Friday, June 28, 2013

Graduation Party, Garden Tea Party, Family Visiting, and Updates

Warning: This post will be a pretty lengthy post. There's been a few orders I've had since my last post. I've also got some new pictures and videos of things I have done in the past.

Last Friday, June 21:
I was contacted by a woman to make cake pops and mini cupcakes for her daughter's graduation party. She had found me after purchasing a few cake pops and cupcakes from the dance show I did last month. Here's what I made for the party!

SMU (Southern Methodist University) mini cupcakes. Congratulations Rachel!
Graduation cap and diploma cake pops
Northwood high school graduation cap and diploma cake pops

This past Monday, June 24:
I was contacted by another woman to make desserts for a green and white themed garden tea party. Interestingly enough, this woman had found me after winning a gift certificate for cupcakes from a fashion show I did last month as well. Initially, she called me wanting cupcakes, but later added a cake and scones as well. Below are the desserts I completed for her...
White and green flower cupcakes for the garden tea party.
A buttercream green and white cake for the garden tea party. This is probably my best buttercream covered cakes I've done so far (I don't make too many - I typically make more fondant covered cakes).
Vanilla scones (she requested they be circled).
June 16-June 24 (I didn't know where I should place this):
My older cousin named, John came to visit California from Kentucky with one of his daughters, Kairi. This was the first time that anyone in my family (most of us live in California) had seen Kairi. During his trip, he took his daughter to my house to go swimming. I thought it could be fun for her to decorate some cupcakes after a day of swimming. This is how it went...


Hopefully my cousin and his family will find a way to move out to California so I can have more cupcake decorating parties with Kairi and her little sister, Lily!

Now for the updates...
I recently got emailed some pictures of the dessert table I did for Jennifer a couple of weeks ago. My oh my, are these pictures beautiful!! They were taken by two photographers she had at the party. Okay, I should just stop talking and just post these pictures! (You guys will die at how beautiful they are... especially compared to the ones I took with my phone hahah)


*Daytime pictures were taken by Khoi Nguyen from 2K Vision. Nighttime pictures were taken by Kimberly Pham.























This was awhile ago but for anyone who wanted to see my NTV feature but could not view it from Facebook, the YouTube video can be seen below: (sorry in advance for my awkwardness on camera..)

Monday, June 17, 2013

Jennifer's Dessert Table & Tejas's Big Bird Cake

About a month ago, a woman named, Jennifer had contacted me about setting up a dessert table for her birthday party that was this past Friday. This was the first time anyone had asked me to set up a dessert table. Because this was a larger event than I am normally used to (100+ guests), I asked my baking teacher if she would help me. Thankfully, she did! Here's how it all went...


The whole dessert table completed! As you scroll down to the other pictures, you will notice a lot of the desserts will contain alcohol... this is also why I was thankful that my baking teacher was able to help me. She's more knowledgeable when making alcohol infused desserts so having her there to show me how much of what to put in each dessert was very helpful. *Note: everything on the table was made by both my baking teacher and I except the cake and macarons. 

Pink Champagne cupcakes topped with St. Germain Swiss Meringue buttercream 

Kahlua Chocolate cupcakes topped with Coffee cream and chocolate swirly designs 
Pink and gold red velvet cake balls

Truffle spoons (white chocolate ganache filling dipped in chocolate) adorned with edible gold leaflets
Tiramisu cups 

Chocolate covered strawberries infused with Martell

Mini pink champagne cupcakes (gold wrappers) and mini kahlua chocolate cupcakes (silver wrappers)
Top picture: Jennifer's dessert table vision that she emailed me
Bottom picture: the table completed 
My teacher insisted that I pose while setting up the table hahah

Just casually placing the truffle spoons onto the platter...
My teacher and I with Jennifer! *This picture was taken before she put on her birthday dress.
Jennifer in her dress with the completed dessert table! Hope you had a wonderful 30th Jennifer! 



This past weekend I also got asked to make a cake for a former classmate of mine, Tejas. I was instructed to try to find out things that he liked/enjoyed so I found out from his friend that his nickname was "Big Bird." Sooo any guesses on how I might of decorated the cake as? :P

If you guessed "Big Bird" then you're correct!!!!!
Along with the cake, I was also asked to make cake pops.  Tejas's favorite color is blue so I was told to just decorate the cake pops in blue (no specifics). I had seen some people on Instagram do marbling designs onto cake pops so I thought I'd give it a try... ehh I'll need to work on it more (this was one of the more "better" looking ones that I made)











Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Playing Around

Now that I'm finished with my first year of college, I find myself easily getting bored. When I get bored, I sometimes bake or buy things to decorate...

Chocolate covered strawberries. My friends and I originally planned to make these together but they ended up giving me the strawberries and told me to make them myself and to let them know when they were ready. Great friends, huh? :P
White chocolate covered strawberries. Maybe a good idea for Fourth of July? ;) 
Flat bottomed and rounded chocolate cake pops.


Graduation cake pops! I still need to buy square molds to make the caps,  but this was just me playing around to see if I   was capable in making customized cake pops. 











Sunday, June 2, 2013

The Next Chapter

This past Thursday and Friday was Northwood high school's annual Dance Theatre spring dance show. The theme of the show changes every year (last years was "Dance Dance Evolution"), with this year's being, "The Next Chapter." With this theme, choreographers were asked to choreographed pieces inspired by stories. Dances that were influenced in the show varied from Peter Pan, Twilight, Harry Potter, Romeo and Juliet, and so much more! This theme was so unique that it even caught the OC Register's attention! The article can be found here.

I had baked for the show's bake sale last year so I was honored to be asked to do it again this year (Thank you Mrs. Scialpi!). Although, since I was no longer a member of the dance program, this meant that I had to be outside the theater selling my baked goods. This was all new to me. I had always been performing in the shows so I didn't really know how things worked. I hope all in all I did okay..?! Luckily, one of my friends had finished her first year of college and was able to help me out as much as she could for the bake sale. She was a bit scared to bake some cupcakes for me but that was okay since instead, she was able to help me package cake pops and cupcakes, along with making a few mini fondant flower decorations. I can't thank her enough for helping me! Thank you Nicole!!

Unlike last year's cupcakes, I focused on providing more flavors of cupcakes to the bake sale (last year's were all red velvet), rather than making fondant decorations for most of the dances in the show. I was able to make a few, but it definitely wasn't as much as last year's show. I've also noticed that a lot of people are loving cake pops, so I added those to the mix as well!
The cake pops I made for the show. From left to right: chocolate, vanilla bean, and red velvet.
My table for the bake sale.
Mini cupcakes (flavors: vanilla bean, chocolate, and red velvet)
Cake pops (flavors: vanilla bean, chocolate and red velvet)
 Regular sized cupcakes (flavors: vanilla bean, chocolate, and red velvet)
Both regular and dance themed cupcakes
"Dream" (Wendy Darling/Peter Pan) cupcake
"Faith, Dust, and Pixie Dust" cupcake
"Twilight" (Bella and Edward's wedding) cupcake
"Mermaid Lagoon" (Peter Pan) cupcake
"Time for Tea" (Alice in Wonderland) cupcake
"Thief of the Night" (Little Red Riding Hood) cupcake
The Next Chapter themed cupcakes/dance gram cupcakes
Red velvet cupcakes 
White flower bunch dance gram cupcake
Red, white, and pink flower bunch dance gram cupcake
"A DIfferent Fairytale" dance gram cupcake
Meet my friend, Nicole! Without her help, I probably wouldn't be able to provide as many baked goods as I did. So thank you again!
Good job to all of the dancers who performed! I hope you guys had a blast! And for all of the graduating seniors - I hope you cherished every moment! I remember being really sad when I realized it would be my last time performing for Northwood. To everyone who came to the show and/or bought a cupcake or cake pop - thank you so much!!