Floral Buttercream Birthday Cake with Chocolate and Whiskey Tiers

Omigosh you guys, it has been a whirlwind month! Over Memorial Day weekend we headed for Des Moines to throw my husband’s grandmother a surprise birthday party (and his cousin a Bridal Shower.) No birthday is complete without cake, but everyone was worried about spoiling the surprise, so we made the cake in Minneapolis, loaded…

Paw Patrol Birthday Cake

This cake was so much fun! Every year, I bake a cake for my nephew’s birthday. He’s turning five this year, so he’s actually having two parties – one for family, and one for his friends. Usually my sister-in-law and I will tackle baking the cake together, but since we needed to cakes, I handled…

Boston Cream Cupcakes

Omigosh you guys, it feels like it has been an eternity since I’ve made cupcakes. In reality it has only been like two months, but, let’s be honest – that’s two months too long! I baked these for an office birthday when I felt the urge to do something a little different. Chocolate cupcakes are…

Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes with Chocolate Frosting

You’d be hard pressed to find a bad chocolate cupcake. Well, unless of course you’re talking about vegan cupcakes. Even those styrofoam Hostess ones are somewhat palatable, but vegan cupcakes taste like sawdust! 😉 …. just kidding, of course! I made these for a neighborhood dessert potluck, and was faced with a dilemma – they’re…

Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes with Salted Caramel Frosting

So, you may remember that last year I crowned my Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes with Brown Sugar and Cinnamon Frosting, like,  the queens of fall. The end-all be-all of autumn related cupcakes. The autumnest of the autumn. The epitome of fall in a paper wrapper. Well, as it turns out, I was wrong. I know. How…

Giant Cupcake Smash Cake and First Birthday Party

If you follow me on Instagram you may have noticed that my beautiful niece (aka my birthday buddy) just turned one! My sister-in-law and I continued our tradition and baked a cake together to mark the occasion. We waffled on the theme a little. At first we wanted to do strawberries in honor of the…

Superhero Birthday Cake

My sister-in-law and I have a tradition of baking cakes for my nephew’s birthday. This year, life took over and she had to sit this one out. She suggested we could just buy a cake, but I couldn’t let that happen! Initially my nephew requested a chocolate cake with lemon and strawberry and I said…

Chocolate Cake Roll

When I made my first cake roll for Easter, I failed to get it rolled as tightly as I would’ve liked. I had extra pattern batter left over, so I figured I might as well try again. For the second cake, I made a chocolate sponge cake, applied a more elaborate decoration (again inspired by…

Devil’s Food Cake with Amaretto Frosting

One of my husband’s close friends is part of a technology start-up, so he’s constantly traveling for work. As you might imagine, that means that staying in touch can sometimes get tough. Oh, AND his Instagram never fails to be full of infuriatingly exotic locales, so I’m always wayyy too envious of him. 😉 On…

Sprinkle Covered Birthday Cake

My nephew’s 4th birthday fell on Easter this year, and even though we’re throwing a party for him in a couple of weeks (Superhero themed! Cannot wait!) I decided that the kid only turns four once and shouldn’t miss out on birthday cake, regardless of how generous the Easter Bunny was. 🙂 (and gosh, was…

Pink Polka-Dotted Cake Roll with Lemon Filling

For Easter this year I decided that I would bring two cakes, one for my nephew’s birthday, and one for Easter. After considering a few bunny and carrot themed designs, I ultimately went with egg inspired designs that reminded me of elaborately decorated Easter eggs. Truth be told, I wasn’t super happy with this cake…

Chai Tea Latte Cupcakes

We had another office birthday last week, and I had a strong urge to bake cupcakes, as I hadn’t really made any since Halloween! (What is this world coming to?) I didn’t have any specific requests from the birthday girl, so I figured I’d hit Pinterest and look for inspiration. Just a few scrolls in…

Chocolate Turtle Cake

My husband’s birthday was last week, and as I’ve mentioned before, he’s not much of a cake guy. I’d put him firmly on Team Pie or Team Cheesecake. This year though, he surprised me by repeatedly asking me what kind of cake I was going to make for his birthday, and each time I would…

Floral Pink Baptism Cupcakes

The cupcake version of my niece‘s baptism cake are basically the cake in easy mode – they’re just as cute, with the same little flowers, but by skipping the torting and filling of a full cake, you can shave hours off of your assembly time. Much like the cake, these are some of the easiest…