Pink Rolled Flower Cupcakes

I absolutely fall in love quickly, and passionately.  When I love something, I can't get it out of my mind.  That is exactly what happened when I stumbled upon this amazing cake on Facebook. I saved the image to my desktop and thought & thought about how I could emulate this look with cupcakes.

I have a super supportive friend who I've mentioned on this blog before.  We work in the same building, and we ran into each other in the hallway about a month ago.  I mentioned that I was working with a mom on a first birthday party (the mom ended up making cupcakes on her own) and my friend piped up with her own need for first birthday celebration cupcakes.  I told her I had a great idea, sent her the picture, and it was a deal!

I knew that I wasn't going to modify a caulk gun to get super perfect tubes of fondant, but I did use some science, weighing, & measuring to make sure the flowers were as uniform as possible.  I think they turned out pretty cute, and I hope my friend & her family enjoyed them!

Flower Cake Pops

I have been itching to use up the leftover flower cake balls that have been stored in my freezer ever since I made the Hawaiian Cake Pops.  I keep looking online for ideas, and dreaming about what to make.  Along came the Labor Day holiday, and I used the whole day to make cake pops!  After my frustrating attempt at Hello Kitty I have really wanted to redeem myself.  I have been researching different techniques and tips and ideas, and they turned out okay, but still not what I was hoping for.

 So, Bakerella, the inventor of the Cake Pop, recommends this brand of candy melts. 

 Here they are - ready to be melted in the microwave!  Bakerella says that she never has to add a thinning agent and melts them on 50% power in 30 second increments, stirring each time.  Yeah, whatever.  I still had to thin mine - I might as well go back to the cheap kind you can get from craft stores. 

 These flowers are so cute! 

 I love these candy coated sunflower seeds - the colors are so natural. 

 Getting the colored sugar all lined up and ready.

 This is a little trick I've used before but forgotten.  It's from Bakerella.

 I thought these super cute tiny tweezers from Target would help me, but they didn't.

 The colors of these melts were pretty and vibrant, but still not perfect.

 Done dipping the flower pops, getting ready to do the spheres.

 I added some chocolate - yummers!

 I would rather do sphere cake pops any day of the week.  They are low-maintenance (relatively anyway) and I just love that about them.

 I made some flowers with the sunflower seeds on the tops of some of the cake pop spheres.

 Here I am using the corn syrup to "paint" a design on the pop.

 Sprinkling the sugar.

 And voila!

 A mixture of vibrant, beautiful cake pops.

 They still didn't turn out the way I envisioned in my mind, and I still want to conquer this difficult hobby/business that I enjoy so much.

I will keep trying when I get free time like this lovely Labor Day Holiday!

Hawaiian Cake Pops

So the wonderful woman who ordered Mario Cake Pops ordered Hawaiian Cake Pops for this weekend!  She is keeping me busy but I am loving it!

 I saw this great blog post and was inspired by her pictures, but I wanted to "up" the ante a bit.  So I made a "stamen" from a licorice stick, made another "stamen" type thing from star sprinkles, and then made the other third sparkle with glitter.  Remember, I make cake pops to give folks a smile before they bite down and enjoy!  My cake is completely from scratch and so is the frosting.  This order was for 65 cake pops!  If I made only 5-6 cake pops for photographing, maybe mine would look a bit more perfect?  I am not sure.  :)

 These colors are so much fun!

 I've been working on different bases for my cake pops.  Last weekend I bought a 5 dollar cardboard "cake pop stand" from AC Moore and it was AWFUL.  I had to have help putting it together and it was terrible.  So I ordered two others from amazon, but I don't really want to let people use them if I am not 100% certain I am going to get them back.  So I bought a large Styrofoam block and covered it with a plastic white tablecloth.  I added some plastic hibiscus to this base to tie it into the Luau theme, and I have asked the customer for the base back, which can be re-purposed for in many different ways.

 I am still not loving the idea of using cookie or fondant cutters to shape cake pops - again, maybe if I'm only making 10.  You can see the indentations where I pushed the pop through the cutter.  It does help to dip the cutter in warm water, but it would also help if I smoothed them out some, too.  This was a 7+ hour creation, though, and I dare say I didn't have much stamina left toward the end.

 I still think they are awfully cute!

 The view from above.

65 Hawaiian Cake Pops!