Pandycakes – Page 3 – Will Bake for Shoes

Cupcakes

Mickey and Minnie Mouse Cupcakes

Posted on February 25, 2013by Brandy Saldana

Here are the cupcakes I made for a 2 year old’s 2nd Birthday Party. The theme was Mickey and Minnie Mouse. I got the idea from Pinterest to make the head and ears out of Oreos.
Mickey was pretty simple. I used a red liner and baked 12 chocolate cupcakes. I didn’t have the right size of a yellow candy to add to the front of each liner to look like his buttons. They would have fallen off with the trip too. I baked vanilla cupcakes in white liners and placed them in red polka dot liners for Minnie and the layered liners looked like a petticoat under her dress. For the bow, I drew a template on a sheet of paper and placed waxed paper over it and traced it over with melted red chocolate. I then piped some white frosting all over the bow to look like polka dots.
When I delivered them, the birthday girl was really happy with them. She didn’t want to leave the table! It is the best feeling to see the cupcakes I work on make kids gaze in wonder and amazement. So glad that I am finally getting some side projects for my cupcake business.
I spent all day Saturday making these and today I did nothing. Although I wish I had an extra day off for the weekend to clean more, I am excited to go back to work and spend more time in my new workstation!
Hope you all had a great weekend and thanks for reading!

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Cupcakes

Valentine’s Day Sweets

Posted on February 15, 2013by Brandy Saldana

Happy Valentine’s Day! I made these treats for my coworkers and they turned out really cute!

I made classic chocolate cupcakes and topped them off with a chocolate ganache frosting with raspberry liqueur flavoring. I then melted red chocolate chips into a heart shape mold for the topping and added red sprinkles.

The rest were white chocolate cupcakes with simple vanilla frosting. I tinted some a light mint thanks to the inspiration of the paper liner. I melted pink chocolate into the same mold I used for the red hearts and added it for garnish.

Both cakes were really decadent. The chocolate raspberry ganache reminded people of truffles, exactly what I was aiming for. I chose the chocolate theme to remind people of a box of chocolates. Next year I might go further with that theme and place some mini cupcakes in brown liners inside a heart shaped box and decorate them like chocolates. As you can see there were a bunch of sweets at the office today and our conference room smelled really, really good!

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Cupcakes
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- Outfit

My First Year

Posted on February 8, 2013by Brandy Saldana

One year ago today, I uploaded my first post. To celebrate, here is a recap of all my favorite outfits from my first year of blogging and photos of the most creative cupcakes I have made.

When I reflect on my first year of blogging, I am surprised how much I and my blog have changed in just one year. I went from no-bangs to bangs, casual part-timer to full-time working girl, and changed the blog title from “What to Wear with Pandy” to “Will Bake for Shoes”. I’ve met some great people, attended shopping/fashion events, purchased my own domain name and started taking cupcake orders for clients on the side.
I’ve learned a lot, had my breakdowns due to frustration with HTML or my photographer, and days where I was not dressed my best. I’ve learned a lot about myself was I refine my personal style, and pushing the envelope when it comes to being creative by taking risks. I have also learned how important it is to communicate with your partner/photographer and to be patient. I would like to thank my photographers: my sister Nicole, friends Jessica, Jason, Bernadette, Vivian and most importantly, my boyfriend Armando. I appreciate all of these people’s patience and for their help with this blog.
Most importantly I am grateful. Grateful that I have had you, reader, as someone who supports my love of decorating cupcakes and checking in on what I am wearing everyday. I am thankful you are a follower, regardless of how long you’ve been part of my blog, and I hope, like me, you are excited to see the what comes with year two!
Thank you for following!Brandy| BLOGLOVIN | FACEBOOK | INSTAGRAM |TUMBLR | TWITTER |

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Baby Showers

Posted on February 3, 2013by Brandy Saldana

As promised, here are the photos of the cake my sister and I decorated for a baby shower last weekend.
This cake was a gift for my sister’s friend. To not go over budget making cupcakes for an event with 100+ guests, we ordered a plain sheet cake from Costco and made the decorations. It took about 4 hours on the day of the event, and the decorations came out great and the mom-to-be was very pleased with the cake.
We purchased some pound cake and sculpted it in the shape of the bassinet and cubes. My sister rolled out and shaped most of the fondant. Even Mando helped out too by doing the sculpting of pound cake structures and letters on the cubes free handed. I did the icing of our edible decorations, added borders, and the bow!
Everything was edible, and while we probably could have made our own sheet cake, it is important for my sister and I to really focus more on detail and other artistic touches. I have been watching a lot of episodes of Cake Boss on Netflix lately, and what always impresses me are the details of a cake. I was also really pleased with carrying in the cake and having people marvel at what we had done. I can see why Buddy from Cake Boss loves doing what he does, because making people happy and smile is really fulfilling.
It just so happens my sister and I attended another baby shower today, and there is another one my family is scheduled to attend next weekend too. So many people are having babies, and me and my sister are over here like “Hey, we made cupcakes!”
For now, our cupcake business is our baby, and we plan to keep it that way for a long while.

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Cupcakes

Pastel Birthday Cupcakes

Posted on January 24, 2013by Brandy Saldana

Here are the cupcakes I made for the birthday party on Sunday!
I was asked to bake 3 dozen cupcakes: 12 caramel apple with vanilla frosting, 12 red velvet with cream cheese, and 12 strawberry with vanilla frosting. I was told to work with pastel colors and/or polka dots. I tinted frosting in pastel colors and used circle sprinkles (along with pastel “jimmy” sprinkles) for a simple decoration.
I had a lot of fun tinting the frosting. I think the lavender looks especially good on the red velvet cupcake. I am also really proud of the mint colored frosting. Everyone at the party loved the cupcakes and I was glad that my client said she got exactly what she wanted.
What do you think of the colors? Don’t they make you wish spring was here already?
Don’t forget to check out my other cupcake creations under the Pandycakes page. You’ll be glad you did!=D
Brandy| BLOGLOVIN | FACEBOOK | INSTAGRAM |TUMBLR | TWITTER |

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Hazardous Materials and Radioactive Cupcakes

Posted on January 8, 2013by Brandy Saldana

I feel like I have been MIA longer than I wanted to be. As I mentioned on Saturday, I was busy making cupcakes for an event at work for Monday. The Hazardous Materials and Radiation Safety Associate Director from our office is moving on to bigger and better things and on his last day our office held a little recognition lunch for him.
I say it was a little event, but there must have been 80-100 people there to wish him luck with his future endeavor since he had devoted almost 21 years of service to the campus. I was given the task to coordinate at the last minute, and I am very proud of how I was able to coordinate such an event. I had catering done by Yali’s Cafe in Berkeley and I was blown away with how much food they provided. Everyone at the event was really happy with the food, atmosphere, and of course, the cupcakes!
The theme was toxic waste alluding to the department he commanded. The design started off with the idea of rats from the What’s New Cupcake? book because of his magnet on our office’s sign in board. The rat rhymes with Pat, his nickname, and allowed me to carry out the theme of Hazardous Waste.
The radiation trefoil and bio hazard picks are actually handmade using a template we found, a punch out device, and toothpicks. It is actually pretty difficult to find hazardous waste theme in party stores and when you are short on time, it is great that there are templates available online to make your own designs.
I added the Toxic Waste Candy barrels from the Powell’s Sweet Shoppe located on College and Alcatraz in Berkeley. They added a nice touch to the display. The cheese and pink rat body parts are made out of yellow Star burst and pink Tootsie Rolls heated up, rolled out, and shaped. My sister did a great job making all the candy shapes, especially the cheese! She did a great job helping me over the weekend on on the day of the event.
I ordered the sheet cake from Costco with just the lettering and an empty space. I made the green slime by adding food coloring to some piping gel. The drums were purchased from Ace Hardware by the Director who painted them over the weekend. The overall effect looked really good. We added some extra figures before the even like a caution sign and a Hazardous Waste guy with a broom “sweeping” the mess. I will add those photos if I anyone else happened to take any before cutting the cake.

I was busy the whole day running errands picking up a plaque in Oakland, the cake from the Costco in Richmond, and then grabbing balloons and picking up the platters. While it was a little stressful putting it all together, I enjoyed it so much and am now considering a position dealing with event planning because it was so fun!
Overall it was a very successful event and I am so glad he enjoyed it. I wish him the best and know he will do amazing things in his new position.

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