This was a really fun project!  I love doing anything in mini, so as soon as my suggestion of “mini” cupcakes with a spring theme to everything got accepted, I got excited.  I knew exactly what I was going to do.

My directions for this order were to have large carrot cake cupcakes with cream cheese icing, mini chocolate cupcakes with chocolate buttercream, mini vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream, 50’s all over the place, and lots of spring flowers.

For the Carrot Cake cupcakes, I went with a new recipe, and though it tasted really delicious, I wasn’t that happy with how it looked.  It was actually kind of difficult to bake.  I’m not sure if this is common for carrot cake recipes, but I’m still on a search for the perfect recipe that I can use regularly with the Cakery.

Has anyone ever made Ina Garten’s Carrot Cake recipe that can be found on the Food Network’s website?  How did it turn out for you?  Like I said, it tasted great . . . hearty, sweet with lots of flavour to it, but it’s appearance was less than stellar.  I hoped all the decorations and icing would hide it’s “unique personality”.  The base of the cupcake was perfectly cooked, but the top was on the crispy side.  It was my weirdest baking experience to date . . . except for the one time I mixed up baking powder for baking soda.  Boy does that ever make a difference!  Who knew!?

For the decorations on the mini’s, I used a simple flower cutter, with a gum paste/fondant mixture.  *Note: Whenever you add gum paste to your fondant, the fondant will become much harder that it would on it’s own.  The pearls in the middle of the flowers are just pastel coloured dragees.  (WTF is a dragee anyway?!?!?).  The leaves are cut with a mini leaf cuter and then touched up with a veining tool for a more lifelike appearance.

I’ve heard the birthday was a successful surprise, and that the cupcakes were a great hit!  I’m so glad I could be a positive part of the event.  Happy 50th Birthday Donna!