Pineapple Cakes

I have been seriously MIA from my blog. These past few weeks have been CRAZY to say the least. I have been baking and I forgot to take pics of some of the things I have baked. I made some awesome zucchini banana muffins with fresh zucchini from our garden but since this is a cupcake blog ( for the most part) I decided that those were WAAYYYY to healthy to post. And I also baked some killer oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for a friend but I lost those pics. Boo.


On to why I was so busy. It was my daughters first birthday! Her nickname was "Pineapple" when I was pregnant so I had to have a pineapple themed party. And I had to do a pineapple cake. I was just going to make her a mini cake and make a larger one for the rest of the party goers but I got an idea in my head to make an upright cake and make it look like the cool Maui Gold spiky pineapples. I made a bigger cake from the Wilton pineapple shaped pan and I have this really cuet cast iron pan that makes 6 mini pineapple shaped cakes - meant for pineapple upside down. So my original idea was for 6 minis. So what I did instead was frost the minis together with IMBC ( Italian meringue buttercream) and then cover with green and pipe light and medium yellow blobs all over to make it look pineappley. I made the leaves/topper out of gum paste I dyed green to match. I think it came out great. I decorated the rest of the cakes the same way. The actual cake was a pineapple cake recipe I found online and the BIG cake had a layer of buttercream and pineapple curd I made from scratch. The cake itself was tasty and not too sweet. I LOVE italian meringue buttercream. It is more buttery than sugary. I don't like the too sugary frostings.

She had her own mini cake to dive into

The table set with the cakes. And oh yeah I forgot I also made pineapple sugar cookies AND candies to go with as party favors

My kiddo after smashing her cake!

Minnie Mouse themed cake and cupcakes

Minnie Mouse Cake and Cupcakes

A friend of mine asked me to make a Minnie Mouse themed cake with matching cupcakes for her 4 year old's birthday. She had seen some cakes online and loved this idea.
This was my first time making a stacked cake

I made the cakes at my house and assembled at her house. I didn't want to transport the cake stacked and risk it falling.
The bottom tier was a chocolate fudge cake with a strawberry buttercream filling. Homemade marshmallow fondant covering it. The second tier was a vanilla cake with lemon buttercream filling and marshmallow fondant dyed pink to match Minnie mouse's dress on the napkins for the party.
The top was a Wilton sports ball pan - just half -made with chocolate fudge, buttercream and black Satin Ice fondant. I wasn't about to attempt dyeing fondant black. I had to make black royal icing to "glue" the ears to the top and my hands were purple from just that little amount. The bow is fondant mixed with some gum tex so it would harden up and stay on the head and not get droopy. I also "glued" that on with royal icing. The ears are the Satin Ice fondant mixed with gum tex.
The cupcakes are chocolate with chocolate frosting. Oreos for the ears and pink fondant bows. I had also made fondant bows for the minnie cutouts on the bottom tier.The wrappers are pink with white polka dots but because of the cupcakes being dark the wrappers kind of got lost. They were super cute

Here it is all set up. The "dots" are buttercream. The look on the birthday girl's face was worth all the work I put into this.