Dark Chocolate Cake with Vanilla Swiss Meringue Buttercream Filling, and Mocha Espresso SMB Icing

I made this cake mainly because my husband has been watching a bunch of treats created and go right out the door, so this one was made with love for him and the boys to enjoy.

This dark chocolate cake recipe is so delicious and moist, it truly is amazing and SIMPLE and is my go-to chocolate cake recipe from now on. The mocha espresso SMB was adapted from a recipe on the Sweetapolita blog, and it's pretty darn good. The hints of coffee and cinnamon give this buttercream a very tasty and elegant touch.

I also wanted to use this cake as a way to experiement with the petal effect in my buttercream, which I learned from a video tutorial on http://www.mycakeschool.com/. This is a very simple but beautiful way to decorate a cake! I'm glad it turned out!

New flowers...

I'm spending the day making gumpaste flowers for a retirement cake. Also probably just some for fun! Photos will be posted soon with the cake and accompanying cupcakes!

Hubby's Birthday Cake

I loved making this cake, it was a ton of fun. My husband is an avid fly fisherman and our favorite place is Belize....so I surprised him with a fly fisherman dressed in Justin's "lucky" fishing attire who is fishing on the flats. It was a chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream, very simple.

Thanks to Sam for reminding me that I forgot to post this epic cake! ;)

Inside-out Neapolitan Cupcakes

The idea for these came from the Sweetapolita blog, http://sweetapolita.com/2011/04/inside-out-neapolitan-layer-cake/. I've been wanting to do a full cake but my adorable husband looks at me quizzically every time I say that. So I went with the smaller-scale version. These are very cute and would be perfect for a birthday party. They are also amazingly tasty, yet light and silky! These are my chocolate cupcakes with chocolate, vanilla and strawberry SMB, and dark chocolate shavings on top. Super easy to make!

Chocolate Turtle Cupcakes with Caramel Drizzle

These are sooooo good. They have chocolate Turtle pieces in their center. The idea for these came from the Sweetopia blog:
http://sweetopia.net/2011/05/turtle-cupcakes/

Also....do you recognize the cute royal icing turtles, which now have eyes??

Chocolate Blackberry Cupcake with Dark Chocolate Drizzle

This yummy cupcake is my tried and true chocolate cake recipe with blackberry filling (I cheated this time and just used jam), lightly flavored blackberry SMB, with a dark chocolate drizzle and dark chocolate shavings. It's pretty darn tasty.

New Cupcake Additions

Last night's cupcake baking extravaganza was....well, interesting. The SMB (Swiss meringue buttercream) making venture wasn't very smooth. Honestly it's the first time I ran into a problem with it. I will have to discuss what SMB is and why I like it better than the regular buttercream version sometime.....maybe the next time I make it and can add some photos to go along with the discussion. This time the buttercream turned out tasting more buttery.....still delicious!.....and in the end the cupcakes were a success.

Mother's Day Cake

Now this cake...had me saying bad things, to say the least. It would have been perfect if I had used the homemade fondant the day I made it....but no, I didn't. And the humidity got to it. It was greasy and soft and just didn't want to work for me. The colored fondant was fine....just not the stuff that should have made this cake look as fashionable as it deserved! Lessons learned! However, it tasted great! This was a White Chocolate Cake with chocolate buttercream filling.

Easter Cake

I loved this cake, it was so simple yet so cute. It was a marbled cake with chocolate buttercream and raspberry filling.

Father's Day Cake

I admit, I got a little lazy on this one. I should have trimmed it up to make the gift box more "square." However, the bow was a highlight for people and it was still a very nice cake. This was a Vanilla and Chocolate cake, with vanilla, chocolate and peanut butter buttercream fillings.

Birthday Cupcakes

These fun cupcakes were DELICIOUS!! Honestly it's one of my favorite recipes. I also love making anything out of gumpaste and fondant so I probably made these more for me than for the two birthday girls. :) These were Peaches and Cream Cupcakes, with cinnamon and brown sugar buttercream. These are very similar to a peach coffee cake. Very decadent!

Anniversary Cake #2

Last weekend was a busy one!

This was anniversary cake #2, still pretty but a little more whimsical. This was a York Peppermint Patty Cake: chocolate cake with rich chocolate buttercream, mint buttercream, and Swiss meringue buttercream filling. Also included some peppermint patty pieces.

Anniversary Cake

This cake was fun to make and looks stunning!

This is a chocolate cake, with vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream, peanutbutter buttercream filling with Reece's peanutbutter cup chunks. Can you say YUM?? There really were no issues with making this cake, it was fun and easy to make. :D

Day one in the world of cake blogging....

Tonight is baking night...making some yummy cupcakes with these adorable turtle toppers I made from the Sweetopia blog. :) These are lemon flavored royal icing turtles. Please note I am working on the cake making skills...not the photography ones!!!