Snowman Cupcakes

Not a lot of snow here is Toronto, so these snowman will have to do!  Wishing everybody happiest of holidays and thanking all those who don't get a break.  We appreciate the work that you do!

A New Year's Wish...

Happy New Year to everyone!  As you reflect on 2013, I hope you see more high points that balance out the low points.  I hope you see all the wonderful learnings that balance out the mistakes and unfortune.  I hope you see more smiles on yourself then sadness.  I hope you see more happiness that you brought to others, then no feelings.  I wish you a 2014 that makes up for any of it.

btw - I should mention that the above is inspired by some viral story shared on facebook, but those are my own words.  :-)

Christmas Cupcakes

Wishing everyone a wonderful holiday season!  A big THANK YOU to all those people that work through the holidays to keep us safe, warm and help everything run smoothly.  You know who you are!

New Years Cupcakes

Can you believe it is the eve of 2013?  Wishing everyone a very Happy New Year!  I hope you can take some time to reflect on sweet memories in 2012 and look forward to making more wonderful memories in 2013! 

I am so grateful for all the wonderful things in 2012, although it was a busy one.  For 2013, I am going to focus on two simple, but tremendously significant words that my wise mom said.  "Be Happy"   I'm not sure what it means yet, but I may spend a little less time on some things, a little more on other things or maybe do some new things.  I wish for everyone to "Be Happy" in 2013!

Little Snowman Cake

A wintery cake nspired by a cute YouTube video that my 18 month old daughter loves... Little Snowflake.

Thank you to all my blog readers, clients, friends and family for following my little blog and making 2012 a wonderful year for SweetThings.  Happy Holidays to you and your family!

Easter Cake Goodness!

Wishing everyone a happy and sweet Easter weekend!  Last Easter, I made some Easter Chicks.... well, they are so cute, so I had to make them again.

The cake is banana sour cream cake with chocolate swiss meringue buttercream

A view from the top, I added a little checkerboard print to the top of the cake to match the cakeboard.

My 9 month old daughter (and her ever-growing hair) viewing the cake from a distance... I can't have her too close to the cakes anymore, she's got quick hands!  Have a fabulous Easter Weekend!

St. Patrick's Day Cake

I'm one day early... but I wanted to wish everyone a Happy St. Patrick's Day and share this fun little cake I made.  Hope you find your gold or at least something sweet at the end of the rainbow.

 A close up of the handmade fondant gold coins.

Some little fingers trying to get their hands on the gold... enjoy your weekend!

Happy Valentine's Day

A simple little heart shaped cake to wish you a Happy Valentine's Day.  Hope your day is filled with lots of sweet things. 

My daughter, Sidney, sure loved playing with the cake like it was a drum.  She is still not old enough to taste cake yet as she is just over 7 months.

The cake was 4 layers of chocolate sour cream cake with vanilla bean buttercream - it was a nice treat!  Hope you enjoy a treat today!

Christmas Cupcake Tutorial

Christmas is just around the corner. I put together a simple and easy tutorial for Christmas tree cupcake toppers.

What you need:  A small rolling pin, green and yellow fondant, star cutter, painbrush and small pair of nail cutting scissors.  The nail scissor can be found at any of those dollar stores and very useful for your cake tool box.

Step 1:  Roll the green fondant into a pointy shape.  If your fondant is very soft, mix with gumpaste or add some tylose to it to stiffin it up.

Step 2: With the curve of the scissors pointing upward, start making little cuts into the fondant.  Match the start and finish of the cuts and just move around the shape.

Step 3: When you've reached how tall you want the tree, then make the final cuts very deep.  Then you can just easily twist off your tree.

Step 4: Roll out the yellow fondant and cutout your star.  Dab a little water on top of the tree and place it on.  And there you have a simple Christmas tree - feel free to add additional decorations too!

I liked my trees plain as I did made a little reindeer to match my daughter's onesie that says "My First Christmas".  Hope you enjoyed the tutorial and have a great week! 

Easter Chicks

Hope every is enjoying their long Easter weekend with their friends and family.  I'm sure everyone is also savouring some sweets.

For my sweets this weekend, the theme was Easter Chicks (inspired by a blog post by my blog friend, Kathia, at Pink Little Cake.)  Firstly, we have a vanilla butter cake with vanilla swiss meringue buttercream

Chocolate sour cream and strawberry vanilla cupcakes.

Lastly, an easy to make treat of rice krispie squares dressed up with some Easter Chicks.  Happy Easter and have a great week everyone!

Valentine's Day Cake

An extra post this week for Valentine's Day.  So, instead of Be Mine, I Love You, Kiss Me, Be My Valentine, XOXO or Happy Valentines Day.... How about THANK YOU!

THANK YOU from the bottom on my heart!  This was 6-layers of carved strawberry vanilla cake with strawberry cream cheese icing.

While we are on the topic of saying Thanks... I want to thank all my friends, family, blog friends and clients for such a great start to 2011.  It has been over 2 years since SweetThings officially opened and I couldn't be happier!

I want to share with you an interview I did last month with a website called Human Detour.  The YouTube video gives you a bit of background on how I got started.  If you have the time, this interview is about 15 minutes long and split into Part I & Part II.  Thanks again!

Chinese New Year Cupcakes

Happy Chinese New Year Everyone!  The chinese lunar new year started on February 3rd.  This is a 15-day festival which ends with a lantern festival.

In the chinese zodiac, this year is represented by the Rabbit.  This is the lunar year of some very close people in my life!  It is your lunar year if you were born in 1939, 1951, 1963, 1975, 1987 & 1999.

Some carrot cupcake with cream cheese icing decorated with sugarpaste gold rabbits and coins.

Vanilla bean cupcakes with vanilla swiss meringue buttercream decorated with handmade sugarpaste lanterns and lucky money.  The symbol been Good Luck.

I hope everyone had a great start to the Year of the Rabbit. 

Christmas Cupcakes

It's that time of the year again for Holiday Cakes and Cupcakes.  There are always lots of fun ideas when it comes to Christmas like stockings, Santa stuck in a chimney, rudolph, a string of Christmas lights and so many more.

 

Even more fun, a cupcake tower topped with a big ornament cake with cupcakes decorated with sugarpaste christmas lights and ornaments.   Hope you enjoyed these cupcake ideas!  Happy Holidays to everyone!

 

Halloween Cupcake Tower

Happy Halloween Everyone!  I wanted to share this fun cupcake tower with a Mummy cake topper and halloween cupcakes.

If you'd like to see how I made these cupcake toppers and cake, click on over to visit Kathia at Pink Little Cake for a how-to and mini-tutorial.  Aside from being a fabulous cake designer, Kathia has a great blog that I follow.  Over the past month, she has been putting together a collection of fabulous blog posts called 28 Days of Sweet Halloween Ideas.  Lots of great ideas and I am happy to participate with my fellow bloggers.

Wishing everyone a safe and happy halloween weekend.

Easter Cupcakes

I hope everyone is enjoying their long weekend.  Here are some yummy and cute Easter cupcakes... Strawberry Vanilla with strawberry buttercream and Vanilla bean cupcakes with vanilla swiss meringue buttercream topped with handmade sugarpaste bunnies.

For the dog lover, we have strawberry and chocolate cupcakes topped with handmade bunnies and dogs with bunny ears.

And some chocolate sour cream cupcakes and orange dream cupcakes, both topped with chocolate buttercream.  Hope you enjoyed these cupcakes!

Winter Wedding & Happy New Year!

The holidays are such a busy, but fun time to catch up with family, friends and colleagues.  It is all about celebration!  In my family, we had another reason to celebrate.  My sister is getting married in a couple weeks in a private ceremony all the way in Narvik, Norway.

For weddings, the bride is usually presented with something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue.  So, as part of her Christmas present, I wanted to give her something blue - a cake!  She wouldn't be able to take it with her - but we enjoyed it with Christmas dinner.

The cake was winter-themed with snowflakes and a snowball on top - as its quite cold up in Norway.  The flavors were Strawberry Vanilla and strawberry buttercream on he bottom tier.  Then Chocolate Sour Cream with Vanilla Swiss Meringue Buttercream.  The snowball was lemon cake.

I wish my sister Cindy and her fiance Jon Arne an amazing 2010 and a lifetime of adventure, travels, fun and happiness!  Stay warm in Norway!

To all my family, friends, blog readers and clients - thank you for the most amazing 2009!  It was my first year officially in business - everything was better than I expected!  I'm looking forward to 2010 and wish everyone health, happiness and lots of Sweet Things!

Sphere Mini-Cakes: A Holiday Wedding Reception

I had the pleasure of designing this magnificent cake tower filled with sphere cakes.  My client and I have been talking and dreaming about this cake for many months now.  Her son was married in late summer in London, England.  Their wedding cake was based off a wonderful design by the talented cake artist Makiko Searle of Maki's Cakes.  I have been a fan of hers for quite some time!

The Toronto reception was planned for a few days before Christmas with all the family and friends flying in - that is how the colorful ornament theme came about.

The event was took place last night at the Market Kitchen which is a wonderful space at St. Lawrence Market.  It is in the Upper Level and overlooks the market area.

Here is another angle of the cake and you can see that they have a open kitchen.  They use this space for all sorts of events and also cooking classes.

I have made sphere cakes before, but not this many in so many sizes.  There was enough to feed 100 people.  There were 3 different sizes and the 2 different flavors:  Zesty Lemon and Chocolate Sour Cream with Vanilla Swiss Meringue Buttercream.  There were also 2 special soccer ball cakes for the big fans - the groom and the bride's father.

I think sphere mini cakes will be a very popular trend for 2010!  Let's see if I am right!