The Cupcake Challenge

To my loyal Mmmeliacakes Internet followers:
I regret to inform you that in a mere TWO MONTHS I'll be heading off to college at the University of Maryland, College Park, where I will be largely unable to bake cakes (although, if a big, awesome project came up, I'm close enough that I could try to make it home for the weekend and do it.) I want to make these last two months count by making as many cakes and cupcakes as possible.

This means that if you 'followed' me on blogspot because you knew one day you'd want to order a cake for some occasion or another, NOW is the time to do it. I'm free all through July and August for cakes (and also, cake decorating lessons for kids and adults ages 10+--email me if you're interested.)

After watching the new show Cupcake Wars, I was inspired to create new and innovative cupcake flavors as a challenge to myself. If you can leave a comment and suggest some unusual/fun ingredients for me to try to incorporate into cupcakes, that'd be great. If I go with your suggestion, and it turns out well, and you live in my area, I'll deliver YOU the cupcakes as a thank you!

Some examples would be: fruits that aren't usually used in cake (ex. canteloupe, watermelon, etc), vegetables, cereals, sodas, unique dairy products--anything FRESH would be preferred to frozen items. Please, give real suggestions--nothing disgusting. Of course, ALL cupcakes (good and bad) will be displayed on this blog for you to follow along.

Thanks for your help. I look forward to hearing from you :)
-Mmmelia

Case Western Cake

OCCASION: Graduation
FLAVOR: Marble

I made this cake for my friend John, whom I've gone to school with since elementary school. He's going to Case Western University this fall, where the mascot is the Spartans. I first covered the cake with fondant, then piped the design overtop.

Sweet 16 Cake

OCCASION: Sweet 16 Birthday
FLAVOR: Vanilla Cake with Vanilla Buttercream Icing

I made these cakes (and cupcakes) for my boyfriend Alan's little sister Stacy and her friend Emma. The color scheme was pink and purple, so I swirled pink and purple in with the white icing for a cool effect. I curled shape into the flowers and draped them across the cakes.

Grumble Meter Cake

OCCASION: Birthday
FLAVOR: Mint Chocolate

My friends Dillon, Julie, and I have a running joke about people being 'grumbly'.

grumbly [gruhm' blee] adj: bitterness, grumpiness, or snappy behavior typically associated with sleep deprivation and/or hunger.

Dillon often used this word to describe my best friend Julie, who is very pleasant and sweet, but often would get a tad irritated at lunch time (which coincided with her waking up from her 1st-3rd period nap). Julie isn't the only grumbly person out there though; everyone has his/her grumbly moments, some people just don't get called out about them. Dillon has grumbly moments, our teachers have grumbly moments, strangers have them...I don't have them, of course, because sweet cupcake bakers don't ever get grumbly. :) Anyways, so I made this cake for Dillon's 18th birthday to follow up on our inside joke--it's a meter to measure a person's grumblyness. Try to stay in the green zone, please.

2010 Cupcakes

OCCASION: Senior Class Night
FLAVOR: Chocolate and Vanilla

Actually, there's only 140 of them. I made these cupcakes for my Senior Class Night at school this past week. I officially graduate tonight, but the class night is a tradition for the day before the last day of school. I carefully planned out this design so that the flavors alternate--in theory a good idea, but actually it makes it semi-impossible to look at them closely. We let the cupcakes sit untouched for about 10 minutes before allowing the class to devour them. Each cupcake is topped with a colored M'n'M (you can buy them in single colors at craft stores) and sugar pearls in that same color. GO SEN10RS!

Make-Up Cake

OCCASION: Birthday
FLAVOR: Chocolate

This cake was a week-long project. I used gumpaste to make the make-up models during the past week and finished by baking the cake and constructing it. The cake was for a friend, Ahna, who exhibits funky and fabulous with her style and personality. The compact used skin-colored powdered sugar to make foundation, the mascara was piped on with a thin stream of icing, and the lip gloss writing was made using a gel writing stick from the craft store. The silver was made using shimmer powder and the fondant covering the cake was designed in zebra print.

Monkey Cake

OCCASION: Birthday
FLAVOR: Banana

This cake was for a 1st birthday party for a young girl in Virginia. Her parents hired me to make the cake--she's a banana lover and the theme of the party was monkeys! I experimented with a banana flavored cake (similar to banana bread but less dense). According to her parents, she ate 1/4 of the cake before they were able to stop her.

Geometric Cake

OCCASION: Birthday
FLAVOR: Chocolate and Yellow

I made this cake for a fun, free-spirited friend, Rachel, in honor of her 19th birthday. It started as a weird vision in my head that turned into a reality. The cake was supposed to be whimsical and Alice-in-Wonderland-esque!

Terp Cake (pt 2)

OCCASION: Birthday
FLAVOR: Chocolate

This is a redo of a popular cake of mine--the third try. I made this for a Terps fan (and a party full of College Park graduates) in Fairfax, VA.

Calculator Cupcakes

OCCASION: Birthday
FLAVOR: Funfetti

Last week, I threw a surprise party for my Calculus teacher (a. because we all love him, b. because he's been mad at our class for weeks and we thought it could get him to like us again, and c. because we didn't want to do work on a Friday.) Since I've already done a calculator before, I decided to go with a spin on one. He loved it!

FIRST EVER WEDDING CAKE!

FLAVORS:

Devil's Food Cake with Vanilla Icing


Apple Cinnamon Spice Cake with Buttercream Icing



Pumpkin Cake with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Icing


Carrot Cake with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Icing

OCCASION: Wedding!

The bride, Christie, contacted me months ago to ask if I would make wedding cupcakes for her special day. She found me via Cake Wrecks! I happily agreed. I don't know why Christie and her now husband were willing to put so much trust in a seventeen year old girl, but I'm so glad they did!

The "cake" consisted of 192 cupcakes and an 8-inch anniversary tier. Each cupcake was made fresh and from scratch and topped with a candy leaf. Each leaf corresponded to a different flavor cake. I practiced out recipes for weeks to prepare--everyone in my school has now gotten overloaded with sugar treats for my experiments.

After 17 hours of non-stop baking and decorating, 30 eggs, 168 ounces of candy, 10 pounds of flour, 8 cups of butter, and 16 dozen cupcake liners, I can now say I've successfully completed what I hope won't be my last wedding cake. Send me your feedback :)

Bridal Shower Cupcakes

OCCASION: Bridal Shower
FLAVOR: Funfetti

I made these mini cupcakes for a wedding shower in my neighborhood. Each flower uses a different tip. I'm new to icing roses, but they were really fun to play around with.

Maryland Terp Cake

OCCASION: Birthday
FLAVOR: Funfetti

My friend Maya recently started college at the University of Maryland. Her parents hired me to make a cake that they could bring up to her at school. This cake is based off of the UMD logo.

Beach Cake

OCCASION: Going-Away Party
FLAVOR: Vanilla Cake with Caramel Filling

My friend Alana was celebrating her going-away to college (in California) with a beach themed party. I used brown sugar for sand and fondant for all of the other decorations. For the bottom cake, I used a new cake pan that creates a heart-shaped cavity in the middle for fillings. We chose to fill the cake with a caramel icing mixture.

Topsy Turvy Cake

OCCASION: Birthday
FLAVOR: Yellow

So all last year, I promised my friend Ellen I would bake her a belated birthday cake to make up for missing her birthday over the summer. Well, a full year later, and her birthday was on the day she started college. So I realized that not only did I have to make up for last year's lack of cake, I had to make one for this year's birthday as well. I decided no one cake would do, so I combined her love of fashion and color to make a crazy, topsy turvy cake. The cake is three tiers tall and slanted each way so that it is still level at the top. I've seen these on TV all the time, and it was fun to try making one myself!

Lacrosse Cake 2

OCCASION: Lacrosse Team Party
FLAVOR: Chocolate

I was hired to make this cake by an Internet follower. The stick of the lacrosse is shiny because I used special silver shimmer powder on it. The only side effect of this was that I looked sort of like the Tin Man once I finished the cake. This is similar in style to my previous lacrosse cake, with a substitution of frosting instead of fondant for the strings to make it tastier as well as neater.

Club Penguin Cake

OCCASION: Birthday
FLAVOR: Oreo

So my friend, Chelsea, LOVES penguins. I decided to model her birthday cake after the cartoon images from the website/game Club Penguin. The pink sunglasses are an inside joke--I always keep a pair of neon pink sunglasses in my car for my passenger to wear while I drive.

Converse Sneaker Cake

OCCASION: Birthday
FLAVOR: Devil's Food

So three months ago, my best friend celebrated her 17th birthday. I, of course, had planned on making her the above cake and giving it to her on the big day itself, but she was at a convention for her BBYO chapter. (NOTE: I had known I was going to make a Converse shoe for her since her 15th birthday. I plan ahead.) Anyways, so after her convention, I got really busy, and I didn't have time to make a cake. Then, she went to summer camp for the entire summer, and I knew I had to finally get her the long-awaited birthday cake she deserved. So I made this cake with her boyfriend and we sent it up with a camp counselor in a tiny Converse shoe box covered in tissue paper. It was a very special delivery!

Homework Evidence Cake

OCCASION: Threadcakes Contest
FLAVOR: Yellow

NOTE: This entry cannot be possible without a plethora of links. Bear with me.

So at 4 PM on August 3, I found out about the Threadcakes cake contest via CakeWrecks. The contest deadline was midnight the same evening, and, being a lazy teenager in the summer, I decided to go for it. The contest was to interpret a Threadless t-shirt design into a cake. I decided (in my almost insane mind) that I would make TWO cakes, this being one of them. It's based off this tee. I covered the dog-shaped cake in black fondant and used dark blue and white fondant to replicate the shapes. For the x-ray lines, I used thin lines of light blue icing. These cakes were definitely a challenge: with less than ten hours to make two cakes, get ingredients, and feed myself like a healthy person, I had to work fast. Luckily, I had a few friends over for moral support/photography--the entire cake process had to be photographed for authenticity. This was a really fun experimental cake!

The Apple Shaving Accident Cake

OCCASION: Threadcakes Contest
FLAVOR: Yellow

This is the first of my two entries into the Threadcakes contest (refer to the description above.) It's based off of this tee. I layered a small square of fondant where the "peel" would be so that it could peel back and look as if it were actually peeling off a layer of cake. The sugar-stubble was rolled into the fondant prior to covering the cake. The longer "furs" of the apple were made out of thin lines of icing. I really enjoyed making this one :)

This Aint No Funky Reggae Cake

OCCASION: Birthday
FLAVOR: Vegan Yellow Cake with Buttercream Icing and Sliced Almonds

This cake was a last-minute request. My only requirements were to make it Vegan and in the shape of a J. My friends came over to assist me, because they knew the recipient of the cake and I did not. Upon hearing that the recipient's 2 favorite things were beer and music, we incorporated those into the cake as well. Somehow, we landed on a theme of "your birthday in space!" and ran with it, leading to this psychedelic birthday cake.

Butterfly Cake

OCCASION: Birthday
FLAVOR: Strawberry

This cake was made for a friend at school, Ceci. The smaller butterflies were made out of candy that I melted and molded to the butterfly wing shape. The cake itself was entirely icing. It was refreshing to try a non-fondant cake for once!

Chocolate Strawberry Cupcakes

OCCASION: Birthday
FLAVOR: Chocolate

Ambulance Cake

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OCCASION: Birthday
FLAVOR: Oreo

I made this cake for Cheryl, my first ever internet follower cake! She's an EMT at a fire station in Montgomery County, Maryland.

P.S. check out the new layout, designed (again) by Daisha. She's great at photography and web-design--see for yourself at http://www.dlifefulphotography.blogspot.com/

American U Cake

OCCASION: Graduation
FLAVOR: Funfetti

This cake was made for my friend Phil, who graduated from high school last month and is attending American University this fall.