Next few months. . .

Over the next months, I continued my hobby of baking - I've always been known for my cookies, so I did attempt a couple of other "big" projects that weren't cupcakes, including a cookie cake for Valentine's Day and a cheesecake bar for the 4th of July.

I was also very honored when my friend Dawn (who loved her birthday cupcakes) got engaged and asked me to make her wedding cupcakes for her!  So over the next few months I made another batch of lemon cupcakes for her engagement party (combined with my great friend Marlo's engagement party), a batch of trial-run wedding cupcakes for Marlo's fiance Scott's birthday, and another set of trial-run chocolate frosting (with peanut butter cake) for Dawn's bridal shower.  For the wedding, I was trying strawberry cake with chocolate frosting, and chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream.  I nailed the latter, but was still working on the former. Needless to say, my friends were all overjoyed with all of the extra cupcakes around during those months!  Too bad I don't have photos. . .

Birthday Cupcakes

My first real adventure was to make a batch of cupcakes for a friend's birthday.  I used a box mix but my own frosting, because I wasn't quite ready to make a cake recipe from scratch!  (Here's a secret - I had never made a cake from scratch before!)

So, she requested strawberry cupcakes and I used the evite from her birthday party for my color inspiration.  I called in my great friend Marlo to help me out with the fondant designs. 

I used a fondant circle and a "wall" of icing with sprinkles and a stencil for one design, and I used fondant flower cut-outs in different sizes on piped icing for the other design.  The sprinkles did NOT stick well, and the foil cupcake liners were AWFUL.

However, my friend Dawn was SO impressed, as were her parents and my friends!  Everyone loved the cupcakes and couldn't believe how cute they were.  I was so excited that my new adventure was taking off! 

solo

So after my cupcake classes, I went to Williams-Sonoma (for the first time ever!) to buy some of the recommended products.  I found a cupcake mix from Sprinkles - it was lemon and I am a sucker for lemon.  I tried these cupcakes and they were a hit!

My new adventure

Thanks to an amazing friend, one year ago I was able to take my super-secret talent to a new level: baking.  I've loved to bake since I was a girl, standing on one leg in either of my Grandmother's kitchens.  In January of 2010, my dear friend Ashley decided she wanted to take a "cupcake decorating class" to learn more technique (she is far more accomplished than I) so I decided to join her.  Not once but TWICE we braved the snowy roads for Wake Forest, NC.  My first attempts at cupcakes are as follows:

It turns out that not only did I absolutely LOVE to design cupcakes, but I also had a bit of a talent, too!