto tan-tinted rolled fondant with an exacto knife on my Cricut Cake mat. Using a toothpick, I scored hair texture on the fondant "bangs" and added a little more dimension by painting it with brown food coloring mixed with vanilla extract.

Voila! Bieber Bangs...

Who could resist??

After the fondant hair piece dried, I placed it on top of a double chocolate chunk 8" round cake covered in Satin Ice fondant.

I thought about giving him eyes at least but it's much funnier with just the hair since it's so iconic anyway. I added a girly touch with the lavender fondant flower border and by using the Cricut Cake machine to cut the "Happy Birthday baby" message in honor of Justin's hit single "Baby."

The birthday girl had had a bad day and thought she was getting a Bozo the clown cake... she was pleasantly surprised when her Bieber cake arrived! She's such a cutie! Glad I could make her birthday turn around and put a big smile on her face.

Now who has the Bieber Fever??

Super Specialty Mario Cupcakes

You would think I knew more about video games by the amount of Super Mario treats I've created already... I don't. I have to google images of the games characters and I have no idea what the difference is between Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Galaxy. I do know that Super Mario Kart involves driving, but that's about all. The last gaming system I had (until recently when I got the Ninento Wii) was the original Nintendo NES System back in the early 80s. Ask me to make a Bubble Bobble cake and I'll be all over it!

I made these Super Mario fondant cupcake toppers for my co-worker's adorable son Charlie for his birthday.

"Itsa Mario & Luigi!"

I think I had a crush on Luigi when I was younger.

Dark Chocolate Fudge cupcakes topped with a substantial amount of vanilla buttercream and the fondant Super Mario toppers.

Turtle Shell, Super Red Mushroom, Goomba, Mario, Super Starman, Luigi, 1-Up Green Mushroom, Bob-omb (<- had to look that up for 10 minutes), Fire Flower, Boo, Venus Firetrap/Piranha Plant and Yoshi.

Yum yum yum... baked in foil cupcake liners.

Here's Mario at the party with all his friends.

Charlie is an avid collector of Mario novelties.

The birthday boy is a young man of few words but I was told he exclaimed "MAMMA MIA" loud and clear. I'm so happy I was able to create something special just for him! What an amazing smile!
(BTW Charlie- your mom is a pretty cool chick, in case you didn't already know!)

A little cutie after my own heart... I would have chosen Yoshi too! He's my fave!

I just discovered mariowiki.com - the Super Mario encyclopedia!! A little late, I know, but at least now I'm all set to tackle the next Mario project!

Lazy Daisy Birthday Cake

Oh my! This cake was almost [almost] a caketastrophe!
I took on too many projects the week I was supposed to make this birthday cake for a very special woman. I had a grand plan of what I wanted it to look like but unfortunately ran out of time to execute it and ended up panicking.

 

I only had time to stack and ice the cake before bringing it on a Friday night rush-hour train from NYC to CT. The subway ride from home to work alone knocked the cake a little off kilter... then add a shaky 2 hour train ride to top it off! Yikes! Not pretty.

 

Lucky my mom was a lifesaver by making a quick trip with me to Party City to pick up some fondant and daisy cutters. After much stress I came up with another design and was able to turn this cake into something presentable.

(My mom tried to take me out to dinner before I got started and we had to leave the restaurant before they took our order because I was so nervous I couldn't think about eating!)

It's a two layer chocolate cake, iced in vanilla buttercream and topped with fondant. I used Wilton daisy cutters to make some fondant blossoms.

Did I mention that this cake then had to make it another hour and a half trip in the blazing July heat??  I actually had to arrange a to take a different vehicle because the one I was supposed to ride in didn't have air conditioning!

I should've put an odometer on this birthday cake! It would've been interesting to see just how far I travelled with this fella.

None the less, the cake arrived safely and everyone loved it. There was even enough left to bring a piece home to my mom as a reward for being so awesome!

Cupcake Cocktails

Busy weeks call for alcohol... right??

Or alcoholic inspired cupcakes at least.

I received a request for some birthday strawberry margarita cupcakes with lime buttercream like the cake I made for my parents' birthday cake. (recipe and pics)

I wanted to turn up the cute factor by making them look like little cocktails - so I used some luau themed flamingo and palm tree picks to decorate.

What's a cocktail without a straw? Luckily Stop & Shop had these bendy straws in their seasonal BBQ section! I just had to cut them down to size.

For garnish, I bought lime candy slices at economy candy and cut them in half.

I didn't want to ruin the sweetness of the lime buttercream icing by rimming them in salt so I rolled the edges in a mixture of pink and green colored sugar instead.

Ahhhh, don't these look refreshing?

I realized later that they sell bottled Strawberry Margarita Mix... I'd like to try that in the recipe next time. Sometimes Strawberry cake mix is hard to find so it would probably be a good substitute to achieve the strawberry flavor in yellow cake mix as well.