Simple Tae Kwon Do Cupcakes

My dad is a Master instructor at Tom Vo's Tae Kwon Do Academy and they do monthly birthday celebrations for their students. My dad's birthday was in February and he wanted to bring something for all of his students during his birthday month. Too bad he told me the night before the event if I can whip up come cupcakes for him.

With just a few hours to create, no supplies, and no time to prep or design, I whipped up some simple and messy Tae Kwon Do cupcakes for my dad and his students.

Baked48 cupcakes, 24 rainbow yellow cake and 24 chocolate cupcakes. I was lucky to have some ready-made frosting to tint and use. Notice the movie on the right? My favorite movie ever, Con Air. I always put on a movie to listen to when I am baking and decorating.

I decided to make the cupcakes look like karate uniforms since Tae Kwon Do uniform aren't as recognizable in cupcake form (instead of the "Y" neckline, it is a "V" neckline). Because I was short on time, I stuck to two colors: red and black. If I had more time, I would made each cupcake with a different color belt. Luckily the TKD uniforms are white so that saved me some time.

The cupcakes look pretty decent after they were all boxed up and ready to go. It can be such a pain to try to quickly whip up sometimes with little or no warning, but I always have fun doing so. Always a learning experience, too!!

Happy birthday to my Papa!!! I love you very much!

Yo-Gabba-Gabba, Yo-Gabba-Gabba!

Happy 1st Birthday, Miss Aubrey!

The entire cake and cupcakes took over 20 hours to do. I must be a slower worker because these are generally simple cupcakes.

So my friend Nicole's daughter's first birthday was earlier this month and she asked if I would create the cake and cupcakes for the party! I was so honored that she asked and told her I would love to! Nicole and her daughter, Aubrey are currently in love with this children television show called Yo Gabba Gabba. Yo who??? That was my first reaction. Apparently, Yo Gabba Gabba is a huge hit among babies, toddlers, and young kids these days. The new Sesame Streets. Or the new Barney.

Because I was unfamiliar with this show and the characters, I had to do plenty of research to see what colors, designs, and themes I can use for my creation. I even forced myself to watch an episode or two.

(The main characters of the show, minus DJ Lance-something.)

Nicole asked for simple white cake, but Lisa does not so simple! For the cake, I decided to make a two-tier funfetti cake, which is white cake with sprinkles mixed in. I used white vanilla whipped frosting to layer the cakes. Fondant was used to color and decorate the cake! I tried to write Aubrey's name on the cake, but of course I can't keep it straight!

(The bottom tier of the funfetti cake.)

(This HUGE hunk of white fondant was dyed blue and enough to cover both the bottom tier and top tier of the cake. That is a lot of fondant for Little Lisa to work with! Talk about an arm and hand work out!)

(Bottom tier covered with whipped frosting and fondant. I added the fondant Yo Gabba Gabba characters. Did you notice the yellow Wall-e looking guy is upside down? I didn't... not until a few hours before the party. Yikes!)

(Added the second fondant-covered tier to my cake! Luckily I didn't need to use any dowels to hold up the second tier.)

(Threw in some simple blue and yellow dots in various sizes to add more fun to the cake.)

(Add some green borders, flower dots, and Aubrey's name, which is orange for DJ Lance Rock, and ta-da! Also flipped poor yellow Wall-e/Johnny Five over.)

For the cupcakes, I tinted white cake in multicolors and made rainbow cakes to match the bright colors of Yo Gabba Gabba. The cupcakes are covered with tinted buttercream frosting and some have fondant decor pieces.

(The rainbow cupcakes look so fun!)

(Getting the eyes, flowers, and other fondant detail pieces ready.)

(I love my Yo Gabba Gabba cupcakes!!!)

(The inside of the cupcakes are so fun to look at! Everybody was really surprised!)

(Cake and cupcakes together! All done!)

Happy 1st Birthday, Miss Aubrey!

I love my little Aubrey. I was there with her mommy to listen to her first heartbeat, was there when her mommy was in labor, and was there to witness her come into the world. I can't believe it's been a year already. Such a beautiful, emotional day. Little Aubrey was diagnosed with Down Syndrome and because I had some experience with individuals with Down Syndrome, I knew I was meant to be in this child's life. I love her and her mommy dearly and watching her grow has been an amazing experience. Auntie Lisa will always be here for you!

I love you, Nicole and Aubrey!

Cake: two-tiered, four-layered white cake with multi-colored sprinkles (funfetti cake creation); cake is covered with whipped white vanilla frosting and covered with tinted fondant. Decorated with fondant pieces, edible ink, and buttercream frosting.

Cupcakes: white cake tinted with multi-colored food gels for rainbow effect; topped with tinted buttercream frosting and and fondant decor pieces

The Cupcake Courier

My baking partner-in-crime Amy and I LOVE reading blogs. One blog that we both read is Bakerella's blog, which features sweet inspirations and baking ideas. She is also the famous inventor of Cake Pops. Whenever Bakerella updates her website with a new recipe or creation, we ooh and ahh over it in admiration and discuss how we can someday try to recreate what she made.

We also like to look at her recommendations when it comes to baking tools. A few months ago, Bakerella shared with us readers her fabulous all-in-one carrier. The carrier looked so cool and perfect for so many things, such as cupcakes, brownies, cake pops, sheet cakes, and more! It is has removable tiers and the cupcake trays are stackable and the cups are deep enough to keep the cupcakes in place, but not too deep so removing cupcakes will be difficult.

The carrier sounds perfect.

Guess what my wonderful friend, Joanna gave me for Christmas???

The Cupcake Courier cupcakes/desserts carrier!

The funny thing is that I received this awesome gift, but I did not get a chance to look at it closely due to all the holiday craziness. It wasn't until I was prepping for a birthday party and Amy and I were talking about awesome cupcake carriers when I decided to take a closer look at my Christmas gift! Lo and behold it is the same exact carrier!

Thank you Joanna for such an awesome Christmas gift that I didn't fully appreciate until recently (Previous blog to show how I unappreciated this gift!)!!!

(Cupcake carrier in use on the left. Yo Gabba Gabba cupcakes post will be updated later.)

I am one lucky girl!

Back from the Holidays!

Happy new year everybody! I cannot believe it is 2011 already! Time does fly by fast when you get older. I need to sit back and appreciate the moments and cherish the people in my life.

I love the holidays. I love the festivities, the foods, the season of giving, relaxing, rejoicing, and celebrating, and I love the opportunity to see people you rarely see during the year!

During the holidays, I love to give gifts. I love picking out the prefect Christmas gifts, wrapping them, and hearing their joy and appreciation from the gift. I also appreciate it when they are honest and need to return or exchange my gift-- that helps me refine my mental gift giving list for next time.

In return, I also receive ton of gifts! I love opening gifts!I want to share some of the ones that will contribute to this creativity blog in the future:

(A gift from my sister, who found this treasure in the Dollar area of Target. Not a chocolate fan, but this book might inspire me to try to work with chocolate!)

(Tons of paper supplies for scrapbooking, handmade card making, notekeeping, and more! I know where's a fancier word for this stuff, but it's late and my mind can't think that deep right now. Thanks to Linda and Jeremy's mom for the creative materials!)

(I've been wanting a fancy and cute apron for a long time, but I never find much use for an apron. Normal clothes is fine with me when cooking. This gift is perfect because it's something I want, but won't by for myself because I don't need it. Thanks to Sonya for all the trouble she went through to find the perfect apron!)

(Thank you Amy for getting my the Bakerella Cake Pop book! Amy and I are huge fans of the Bakerella website and creator. I love looking at these amazing projects, but always feel threatened to attempt them. I can't wait to try some now.)

(Fun cupcake accessories from my sister's boyfriend Jack and his family. These items are by David & Goliath, which carries the cutest stuff, and from Urban Outfitters.)

Some gifts to aid my creative side that are not pictured includes tons of baking supplies like candy melts, a new brush and whisk, a ginormous cupcake and cookie carrier, and Sprinkles cupcake and icing mix. Many thanks Joanna, Jack, Amy, and anyone else I may forget!!! Love you all!

Happy New Year!!!

1.11.11

Happy New Year!!! Sending out best wishes to all! May 2011 be bigger and better than ever!

Unique Floral Arrangements

I have such amazingly talented and gifted friends!

The some of the best gifts I've ever received are unexpected, random, and has no-strings-attached. Look at what I received from my friend Joanna of Floral Sense a few weeks ago:

Isn't this arrangement beautiful? These flowers look like the belong in some Newport Beach home, but in my silly little living room. The flowers and pieces used in this arrangement are unique and carefully hand-picked.

Joanna created this gorgeous arrangement for me... just because! There was no reason behind it expect that she wanted to give a good friend a little something nice to brighten her day! Although these flowers are a token of appreciation for our friendship, I know that our friendship will outlast these flowers (and any floral arrangement)!

Thank you for making my day!

Happy Birthday to My Sister!

Wishing my beautiful, super smart, and caring sister future Dr.Cindy Le a FANTASTIC birthday filled with happiness, a bit of relaxation from her studies, and surprises!

(Isn't she just plain adorable in your scrubs and white coat?)

I love you very much, Lil Cin Cin!

Women Who Likes Purple (and Happy B-day Mommy!)

Quick shout out to the most wonderful mom on this planet! Happy Birthday, Mommy!

***********************************************************************

For my mom's and sister's dual birthday, I made these simple cupcake and silver cupcakes! Because they both like the color purple, I decided to make each cupcake unique, yet still stick to the color theme.

As you can see, there are some yellow and blue cupcakes mixed into the purple and white theme. That was because I had some friends over on this wonderful Friday evening and they wanted to help! So I gave them a cupcake and they had some fun with blue and yellow fondant (I had already ran out of purple fondant). Luckily, the blue/yellow combo works well with the purple-themed cupcakes!

Cupcakes: German chocolate cake; most cupcakes are topped with vanilla buttercream icing; cupcake decorations are made of tinted fondant, edible pearls, fine sanding sugars, and/or edible silver luster dust.

"Sexy Steve" @ the Beach

I have been pretty lazy about the whole "practice makes perfect" thing when it comes to creating and decorating cakes. So when I realized one of my wonderful, hard working friend's birthday was coming up, I knew I had to get off my lazy booty and created something special for her. She is a surfer and a huge fan of the ocean. She is also currently single. (Any single men looking for one hot mama?) So, using these known facts about her, I created this birthday cake... introducing "'Sexy Steve' at the Beach"!

It was difficult to get started with this cake because my skills were rusty and my baking and decorating supplies were buried deep down in the pantry somewhere but I managed to get started. My problem is always timing-- I never dedicate enough time to decorating and end up rushing in the end.

I first created the umbrella top, some goldfishes, and a yellow sun (which was discarded later) using some brand new gum paste I just bought.

I have never tried gum paste before because I don't see the difference between working with gum paste and rolled fondant. After playing with the two, I noticed slight differences, but not enough for me to prefer one over the other. The umbrella was fun to make because I had to be creative about the process. First I cut out a large circle out of yellow-tinted gum paste. Then I used toothpicks to make slight indentations into the umbrella, dividing it into eight equal sections. Next I used my round cookie cutter and made the edge of the umbrella. Last I laid the piece over a water globe so it can dry into a rounded shape. It look about a day to dry perfectly. (By the way, all of "first, next, then, last reminds me of my "sequence of events" language arts writing lessons... haha! I always have a long list of transition words posted on the wall for my students to use.)

While frequenting one of my favorite website Bake It Pretty I came across "Sexy Steve" (in white or black). I knew he would be perfect for my beach themed cake for Joanna so I immediately ordered in from the website (and no, it is NOT an erotic baking website David... haha!). When Sexy Steve arrived in the mail, I was surprise to find that he was bigger than I thought! Darn, now he isn't proportional to my tiny umbrella. Oh well.

Afterwards, I found some time to create a rugged looking beach towel (I want it to be sand-beaten and wrinkled, just like the real thing). I used a toothpick to make all the right creases and made sure the towel dried with the correct folds and curls.

The surfboard was easier to make, yet it gave me the most problems. I was tired by the time I got to the surfboard so some of the gum paste was dried, which made it harder to work with. Also, the surfboard was so tall my dad accidentally knocked it over during the drying process and broke off the bottom third. Now the surfboard is short and not proportional to Stevie. I also finished off with adding red lines and a sugar pearl to the umbrella, made the letters J, O, A x2, and N x2 for the name.

Last step create the two-layered chocolate Devil's cake with raspberry filling, frosted it with whipped vanilla icing, then covered it with blue-marbled fondant so a smooth clean finished. Then I added some frosting and crushed-up graham crackers to add the sand effect. Added all the decor and some white frosting waves at the bottom and you have a beach themed cake with Sexy Steve.

Sexy Steve was a big hit at the party. Everyone loved him and he was the butt of many, many jokes. Ah, good times.

Happy birthday, Joanna of Floral Sense! Also check out her beautiful website and in updated blog.

Cake: two-layer chocolate Devil's food cake with raspberry filling covered with slightly tinted fondant and lined with whipped vanilla frosting; decor made from tinted gum paste, fondant, and graham crackers; umbrella stick and "Sexy Steve" are non-edible