5 kinds of edible leaf cupcake toppers for fall

It's fall, which means leaves turning colors, Halloween and Thanksgiving around the corner, pumpkin cupcakes and other seasonal fun, including fall leaves cupcake toppers. Here are five examples we found on Etsy - click through on photo to be taken to the sales page.


Fall fondant maple leaves cupcake toppers by Etsy seller cakesandmoredly, 12 for $12. Listing is for 3 of each color show, they are approximately 1 1/2 inches tall. "Each order is hand made and will be unique, so there may be some minor differences between the stars pictured and the ones you receive."



Fall leaf monogrammed cupcake topper by Etsy seller FancyCakeArt, 12 for $14, choice of monogram letter and date. "Each leaf measures about 2.5" tall/wide. The leafs are made from fondant, royal icing, and topped off with edible sugar glitter."



Lot of 12 variegated leaves, they are about 1 inch long and 1 inch wide, spray colored in all edible colors made of fondant by Etsy seller craftyrosy, $6



Fall leaves fondant cupcake toppers dusted with bronze pearl dust by Etsy seller LittleSugarTops, 24 for $6



Edible Leaves are made from wafer paper (potato starch, water and vegetable oil) printed with FDA approved 100% edible ink on a printer that is used exclusively for edible items, 1.5-2 inches, by Etsy seller CakesbyChristi, 24 for $9.95

Harry Potter Cake & Cupcakes

Well, I am still alive. But (surprise!) I've been super busy at school and haven't really been blogging like I should. Before I left for school, though, I made these adorable cupcakes and a matching Harry Potter cookie cake. Sorry the pictures suck, I took them with my phone, and the REAL pictures are still on my Dad's camera.

(So Katie, whenever you can email those to me, I'd really appreciate it!)

I got a job here in Florida, actually. It's a lot of fun and it's keeping me out of trouble, so I'll have to share some of the fun stories I've got from working in a bakery! :D

Cupcakes in potted plants with fondant toppers!

I love this idea, and you can buy the fondant toppers on Etsy, $34 for 12 (via Foodista).

6 cute cupcake toppers from Little Sugar Tops on Etsy: heart, tulip, ghost, Hello Kitty, lollipop, bat

Little Sugar Tops sells their cupcake toppers in their Etsy store, and these photos are from their Flickr album. Most are $12 for a dozen fondant toppers, but prices vary. You can also follow them @LittleSugarTops on Twitter.



































bat cupcake topper (one of several Halloween toppers)

Roller skating and fairy tale cupcakes and smiling monkey and robot cake pops!

These roller skate cupcakes and monkey cake pops are by Midtown Sweets, a custom dessert company in Atlanta, Georgia. You can also follow them @MidtownSweets on Twitter and on Facebook and Flickr, where these photos are from. They can be reached at info at midtownsweets.com and you can click here for their delivery areas.













"Vanilla Cupcakes with Pink & Green Buttercream Frosting. The Marshmallow Fondant toppers were molded to look like Fairy Slippers, Wands, and Toadstools. The Fairy Slippers were modeled after the ones worn by everyone's favorite Fairy, Tinkerbell."

Red velvet Alice in Wonderland cupcakes

These cute Alice in Wonderland cupcakes are by blogger Chelsea of Cupcake Adventures, and were made for a coworker's going away party. The Cheshire cat's smile is so big and adorable, it makes me want to smile back! She writes:

These cupcakes are decorated with fondant cupcake toppers that I made by hand. I did the "Eat me", Alice, the pocket watch that the rabbit carries with him, the white rabbit, Ace of Hearts, tea pot with tea cups, "drink me" bottle, key, Queen of Hearts crown with a royal staff, Cheshire cat, white roses that are painted red, and the mad hatters hat with a slice of cake. I also did 4 mini cupcakes with grass, mushrooms, and flowers.

Images via Flickr

Mr. Potato head cake pop and lemon butterfly cupcakes

These cake pops and cupcakes are by Norwalk, California's Pixie Dust Cupcakes, and if you want to place an order, they can be reached at jen@pixiedustcupcakes.com or 562-522-1969. You can also keep up with them on Facebook.


I haven't seen a real Mr. Potato Head game in...20 years? Still, I totally remember playing it.



cherry!



"Light lemon cake topped with smooth lemon cream cheese frosting, topped with edible pearls and fondant butterfly"

Chocolate Cupcakes With Pink Fondant Bows

A cupcake is great gift, and I love a gift wrapped up with a tiny bow.

Gorgeous, colorful tropical flower cupcakes and Kentucky Derby hat cupcakes

I love how brightly colored and beautiful these tropical flower cupcakes by Dixie Belle Cupcake Cafe (via Flickr) are. Officially, they are: "Confetti Cupcakes with Vanilla Butter Cream and handmade Tropical Fondant Flowers." If these were real flowers I'd want to put them in my hair! They're located in Fredericksburg, Texas, and you can find out more at their Facebook page.



And we missed this back in May but here are some Kentucky Derby hat cupcakes they made:

Picnic cupcakes with bugs, burgers and watermelon on top!

These It's My Treat by Janice picnic cupcakes are so fun (and probably have the only kind of ants you'd want crawling on your cupcakes), and perfect for summer! Via Flickr. See more in this Flickr set and get more info on this Charlotte, North Carolina company on Facebook. Fondant cheeseburger for the win!

Harry Potter red glitter lightning cupcake topper, plus book of spells, broomstick and more

Find out how to make your own Harry Potter cupcakes like these using fondant, ready-to-roll icing and more at goodtoknow. Photos via Victorious Cupcakes on Flickr.




four houses of Hogwarts

Flowers & Cake Design (Part 1)

Well, I started my final Wilton class this past Monday. I'm a quarter of the way done with flowers & cake design and I'm actually really excited for this class. There's a lot of flowers that we'll be doing out of buttercream (or royal icing), and I never really got the hang of the piped flowers when I tried to teach myself. Hopefully I'll be a faster learner with an instructor who's going over the step by step instructions with me.

 This is the pansy that we made. I think this is actually upside down, but I don't really know. I like pansies a lot in real life (my grandma always plants tons of them) but I'm kind of iffy about this gumpaste one. First of all, the gumpaste started to harden and crack before I finished ruffling the petals, so that was a total buzzkill. I also feel like the sizing of the flower is off.



My biggest complaint about this class is that there is a lot of redundancy when you take the Flowers class and the Fondant class (weren't they supposed to fix that?). You even get a lot of the same tools. I'm quite miffed about that; I'd rather get some new tools that Wilton suggests you buy, but they don't actually put in your kit, like the 9" rolling pin or the tapered spatula.



You also have to re-learn a lot of the same skills: how to tint gumpaste, how to make gum-glue, etc. So totally boring if you've taken the gumpaste class already.



And the button flower? I've got mixed feelings about this guy. First of all: SUPER CUTE. I can't wait to use it with this mold for a cake I've been wanting to make for Katie for a couple of years now. But the way the flower cutter is set up is SUCH A PAIN. Also, I don't understand why you don't make this flower in the fondant/gumpaste class either. If anyone can figure that out for met, let me know!

Anyone else taken this class? Did you like it? Was it hard to make the "Wilton rose?" (I really hope I can finally master that elusive flower!)

Butterbeer Harry Potter cupcakes

These Harry Potter cupcakes (the first this week of many, I predict) are by Omaha, Nebraska's PJ's Baby Cakes, via Flickr. You can find out more at pjsbabycakes.com and follow them on Twitter and Facebook. From their Flickr account:

Butterbeer Cupcakes are a buttery cream soda cake filled with a butterscotch ganache, topped with a butterscotch buttercream and drizzled with more butterscotch ganache. I adapted a few different recipes found on the internet and made an absolutely awesome cupcake. Possibly my favorite. Or maybe it's just all the butterscotch talking.

Fondant pieces were handmade by myself and one of my volunteers!

Purple hydrangea cupcakes

These beautiful Peggy Porschen inspired purple hydrangea cupcakes are by Cakes, Etc. by Dana, via Flickr. It's a vanilla cupcake with lemon buttercream and fondant hyndrangeas, and you can find out how they were made in this blog post and get more info on Cakes, Etc. on Facebook.

Fondant Finale

So I don't know how this cake turned out so fabulous, but somehow, it did. This is the cake I made for my Wilton gumpaste/fondant class. I honestly don't know how it came together. The colors I chose based on the gumpaste and fondant I already had. I just mixed in a little extra color to make them brighter, and some how arrived at this pink/yellow/green scheme.

I've decided that the ruffle border we did in class that night is my new favorite. It looks really cute, and gives the cake a fabric-y look. And the daisies along the border? Ah! Not only did they hide the seams, but they just look like they belong there.

And the flower arrangement on the top was literally a last minute decision. My Wilton instructor and I were just playing around with the cake until it looked good, and this is what we got!

I'm so proud of this cake. Even though I stayed up too late to bake it, and got up too early to crumb coat it (and cut my finger in the process of leveling the cake-- ugh!), this cake is totally worth all the hard work! (Although if I had to do it again, I would be more careful with the knife! Kelsie, don't try to cut cakes before you've had breakfast!!)

Porsche Cake

Just the logo for today's cake. Maybe I'll make a replica of Dad's car next year? We'll see!

20 years ago, for his very first Father's Day, as a gift to himself, my dad bought a Porsche. I'm not really sure why, or what that has to do with being a new dad, but he really wanted one, so he got it, and it's still sitting in our garage right this very second.

Bam! Do you see how smooth that buttercream is?

But let's get back to the exciting stuff: the cake. For Father's Day '11, I went with a chocolate cake. Surprised? Yeah, me too. I thought for sure that Dad would want a plain yellow cake, or maybe lemon, but he went for something totally different and asked for chocolate. Go figure.

So chocolate he got: chocolate cake, chocolate buttercream, chocolate chips, chocolate syrup, chocolate fondant.

The baking and the buttercream-ing of the cake was the easy part. It was when the fodant came in that I started having trouble. First of all, I used Fondarific, which is a terrific, tasty, and rather expensive fondant that we use (and sell) at work. The chocolate flavor tastes a little like tootsie rolls, so that's awesome. The problem, though, is that I'm used to using a dough sheeter to roll out the fondant, and today I had to do it by hand, with a wooden rolling pin, and a lot of elbow grease.

Smooth fondant! (mostly)

Anyway, after some sweat and tears (no literal tears, but I did feel like crying at one point when I still couldn't get the fondant thin enough and I was worried I'd have to start all over again), I got the cake covered. Is it as smooth and professional as you see on the TV shows? No. But was my Dad happy? You bet. It's all about pleasing the customer, right?

The logo was a lot of fun to make (though not necessarily easy). I printed the logo from Google Images, used it to trace onto the fondant, and did the same for the center part and the red and black stripes. I don't have an X-acto knife but I realized today that it's going to be my next decorating investment. The lovely gold sheen was achieved with lemon extract and "old gold" luster dust (usually I use vodka, but we didn't have any of that and it's Sunday, plus I doubt my parents were going to buy me vodka anyway, even if it was only to paint a cake). I free-handed the horse and the writing, which turned out quite spiffy, if I do say so myself. (I can never draw horses, but it turns out I can paint a tiny silhouette of one!)

Oh, and Adam helped me put the ribbon around the cake. If you look at the back side of it, you can see his little thumb prints. Which is why it's on the back.

It's not exactly the neatest cake in the world, but I'm hoping that everyone else doesn't notice all my flaws, so I'll try not to point them all out. I'll keep my perfectionist comments to myself!

Happy Father's Day!

Wilton's Fondant Class

I started taking the fondant/gumpaste Wilton class. This week, we made fondant bows for the tops of our cakes, and started to make flowers (which will continue in next week's class). So far, it's been quite fun. And now, I know how to really make the fondant* bows, because the one time I tried to make them before, it was quite a disaster. (It was a 50/50 gumpaste/fondant mix, not just straight up fondant)

Ironically, I watched my boss make a gumpaste bow the next day at work, but I also wasn't paying very close attention because I was also detailing a '72 Chevelle cake. ;)

Definitely liking this class better than the "beginner" course, although I'm sure I could learn all this stuff at work, too. I just wish someone could teach me how to make pregnant lady cake toppers who don't look, well, fat. I'll sign up for that class in a heartbeat. (Unless it's in Vancouver.)

(PS, I've started my list of cake contests here. Please comment/email/facebook/twitter me if you have anything to add!!)