Crowned Royal Cupcakes

Let me start off by saying that I had no intention of jumping on the Royal-Wedding-themed-cupcake-bandwagon [I had seen my fair share of horrid "royal" cupcakes all week long in my Google reader]... until right before I got home last night. I was riding the subway with my roommate, the biggest anglophile I know, talking about Royal Wedding viewing parties when the Royal Wedding fever hit me. I decided I didn't want to miss out on the chance to make something fun for this global media event... seeing as I wasn't even born yet when Princess Diana was married and... what if I have to wait another 30 years for a big Royal occasion??

I baked two dozen vanilla cupcakes and used what I had lying around - mainly fondant, colored sugar crystals and sugar pearls - to come up with these cupcake toppers.

I made a dozen fondant toppers and iced the other dozen in tinted icing swirls.

I conveniently had some British themed cupcake toppers lying around that I had bought for my roommate's birthday from TheBlissfulBaker on Etsy. I didn't get to use them for her since I ordered them late but made sure to save her a special one today.

Familiar London icon toppers adorned the buttercream swirls. 

Royal Wedding cupcakes packed and ready to bring as a sweet treat for my coworkers.

My alarm went off at 5:00am and I was unsure whether or not I wanted to get up and watch the wedding or go back to sleep. I turned on the TV to look for a sign. David Beckham appeared on my screen and that was it... I was like "heck yea, I wanna watch this!" I got up, brushed my teeth [for roommate's sake] and began my day with Prince William's arrival at Westminster Abbey.

Roommate treated me to scones, clotted cream, jam, digestive biscuits and tea... I'm such a lucky lady [aka Princess-In-Training]!


updated 6/22/11 - changed size of the vertical pics... it was buggin' me!

Haddad Branded Birthday Cake

I shared the edible Air Jordan sneaker I made in my previous post that was part of larger, highly-detailed cake.

Well here's the rest of it piece by piece.

Nike 6.0 fondant surfboard.

Chocolate Häagen-Dazs ice cream container [not-so-sorry to say... chocolate ice cream was indeed harmed in the making of this feature] formed from rice cereal treats, fondant, and food coloring.

Itty bitty Levi's fondant  back pockets with a signature red tab... including a mini Blackberry smart phone.

Now also remember that my list included the fondant Levi's Jeans and the Nike shoebox-shaped cake... along with my co-worker's Sheet cake warehouse, cereal treat Starbucks cup, fondant Mets cap, cereal treat iPad aaaaand the birthday banner!

We brought the elements of the master cake to work in pieces figuring it would be easier to assemble together than to try and transport the whole cake in one piece.

Only problem was that there was no available space to actually do the assembling. We literally assembled the cake while it was on a rolling mail cart!

Well here it is... the Branded Masterpiece!

Everything was completely edible [except the cotton "smoke" from the coffee cup, the metal part of the jeans hanger & the dowels holding up the birthday banner].

Look at the amazing warehouse details! My co-worker did an amazing job creating the brick work, signage and even the garage doors!

It came together really well and everyone in my office couldn't believe we made it. I overheard someone asking if we ordered it from the Cake Boss!! Ha!

Here's our president, Jack, and his beautiful family. I'm definitely glad his wife was there - she volunteered to cut the cake! Whew!

The end.

Edible Air Jordan Kicks

You ever wait for an opportunity to try something new and then when it arrives you find yourself wondering what you were thinking?? Well, I had been waiting for the opportunity to make a sneaker cake and the time has arrived.

I work for a family owned apparel company that owns the license to design children's clothing for different brands like Levi's, Nike, Jordan and Converse. The president's birthday was coming up and the family reached out to me and my fellow cake-decorating co-worker to make a masterpiece cake representing all the brands as well as a few of his favorite things.

It was a large, highly-detailed order... this is the sketch my co-worker designed.

Here's a breakdown of our to-do list:

Me

Air Jordan 4 sneaker

Nike 6.0 surfboard

Nike shoe box

Levi's jeans

Haagen-Dazs container

Co-worker

Warehouse

Converse iPad

Mets cap

Starbucks cup

Jets & Birthday banners

I jumped at the task of creating the sneaker. We both wanted to do it but my enthusiasm won me the assignment - plus we both had our hands full.

Since the bulk of the cake was going to be the warehouse and shoe box, I made the sneaker from cereal treats. I was replicating a kid's size Air Jordan 4 (IV) - which [according to Wikipedia] was the first Jordan shoe released on the global market and became an international bestseller.

I coated the cereal treat sneaker shape with some icing in an attempt to smooth it out and covered it in white fondant.

I used the real sneaker to gauge the right size of all the details. I'm not gonna lie... I traced some of the piecings onto parchment paper to make templates. Yes, this took a looooong time. I think it was at this point that I reached the "what was I thinking?!?!" stage.

I used edible markers to fill in some details and draw the Jordan Jumpman logo on the tongue. The most fun was making the laces look as if they were really laced.

I hand cut the back Jumpman logo from fondant.

You can't really see it but I also added the air-bubble in the sole.

This sneaker needed it's own post... the rest of the cake will follow.