It's Raining on Sunday...

It's raining outside and quiet inside (the boys are still sleeping so it's just me and 91.9 on the radio :) and actually really quite nice. And since I ran my long run for the week yesterday (which my legs are definitely feeling this morning) I feel no real need to run today so the rain is actually relaxing - again nice. So I am just sitting here writing cards and drinking coffee and now blogging again- on a roll this week.

I have been excited to finally get to these cupcakes on the blog as they are by far the most fun ones I have made yet this year! And even better they were for a super fun occasion - the first birthday of one of K's best buddies Will, whose mom, Emmy, is one of my best friends from college. It was such a blessing to be pregnant at the same time as Em -so nice to have someone close to go through all the ups and downs of the "long" 9 months with. Plus, now we have been able to share the joys of the first year of having little boys together - just awesome!

In anycase, that said, I wanted to make Will's cupcakes perfect, but being that 1. they live in Philly now (just bought a super cute house in Havertown!!) so whatever I made had to be able to survive the 2.5 hour trip up 95 and 2. I have never done Winnie the Pooh cupcakes before this was going to be a challenge. I looked and looked for good inspiration for Pooh cupcakes online, but just did not find anything I really liked. I did come accross a few smash cake ideas I liked, but just no fun cupcakes. What to do, what to do??? So I kept looking and looking up to the week of the party. I knew the color scheme I wanted so I made sure I had all the icing and cupcake liners I needed, but still was not sure what I was going to do for the Pooh Bear design. Then while changing K one night that week, his Huggie wipes container caught my attention - it was Winnie the Pooh. And a nice and simple but very cute Winnie the Pooh at that. Poor K ended up laying there diaper-less for a few minutes as I distractedly picked up the wipe box and stared at it trying to think about would this pooh work. Hmmm...PERFECT.

So using the newly discovered Pooh wipe box as my inspiration I set out to make Pooh bears and Pots of honey to go along with bee-hives. As I still find red one of the hardest colors to make look sharp in icing - (for some reason it always looks pinkish) I decided to do my sanding sugar trick to really make the red pop. Plus as I've said before I really LOVE the combination of icing with the sugar on top - so again a win-win. Then to mix-it up a bit more so I would have some yellow based cupcakes, also coated in sanding sugar, I made cupcakes with red 1's on them. (these also were a bit easier - so gave my hand a little break :)

Pooh Party coming to life on my counter, comp;ete with sanding sugar still out..

Cupcakes all packed up and ready for teh trek up 95.

Once the cupcakes were done, I had to make the smash cake. As I mentioned, I had found some good ideas for the cake, BUT the bigger issue here was making sure it would make the trip to Philly. The pictures I found online actually used the Wilton little bear cake pan which I already had (what I used for Cookie Monster cake for K's bday) so that was a plus. My concern was that if I make a 3-D cake will it really make it in the car and if it doesn't  - then what?? Then Will has no fun cake for his First Birthday? Not acceptable. So just in case, I made 2 cakes for Will - using the extra batter after filling the Wilton pan, I just made an 8 inch round cake figuring I could make some sort of Pooh cake out of it for the back-up cake.

As it turns out, both cakes actually turned out pretty well. And despite freezing the little 3-D bear cake overnight to give it the best chance of staying solid in the car, I was super nervous the whole ride up, but the little guy made it in one piece! YAY! So Will lucked out with two Birthday cakes :)

Here is the 3-D Pooh cake on display at the Party!

For the backup cake, I decided to cut the round cake into a pooh head shape - somewhat abstract but think that's one of the best parts about baking - abstract is good! I then used the extra yellow icing I had to coat him in frosting and decorated him like Pooh. Think he actually ended up coordinating pretty well with the pooh faces on the cupcakes and was a nice addition to the cupcake display for the party!

Back-up Pooh cake on display!

Cupcake display. Emmy had the perfect mini-cupcake stand - so cute!

And here is the Birthday Boy facing off with the Pooh cake!

Goofing off in Will's new bedroom. K's not sure about having someone sit on his lap!

And being the big 14mo old here, K felt the need to show Will how to work the new Elmo airplane he gave him for his birthday (K definitely had some practice time before we wrapped it :)

Will's first birthday party was quite the hit! Lots of little guys to play with for K and lots of fun drinks for all the Mommy's and Daddy's and of course yummy food and cupcakes :) :) Just can't believe they are both one now - what a year. Looking forward to many more adventures with these two!