We moved from San Francisco to Marin this summer, so my daughter and I decided on San Francisco themed cupcakes. Specifically, we thought about all of the things we loved about San Francisco in addition to all of its iconic landmarks.Generally, before I start making cupcakes with detailed images like these, I draw them out to better refine the image and also make sure that what I have in mind will ultimately fit on the cupcake. As always, some images always morph from the original conception. For example, originally I wanted to do street signs to indicate the intersection of our home. Ultimately, I decided to actually make little buildings to show our home and the two neighboring homes.Here are 12 of the finished cupcakes. We also make labels for each cupcake to identify the images (in case they weren’t clear!) for the party guests.Here are the beginnings of the sushi, the Alvarado school mascot, Ticklebelly Hill, our old home and the seals at Pier 39A close-up of the Hamano sushi rollThe Golden Gate Bridge!A croissant and hot chocolate from Tartine BakeryPizza Hacker has the best pizza in the city! @pizzahackerThis was the birthday girl’s favorite cupcake and was an homage to Easy Breezy Frozen Yogurt on 24th Street in Noe Valley.The sea lions at Pier 39. The girls played party games and whoever won had a choice to pick their cupcake (after the birthday girl) or get a prize from the prize bag. All of the girls that one opted to get first dibs on picking the cupcake of their choice. Surprisingly to me, this cupcake was the first one chosen!This was one of the “Friends” cupcakes to represent the friendships my daughter made while in SF. Because I am a redhead, I always make a little redhead girl (if applicable) even though she didn’t have any redheaded friends. Fondant creator prerogative!This is TickleBelly Hill. It’s not the real name of the hill, of course, but one that our family coined as our bellies did flips if we hit the bumps just right. TickleBelly Hill ultimately became the “company” name of any baking projects the three of us did together. And later, of course, the name of this website.Our apartment and the two neighboring homes.The Birthday Girl’s creation! She made everything herself. Every Tuesday for 4 years, she spent the afternoon with her great-aunt, and this plate of gyoza symbolizes their favorite meal together at Hamano restaurant.Here are all the cupcakes together and labeled: Our old home, Golden Gate Bridge, TickleBelly Hill, Hamano sushi, Pizza Hacker, Alvarado Elementary, Buttons Candy Store, Easy Breezy Frozen Yogurt, Tartine Bakery, Pier 39 sea lions, BFFs, Hamano gyoza, Karl the Fog, Twin peaks+fog+Sutro Tower
My daughter wanted a wedding-style, multi layered cake for her 12th birthday. Here’s the original sketch I drew to flesh out some ideas, including using gum paste to mimic a skirt for the bottom tier. In addition, I thought I might make gum paste or fondant ruffles, to adorn the top tier in ombre colored layers, but ultimately, I just cold-carved the Italian meringue buttercream and left it plain for its smooth and crisp-edged look. Because my daughter’s party was just two days before Halloween, we started thinking about how to make it Halloween themed, but also keep the fancy cake as planned. We toyed with a half and half cake where one side was “dead” (black/grey) and the other half looked normal, but ultimately decided to go with a plain-old bloody fondant knife and fake rubber spiders. Each tier is an easy, moist, make-ahead chocolate cake from the Barefoot Contessa Parties cookbook. There are three layers separated by chocolate ganache (a different ganache recipe –yielding more spreadable results–than the one in the Barefoot Contessa cookbook). The top tier is 3 layers of the same chocolate cake, but layered with an Italian Vanilla Buttercream.The full cake. I wanted to make it look like a fancy wedding cake, with the obvious differences…Here’s a close-up of the fondant knife–complete with some bloody fingerprints.The top of the cake. I experimented with making different kinds of flowers with gum paste– a peony, roses, and the small white “filler” flowers that would mimic fresh flowers on a real cake. I formed the curve of each peony layer using various sized cupcake wrappers and cupcake tins with a tinfoil “hammock” inside. I dusted the edges of the flower with luster dust to make it look more realistic.
I wanted to create a dainty springy floral cake for my best friend’s birthday. I made a triple layer yellow cake filled with lemon curd. I frosted the whole thing with a lemon cream cheese buttercream and then covered the whole thing in white fondant before adding the fondant flowers.
Here’s a close-up of the fondant hand rolled roses and formed flowers.
December 5, 2015: A magic themed fondant cake. The actual cake is under the (all edible) sequined “blanket’. Fondant goodies in and around the hat are two scarves, a magic wand, two bunnies, 3 playing cards, many dice, a white dove and a knotted rope. The skinny metal looking things in the back are sparklers which we lit as we sang the Birthday Song. Here’s the original sketch I made while trying to figure out how to make this cakeA magician always pulls a bunny out of his hat! Bunny is flanked by a wand, dice, playing cards and colorful scarvesFondant playing cardsSecond bunny and knotted rope
Here’s how it all began. Here was the original idea drawn out with cupcake topping ideas at the bottom.
October 2015: My daughter wanted to have a carnival themed birthday. One morning, I had the idea of putting all the cupcakes on a ferris wheel, but decided not to tell my daughter the idea because I was’n’t sure I could actually make it happen. Of course I told her, and then there was no going back. I made this cardboard prototype to get some dimensions and then went to Home Depot to get the materials. Coincidentally, they had a 1″ thick round piece of wood that was EXACTLY the size of my cardboard prototype. What are the chances?!
Here’s the beginning of the ferris wheel. I bought an electric jigsaw to cut out the center triangles and cut the wood into squares (and also my base). I then bracketed on the squares as my cupcake stands.
Mid spray paint. After painting everything silver, I sprayed it again with a diamond glitter spray.
Clown in progress which bits of the carnival tent, ring toss game and lollipop girl in view.
The food was the most fun to make. The yellow squiggle on the bottom left is the mustard for the hotdog. In the background is the beginning form of the boy with the balloon.
making the ducks for the fishing game
I wanted to have my daughter’s age in Marquee lights. I actually tried to find mini battery powered LEDs that I could affix to the fondant, but no avail.
Lollipop girl in progress.
#GoBlue
This was most people’s favorite. I’m not sure why! Someone suggested maybe it was the mixed media–in this case, fondant, wood and liquid (karo syrup).
Marquee lights completed.
A lot of the kids, said, “You didn’t make her face!” My response was, “That’s the point..the lollipop is bigger than her face!”
For the cotton candy, I pushed fondant through a press and then wrapped it around on itself and the fondant handle.
December 2014: Here are some of the first mini doughnuts I made. All are made of fondant and topped with royal icing. The sprinkles are actual sprinkles!I experimented making glazed doughnuts. Some I used just painted with translucent royal icing. Some I painted with gelatin so that it would peel a bit and look translucent when dry. And some I covered in clear glitter flakes.Fondant doughnuts
My almost 8 year old daughter made the kitten + accessories in the upper right of the picture. She also made the two doughnuts at the very top!Here they are! I wanted each cupcake to resemble a little picnic table, so I wrapped them with red gingham waxed tissue tied with a white ribbon. Then, I topped each cupcake with a smooth white fondant round before topping each with the doughnuts. An aerial viewsome close-upsThe “powdered sugar” on the doughnuts was actually dried white fondant that I ground up in a coffee grinder.A plate of mini cupcakesThis cupcake was the birthday girl’s favorite: Hot chocolate with marshmallows + a Malasada (Portuguese doughnut).
October 2014: My daughter wanted a dance party themed birthday party. I immediately thought of a dance floor cake and sketched out the drawing above. My daughter made one of my characters into a goblin– hence the big, pointy ears.I knew my cake would need a disco ball, but the only way I could envision hanging it, would be to build a wooden structure around the cake so the disco ball could hang down. Here is a photo of my cardboard prototype.I took my prototype to a nearby Home Depot to ask for help on how to build it, as I knew I would need some sort of brackets for the angled roof. Something magical happened there, and after 15 minutes of them trying to find the right person to help me, Eddie arrived. It was soon understood that Eddie was not going to help me make the structure, but he was actually going to make it FOR me. He built it in two days complete with a paint job and silver glitter pinstriping. When I got to the store to pick up the structure, Eddie and I talked about lights, and he glued in two battery powered LED lights right then and there. Eddie’s supervisor came by to check out the structure and take a few pictures. Amazingly, they wouldn’t let me pay for anything.Here are the beginnings of my fondant dancers.This guy was modeled after John Travolta’s famous pose in Saturday Night Fever.The disco ball is made out of molded Rice Krispies Treats covered in fondant. I looked into buying silver sequins– or something I could use to mimic the reflective surface. A small jar of sequins was expensive and not exactly what I had in mind, so I decided to make my own. I found an online tutorial from Kara’s Couture Cakes and made one big gelatin sheet. Once it was dry, I hand cut the sheet into small squares.Here’s a picture of the whole cake. I also made lime green and black sequins to decorate the edges of the dance floor. I covered the cake in black fondant and then laid out the black and white fondant tiles.
A close-up of my Solid Gold dancer.John Travolta’s protogeShooting the moon!
December 2013: This was my first attempt at animals so I did watch a couple of fondant tutorials to figure out how to make basic animal forms.Having a kitten playing with a giant yarn ball was an obvious thing I knew I wanted to do.This is supposed to be a small puppy sitting by his ball, but the ball ended up a bit squat. Once I added the stars, I couldn’t get the ball round again without altering the shape of the stars.The cake is a triple layer chocolate cake that I covered in fondant and made into the cushion.My daughter decided on the color scheme for each of the animals. This is the curious kitten.My daughter rolled the little bits of brown fondant to be dog food. The rug is made of royal icing using the “hair” tip. And the water in the dog bowl is actually Karo light corn syrup.lazy fondant dog + bone
October 2013: This project was one of those that continued to morph well beyond my initial plan, even as I was putting it all together the last day. I knew I wanted a gum ball tree with a swing, and I knew I wanted a chocolate waterfall that created a chocolate lake. The mountain and tree are molded from Rice-Krispies Treats mixture. Once it hardened, I covered everything in fondant. Originally, my plan was to create the colorful walking path and intersperse the individual cupcakes on the white areas. But then….I decided that I didn’t want just the white background for my cupcakes, so I thought I would find a way to make the base green, like grass. I decided on crushed up green candies, but since I had to buy bags of multicolored candies, my idea morphed into a much more psychedelic experience than I had planned.Here’s a not so great photo of my all edible Candyland. I had a hard time trying to get the best angle to capture it all.All of the candies & treats on the cupcakes are made of fondant.I decided to add a mermaid diving into the chocolate lake. Her tail is adorned with slivers of jellybeans, and the splash is made of hardened chocolate.The chocolate bars are made of fondant and stamped with my daughter’s initials. I did re-use a Ghirardelli chocolate bar wrapper to wrap my fake bars.The gum balls are real gum balls. Originally, I was going to make all of the gum balls out of fondant, but I decided that real gum balls would be way more visually appealing and exciting. I also had planned to make a fondant person sitting on the swing, but my daughter thought it would better if we used the playing pieces from the Candyland game to really hammer the theme home.
