Sunday Shots: Cupcakes inspired by Incarnate and Asunder by Jodi Meadows!

Hey there guys!

Hope you're having a good Sunday! I'm back from work and I'm gonna spend what's left of my afternoon and evening being lazy and reading!

Today for Sunday Shots I'm gonna share the other half of the cupcakes I was so inspired to create on Thursday.

I got the idea of creating some cupcakes inspired by the New Soul series by Jodi Meadows, Incarnate & Asunder, and I was even more inspired and had more ideas right off the start for these than for the Defiance ones. I just had to look at the covers for a bit and check a few things to see if my memory of the scenes was right to start working on what I wanted for each cupcake!

Butterflies are an important part of the imaginery of the book, since they represent Anna, the main character, and her possible ephimeral lifetime compared to the others inhabitants of Heart.

 

I chose the cupcake liners cause I thought the fit the mood of the books' covers.

I managed to add different colours to the buttercream by using colorants in the piping bag, and the colours are also inspired on both books covers.

Cover colours piping, with a piano keyboard, since Dossam is a musician, and it's Anna's first instrument to try and love. I modelled the keyboard from scratch, so it was a bit of job, and it shows that is not as perfect as I would have liked.

Covered in white fondant, with white walls (I didn't have a brick rolling pin, so I used a basket weave I do have) and the red heart to represent the weird white walls with a heartbeat of Heart.

And the two roses, the blue (purple) one to represent the New Souls and the Phoenix (red) ones to represent the Old/Dark Souls. This is from book two.

All in all, it was quite a bit of work, but I did enjoy myself immensely making them! So much, that I'm already planning making more book inspired cupcakes!

Thankful Thursday: Days off and inspiration.

Hello everyone!

I'm a bit behind on some of my book entries, cause I have a few reviews pending, but I've been down with a cold, and my brain wasn't at full capacity!

Today for Thankful Thursday I'm just happy for having days off to recover from being sick, to rest, to switch off my brain from work, and specially this week, for having the energy and inspiration to bake, decorate and photograph a special dozen of cupcakes!

I've had such a blast and I'm feeling pretty proud of myself, so I'm feeling quite grateful!


More on said cupcakes soon! ;)

Monday Munchies: Wilton 1 Intensive and Cupcakes for St Patrick's Day!!

Hello everyone and Happy Monday!!

This a very belated blog entry! I was actually working on it (uploading all the photos when the debacle with the coffee and the laptop happened, back in March!) but I think it's high time I finally publish it!

On Saint Patrick's Day this year I attended the Intensive Wilton 1 Cake Decorating Course at La Tienda Americana. And I absolutely loved every minute of it!

The course, although it gives a lot of general basics on how to bake a cake, cut it and cover it, mostly deals with the use of the piping bag and different piping tips, to create all sort of amazing decorations solely using buttercream!

Loleta, our teacher is a certified Wilton instructor and an absolute prodigy of the piping bag, the things that woman can do!

On these courses you get a kit with a book, and materials necessary for it, which means a lot of quite awesome Wilton goodies! (I'm not a fan of Wilton cupcake liners, cause they're crap, there I said it, but the rest of the Wilton stuff is awesome!).

And since I spent the whooole day at the course, I didn't have any time to make some St Patrick's cupcakes, so I made them the next day!


I thought that for St Patrick's a must would be a recipe with Guinness, so using the vegan recipe for stout and chocolate cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World, I used Guinness instead of the vegan stout suggested and then used the Bailey's buttercream recipe from Lola's Cupcakes book, except I used a little less icing sugar than recommended, it gets too gritty for my taste otherwise. And since it's St Patrick's, green cupcakes were a must, I went for a mix of the Green Tea cupcakes recipe from the Primrose Bakery and the vegan recipe from VCTOTW!


For the decorations I used sugarpaste/fondant and some awesome stencils I got from Coppergifts (another awesome place to get stencils is Designer Stencils) with some edible sparkly powders (Sugarflair and Wilton). It's a rather simple technique but you get some spectacular results!

Guinness & chocolate cupcake with Bailey's buttercream!

I sent all the cupcakes to the nephews, the liked the green tea ones enough (but they said they sort of tasted too healthy? My sis-in-law loved them though) but they ADORED the Guinness & Bailey's ones, go figure!

Oh, and I forgot to show you my diploma! Course 1 done & bagged! I learnt a lot, had a blast with my fellow students and got some awesome goodies!

Monday Munchies: Cupcakes Workshop with Alma's Cupcakes!!

Hello everyone! How's the week starting? I hope very good, and if not... take a peek at all the yummy pics I'm sharing with you in this entry, and you'll be sure to cheer up!

This past Saturday I finally attended a course/workshop by Alma of Alma's Cupcakes and Objetivo: Cupcake Perfecto for beginners. After reading Alma's blog, trying some of recipes and seeing all her amazing progress in the world of cakes, cupcakes and cookies, I was extremely excited to attend this 4 hour-class and it was everything I expected and more! Not only I got tons of practical tips and recommendations, learnt about fondant and ingredients, but also had an absolute blast with Alma, her mother (the helper) and the other ladies that were attending the workshop (with my friend Esther too!).

Since my poor brain it's not at its best today, after two night shifts on a row, and depriving myself of sleep during the day so I can sleep tonight, I'm just gonna say a few things: I'm even more obsessed with cupcakes and baking in general, I have a mile long list of things to buy and I NEED A KITCHEN AID!!!

Now, before going for the photos... THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, ALMA!!

Alma's super cute logo

Alma's Peggy Porchen's rose!

Getting a cupcake ready to be filled in with yumminess

The working table, with the materials and the recipe book!

Esther and me, with Alma, the most adorable teacher in existence!

The workshop was already decorated for Xmas!

Esther posing with one of the cupcakes made by Alma

Another amazing flower cupcake made by Alma!

Amazing cakes!

The cakes with Peggy roses!

These are the cupcakes that Esther decorated!

I made too many fondant decorations that I took home with me!

My cupcakes ready to take home and my diploma!

Cookie monster, Yoda, Bobba Fett...

My six cupcakes! They're so cute I don't wanna eat them!!