Pandycakes – Will Bake for Shoes

Cupcakes

Bug Cupcakes

Posted on May 8, 2015by Brandy Saldana

Ahhh! Bugs Everywhere!! Don’t worry, these are just insects made out of chocolate, no matter how creepy they look. These bug cupcakes are one’s I made for an 8 year old’s birthday party and I found the instructions from the Hello Cupcake book.

When I get requests to make cupcakes, I typically have clients wanting me to be creative and make something fun. I tried to think of what an 8 year old boy would like and came to the conclusion bugs would be a hit with only 3 days notice.
I wouldn’t say it takes me 3 whole days to bake and decorate cupcakes, but it typically means I order takeout so I do not have to use the kitchen for anything other than baking. I bake after work one day, and depending on the type of decorations, I make them and frost the cupcakes and top them the next day.

I admit I made these cupcakes twice. The turnaround was so quick, I needed to deliver them Thursday night, so there was no time to take photos. It was a lot easier to make them the second time since I had leftover cupcakes and M&M’s. My second attempt went a lot faster, and the secret to keeping your chocolate stencil from falling apart is by drawing it fairly thick.
To make any shapes out of chocolate all you need is a ziplock bag, wax paper, and chocolate chips. I realized after awhile that it was progressively easier to transfer the insects from the wax paper onto the cupcake if the bugs stencil was drawn on thick. The rest of the ingredients include M&M’s (peanut and regular) and chocolate covered sunflower seeds (mine were from Trader Joe’s). The yellow Spider was actually meant to have a Mega M&M body, but I had no idea those existed or where I could find them. Now that made them, I notice them in a lot of grocery stores now, but using plain M&M’s worked out for me. Once the bugs were drawn, just add M&M’s and place in the fridge to harden. Use a spatula or butter knife to help remove the bugs from the wax paper and place on frosted cupcakes.

What do you think? Are these cupcakes just bugging you out, or do they look tempting? If these bug cupcakes aren’t your thing, take a look at my fashion picks inspired by these cupcakes below.
Until next time,
Brandy| BLOGLOVIN | FACEBOOK | INSTAGRAM |TUMBLR | TWITTER |

Cupcakes

Fall Acorn Cupcakes

Posted on November 27, 2014by Brandy Saldana

For a little friendsgiving get-together with my blogger friends, I made chocolate cupcakes with maple brown sugar frosting. Maple brown sugar is one of those flavors that just say Fall to me, so you are not limited to just Pumpkin flavored desserts for your Thanksgiving dinner.
These cupcakes were really easy to make. I doctored Pillsbury Devils Food Cake Mix as well as added 1 Tablespoon of cinnamon. The maple brown sugar frosting is also made by Pillsbury, and it smells amazing! Armando commented that the smell lingered in our kitchen 3 days after they were made and decorated and it made the kitchen smell delicious. This frosting is a seasonal flavor, but I am looking into making my own version of it since it would be delicious to use anytime of the year.The swirl was made using the Wilton tip 1M.
The acorn topping is made up of a Hershey’s Kisses, Mini Nilla Wafer cookies, and Reese’s Peanut Butter Chips. I saw some of these Acorn toppings on Pinterest made with Mini Nutter Butter cookies and with Pumpkin Spice Hershey Kisses as well, so you can make these in a variety of ways. The Reese’s Peanut Butter Chip can also be substituted with Mini Chocolate Chips. I used a quart size ziplock bag for some frosting and cut a small hole to put the acorns together.
As a finishing touch, I added Wilton Fall leaf sprinkles for color. I am really happy with how these cupcakes came out and how they tasted. I recommend making these for your next Thanksgiving dinner and having some extra acorn toppings as garnish on your serving platters.

Hope you and your family have a great Thanksgiving full of delicious food and a lot of laughter.

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Cupcakes

Box of Valentine Cupcakes

Posted on February 16, 2014by Brandy Saldana

Hope you had a Happy Valentine’s Day!
I’m glad I ended my post last week with a notice indicating I’d be busy making and decorating cupcakes. This box of mini cupcakes were made for Sasha Mak’s Love Me Love Me Not Vintage Jewelry Trunk Show last Wednesday. In honor of the upcoming holiday, I thought, what better way to display the mini cupcakes ordered through me than through a heart shaped box of chocolates!

The display was really easy to set up. I bought the box from Target and it was originally filled with chocolate turtles. It needed to be emptied and I was willing to make the sacrifice and eat some. I baked 12 mini chocolate cupcakes and 12 red velvet cupcakes in red liners and decorated with chocolate and cream cheese frosting. I made the mistake in the morning of trying to transports the cupcakes in a carrier already placed in the heart box, but disaster struck and some of them were melted by the time I got to work. Luckily, I made extra and went home during lunch to decorate some more AND better plan out how I would deliver them successfully. Biggest lessons taken from this mini-crisis was 1) always refrigerate cakes with cream cheese frosting and 2) aluminum foil shaped under a mini cupcake pan can create a stable way of transporting cupcakes in a less than sturdy container.

There was no rhyme or reason to how I decorated each cupcake except that I had a bunch of different types of sprinkles and I really wanted to use all of them. I’ll be sharing more photos of the jewelry from the trunk show in a follow-up post, but I thought the cupcakes deserved their own post since Armando took a bunch of photos of them and I am really proud of how they turned out. Hope you enjoyed the photos and are inspired to try out this idea for next Valentine’s Day.

Cupcakes

Aloha Cupcakes

Posted on September 30, 2013by Brandy Saldana

In honor of my sister’s 21st birthday and her upcoming departure to Japan, our family threw her a Hawaiian Theme Party in her honor!
I made some cute Funfetti Cupcakes with Vanilla frosting tinted a light brown with a teaspoon of cocoa. I added crushed graham crackers to look like sand and added the cocktail umbrellas to look like umbrellas set into the sand.

It was so fun making all of these since they were so easy and the cocktail umbrellas added a lot of color. They were a perfect way to end the summer.
Enjoy my picks inspired by these tropical cupcakes.

Cupcakes

Mr.Roboto Cupcakes

Posted on September 3, 2013by Brandy Saldana

I made a robot out of cupcakes for a student intern’s last day at our office. He had graduated and was able to work the Summer until the beginning of the new semester. I wanted to make something he would like, so I chose to make this Robot from the What’s New, Cupcake? Book.
If you compare this to the one featured in the book, you’ll notice it is not an exact look alike. Sometimes you have to improvise, and I did that by using the yellow licorice to connect the arms instead of pretzel sticks. I also used spice drops rolled out and cut into circles as the knee caps instead of Nilla Wafer cookies.
The Robot’s frame is made out of graham crackers covered in grey frosting and sprinkles. I was able to make the grey frosting by adding a few drops of black food coloring into a can of vanilla frosting.

This robot has some bling thanks to the shiny grey sprinkles and the mini M&M’s being used as dials and lights. I made the claw out of a sour Lifesaver gummy and then cutting out an opening. I personalized the cupcakes by spelling out the recipients name with the leftover M&M’s. Sometimes when I decorate cupcakes I buy a big bag of candy and only use a few of them. It made no sense for me to not use the M&M’s to spell out a name when I had 3 leftover cupcakes that I frosted just to bring for the going away party. I did however eat the bag of sour Lifesaver gummies. (Don’t worry – I shared.)

Life’s a Beach…Cake

Posted on August 24, 2013by Brandy Saldana

Last week, my coworkers and I held a celebration dinner at a local pizza restaurant to celebrate a coworker’s upcoming wedding. I was commissioned to make the cake and, because it was a pretty casual event, I wasn’t restricted in making a traditional wedding cake.
This is the first cake I’ve made that wasn’t for a decorating class, and the first I’ve ever stacked! It came out a little crooked which ended up working out for me since it looked like a sand dune. I learned a lot from making this cake, so I am sure the next one will look better. One piece of advice I received in decorating cakes is people will rarely notice your mistakes. All they see is cake and what piece they want. Luckily the flavors of these cakes were pretty delicious. The top tier was lemon with a cream cheese frosting and lemon zest filling and the bottom tier was french vanilla cake with cream cheese frosting and fresh strawberries as a filling.

My inspiration for this cake came from my coworker’s love of surfing and the couple’s appreciation for nature. The “sand” is made out of crushed graham cracker and pressed against a layer of frosting. The seashells and starfish are made using a chocolate mold and pouring melted chocolate into them. To give them a more realistic look, I used small brush to add a teaspoon of cinnamon all over the shells and starfish. For the wedding cake topper, I used to shells to make a clam, squeezed in some blue frosting, and my boyfriend added the couples initials using pearl sprinkles. I am proud of all the details and how it really dressed up the cake.
Enjoy my fashion picks inspired by the chocolate seashells and starfish!