Victoria's Sweets

Bridesmaids

2012-01-29T15:40:00.007-05:00

So when I got engaged, my bridal party was pretty much a no brainer since I am blessed with sisters and such great friends. I finally decided to make it official, and invite the girls over to chat about wedding details. I wanted to do something memorable, so I made them each a bridesmaid's dress cake, and presented it along with a "Bridesmaids Survival Kit" that I found online.

We had a great night and I am excited for all the fun times to come at my bridal shower,bachelorette party, and the wedding!

I love you girls!

Happy New Year!

2012-01-04T13:46:00.004-05:00

I cannot believe it is 2012. It is going to be a big year! Rod turns 30, we get married in June, and hopefully buy our first home somewhere in between. I rang in the new year in good company, and made some ice cream cake pops to celebrate!

Happy 2012!

Engagement Party

2011-12-27T16:55:00.007-05:00

So my brother, Nick, proposed to his girlfriend, Angeliki a few months ago. Her family flew in from Greece for the holidays and to celebrate the engagement. I offered to make a cake, and opted for something simple and pretty. The drive from Bethesda to Hershey was bumpier than expected and the bottom tier was damaged on the ride over. Luckily, I had a chance to pull out the damaged tier before most of the guests arrived. Here is the picture I took before I left the house...

Here is a close up of the bunny cake toppers I made from fondant...

Congrats Nick and Angeliki!

Birthday Apps

2011-12-11T14:09:00.009-05:00

So today is Rod's cousin - Shauhin's birthday. We went out to dinner to celebrate on Friday night, so I made some cupcakes for dessert. Shauhin works at Apple, so I decided to make some app cupcakes. I tried to pick some recognizable and popular apps and used fondant and edible ink to create each one. As always, I was in a rush out the door and forgot to take a picture so thanks to Rose and Roya for taking some on their iPhone for me to post.

Happy Birthday, Shauhin!

Thanksgiving Baby

2011-12-01T18:44:00.013-05:00

So my friend Crystal asked if I could make a birthday cake for her baby cousin's first birthday. Peyton is a Thanksgiving baby, and absolutely adorable! I was delighted to help! Crystal, a talented designer and photographer, created an adorable cartoon of Peyton, which I used as inspiration for some of the cupcakes. The cake design/theme was inspired from the pink and purple party decorations.

Thanks to Crystal Ku for the beautiful pictures!

The cupcakes...

The Cake...

The Table...

Happy 1st Birthday, Peyton!

Trick or Treat

2011-10-31T16:34:00.006-04:00

So today is Halloween and Rod had a meeting at work and requested some cupcakes to take in since one of his colleagues is retiring. I didn't have too much time to plan, but used some fondant, mellowcreme pumpkins, oreos, and some sprinkles to make 4 different kinds of Halloween cupcakes.

Happy Halloween!

Under the Sea!

2011-10-17T09:41:00.011-04:00

So this past weekend was my nephew Ryan's first birthday! Jamie decided on an under the sea theme, and tasked me with creating a cake and dessert table for the party. I recruited my sisters to help with the desserts and everything turned out pretty well! Thanks to Aimee for the great pictures!

Here are some shots of the cake...

And a shot of some of the sweets on the dessert table...

Some chocolate seashells in the "sand"

Here is a pic of the head table that Jamie put together, with the cake as the centerpiece...

Happy 1st Birthday, Ryan!

Style Shoot, Part 2

2011-09-01T12:14:00.005-04:00

So today, the WeddingWire blog featured another part of the style shoot with the mini cupcakes. Check it out on the blog here, and the pictures are below!

Have a great Labor Day weekend!

Style Shoot

2011-08-29T19:22:00.009-04:00

So I was asked to make mini cupcakes for a style shoot at work. It turned out beautifully and was featured on WeddingWire's blog yesterday! Check out the post here. Below are the pictures featuring the mini cupcakes.

Thanks for the beautiful pictures Crystal Ku!

Golf and the Year of the Rabbit

2011-07-24T18:56:00.009-04:00

So there was a heat wave in the DC area this past weekend and it was SO hot and humid. Regardless, I kept busy in the kitchen baking up a storm. A guest from the party that I baked the Sponge Bob cake for emailed me about making a cake for a party on Saturday. Her baby, Christopher, was celebrating his 100th day birthday, while his grandfather had recently retired. Since the baby was born during the Year of the Rabbit, I made fondant bunnies to top cupcakes.

For the retiree's cake, I made a simple golf themed cake, and added a smaller bunny to tie it together with the cupcakes...

This past Friday also happened to be my cousin Jonah's birthday. Since he is a golf enthusiast as well, I stuck with the golf theme and made some cupcakes to bring along to his birthday dinner...

Happy Birthday Jonah!

Spongebob Cake

2011-05-24T09:27:00.006-04:00

So this past weekend was super busy. I had several graduation parties, a bbq, housewarming party, and Rod's cousin Gianna's second birthday party! I was requested to make a Spongebob cake to fit the party theme. In between all of the parties, I managed to bake the cake and a bunch of "crabby patties" - cupcake sliders to go along with it. Considering the time crunch and hectic schedule, I think they turned out great! I didn't get a picture of the cupcakes since I had packed them up earlier, but snapped one of the cake right before I boxed it up and ran out the door...

Happy 2nd Birthday Gianna!

Spring Wedding

2011-04-18T09:51:00.013-04:00

So my lovely Emo (aunt) got married this past weekend to one of the nicest guys I have ever met, Ken. They planned an intimate courthouse wedding with a small, low-key reception. They announced their engagement during Christmas, and at the same time, asked me to make them a wedding cake. I was delighted to do so, and made a 2-tier chocolate cake with lavender accents to fit in with the color theme they chose.

I also made some matching cake pops and mini cupcakes to complete the sweets table...

Congrats Emo and Ken! I'm so happy for you two!

Gamer Cake

2011-03-14T16:20:00.007-04:00

So it was Rod's birthday last week and I just couldn't believe an entire year had gone by since I made him the Rolex cake! How could I possibly top that?! I have been pretty busy with work, wedding planning, and other upcoming events that I had no ideas of what to do for his cake this year. Since Rod had planned a guys night, I decided to use that time to surprise him with a birthday cake. Since I had no ideas yet, I took a risk and baked a couple white cakes in a basic square-shaped pan just to get started. While waiting for them to bake, I kept looking around my living room for inspiration and voila! - Rod's beloved xbox 360 was right in front of me! Since my time was limited, I decided to just make 1 controller, rather than the whole console.

Happy Birthday Babe!

Champagne and a Manolo Blahnik

2011-01-31T16:30:00.008-05:00

It was one of my best friend's birthdays last week, and she wanted to celebrate with a fabulous ladies-only champagne brunch in Georgetown. Since she is a huge Sex and the City fan, I made her an edible Manolo Blahnik on top of a shoe box cake. I used gumpaste and fondant for the shoe, along with edible silver paint, silver dragees, and royal icing to hold it all together. The cake flavor was chocolate, with a milk chocolate buttercream icing. YUM! It came out pretty well for my first attempt at a shoe, and all the girls loved it!

Trivia: Do you know which SATC episode features this shoe?

Happy 27th Colleen!

100 Day Party

2011-01-24T15:54:00.007-05:00

So tomorrow is my baby nephew's 100th Day! He has grown so much since I last saw him after Christmas! My cousin Jamie asked me to help make some decorations and cupcakes to fit the theme of "white tiger" (the year he was born). Everything turned out really cute!

Here is a close up of the cupcakes...

Here is a pic of the entire table, and guest of honor!

Happy 100 days Baby Ryan!

Mocha Cake

2010-11-17T15:47:00.004-05:00

Yesterday was Rod's dad's birthday. Since Rod's parents invited us over for dinner, I decided to make a little birthday cake. Since everyone is trying to cut back on sweets to avoid the holiday weight gain, I wanted to make something lighter and diet friendly. I found a recipe for a basic mocha cake, and whipped chocolate filling. I cut back on the sugar, and didn't put any butter in the filling. I also decided not cover the cake in frosting. I made a little chick topper out of a chocolate dipped cake ball. It turned out a little lumpier than I would have liked, but it was midnight so I made my peace with it. Overall, it was an easy, simple cake.

Happy Birthday Mr. Mohadjer!

Tequila!

2010-09-13T09:42:00.010-04:00

This past weekend, we celebrated Rod's cousin, Shaudi's birthday. She had asked me to make a cake for her party, which was an outdoor BBQ at the Soccerplex. Since she likes tequila, I decided to make her a cake that looked like a Patron Silver bottle. I also made some cupcakes, garnished with lime cookies, to ensure there would be enough cake!

I was in such a rush (as usual) and got a quick picture with my Blackberry right before I went out the door...

And another at the party...

Happy 30th Shaudi!

Blue Baby Shower

2010-08-02T10:55:00.005-04:00

So life has been CRAZY BUSY and I haven't had much time for baking or blogging... but I did throw my cousin Jamie a blue-themed baby shower this past Saturday. Baby Ryan is due in October and our family is super excited!

To keep with the blue theme, I picked up any blue candies that I could find... and made blue cake pops with white sprinkles, and mini cupcakes with blue pearl sprinkles. I put everything out as a dessert buffet. Here is a pic of the table (Thanks Jamie!)

Until next time...

Candy and Cake

2010-06-15T15:16:00.004-04:00

This past Saturday was my baby sister's 17th birthday! I cannot believe it! Anyway, I had recently seen a wedding cake decorated with candy buttons and fell in love with it. I decided to create a similar, yet simpler version for Teresa's cake.

Happy Birthday Teresa!

Comic Cake

2010-05-25T07:41:00.007-04:00

Today is my bro Nick's 28th birthday! He is home for summer break from his first semester at Vet School in Grenada. We had a small welcome home/birthday party for him on Sunday. I just bought an edible food marker and wanted to use it, so I made him a cake with some of his favorite comic strip characters from Pearls Before Swine. Everything is done with homemade marshmallow fondant.

The croc is his fave character...

Happy Birthday Nick!

Daisy Cake

2010-04-24T19:40:00.002-04:00

I made this daisy cake just for fun.

Happy Spring!

Baby's First Birthday

2010-03-22T14:16:00.002-04:00

Yesterday was my neighbor's 1st birthday party! Baby Grant's mom, Devon, decided on these really cute jungle-themed cupcakes for their guests (she made Grant a wonderful sugar-free carrot cake to dive into). For the cupcakes, I made the animal toppers out of chocolate, and the trees out of pretzel rods and royal icing. The party was originally going to be at their condo (next door), but then they decided to move it to a bigger space at a friend's clubhouse. I was really nervous about transporting the cupcakes without breaking the toppers. Luckily, I made it there without too much trouble. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my camera, but Rod took a pic with his Blackberry...

Happy 1st Birthday Grant!

Sweet Surprises

2010-03-22T13:52:00.014-04:00

I got engaged! Rod surprised me with a sweet proposal and a beautiful ring on Tuesday night. On Saturday night, his parents surprised us with a delicious cake from a local bakery to celebrate our engagement. I wanted to post a pic so I'll never forget it!

It had a light, fluffy frosting and was filled with cream and fresh strawberries.

Yum!

Rolex Cake

2010-03-14T15:54:00.007-04:00

It was my boyfriend Rod's 28th birthday last week on March 9. He has been giving me a hard time since during the almost 3 years that we've been dating, I have never baked him a birthday cake. I asked him what he wanted for his birthday, and he "joked" and said a Rolex. So, I made him a budget friendly Rolex cake.

Happy Birthday Rod! Love you!

Flower Cupcakes

2010-02-23T23:02:00.000-05:00

Today is my friend Aimee's birthday. She is the sweetest girl and appreciates anything cute and yummy. I decided to surprise her with some garden-themed cupcakes.

I made the flowers and caterpillers out of gumpaste.

Here is a close up of the caterpiller...

Happy Birthday Aimee!

Anniversary Cake

2010-01-31T11:02:00.004-05:00

My parents just celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary! The traditional gift for this particular one is a pearl, so I made 30 gum paste flowers with pearls in the center and a cross. My parents prefer clean, simple designs, so I made a classic white cake and added the flowers and cross.

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!

iPod Cake

2010-01-30T15:20:00.010-05:00

My cousin JiHo turned 12 yesterday. Everytime he is at a family gathering, you can always guarantee that at some point and time, you will catch him in the corner listing to his iPod. I used home-made fondant to cover the cake, and added the details and text with buttercream frosting.

Happy Birthday JiHo!

Birthday Hippos

2010-01-24T19:42:00.014-05:00

One of my best friends, Colleen, absolutely loves hippos. For her 26th birthday, I made her a hippo-themed birthday cake. I had some marzipan that that I had picked up from the grocery store, and decided to start by making the hippo figures. Then I made a 2-layer white cake with oreo buttercream filling. I covered it in marshmallow fondant and piped the water, grass, and border in buttercream.

I presented the cake on the new pedestal that I got for Christmas... (Thanks Angeliki!)

Happy Birthday Colleen!

New Year, Old Cakes

2010-01-06T11:07:00.017-05:00

After the craziness of the holidays, I found an old box with a USB drive with pictures of some cakes I made a few years ago.

This first cake was a request from my little sister for a Carebear birthday cake.

This is a chocolate football cake that I made for my friend Ben, who is a loyal Broncos fan.

This next picture is jungle-themed cupcakes that I made for my friend Colleen. I found this idea in a Wilton yearbook and chose it because Colleen loves hippos.

This last cake is a birthday cake I made for my friend Mel, who happened to be into tractors and John Deere at the time.

Hopefully there will be more to come...

Snake Cake

2010-01-04T11:59:00.007-05:00

My brother Nick is going to veterinary school in Grenada in just a couple of weeks! I wanted to give him a proper send off, so my family threw him a going away party. Since he loves snakes, I attempted to make a snake cake for him. I used a bundt pan for the actual snake and decorated it with buttercream frosting and colored sugars. I covered the cake in crushed oreos for the dirt effect. I think it ended up looking like a worm, but Nick said he loved it!

Bon Voyage, Nick!

Mom's Birthday Bouquet

2009-12-29T10:17:00.009-05:00

December 24 is not only Christmas Eve, but also my mom's birthday! It was great as a kid to get away with pulling the okie doke and lump her birthday and Christmas gifts together. Now that I am older, I try to go out of my way to separate the two so she doesn't feel shafted. Since I had the day off of work, I decided to make her a birthday cake and try something new that I had seen online as a new wedding reception trend: cupcake bouquets!

Happy Birthday Mom!

Snow Day!

2009-12-22T10:20:00.012-05:00

This past Saturday, 12/19/09, we experienced what they are calling the blizzard of 2009 in the DC metro area! The snow started Friday night and didn't stop until late Saturday night. I heard that some areas got up to 22 inches! Anyway, it was a great excuse for me to bake some Christmas cookies and get into the holiday spirit! I started with a batch of roll out sugar cookies that I decorated with tinted royal icing and some colored sugars!

Toward the end of the batch, I decided to make a few high heel cookies just for fun!

Just for variety, I also made some Russian tea cakes (a personal favorite of mine!)

And then some, "crispy on the outside, chewy on the inside" Chocolate Chip Cookies (My bf Rod's favorite!)

I got some cute Holiday tins from Michael's craft store and packaged them up and topped them off with gift tags ;)

Merry Christmas!

Girls' Night

2009-12-14T12:14:00.010-05:00

On Saturday night, I played hostess and had the girls over for dinner and drinks in honor of our friend Katherine who is leaving us to work in London for a year. I wanted to make something girly and cute, so I made french vanilla cupcakes with vanilla icing in hot pink polka dot wrappers. I had some fondant, so I tinted it and formed rosettes. I had also recently gotten a small petunia cutter and veiner, so I made a bunch of flowers and placed a sugar pearl in the center.

I think the rosette cupcakes turned out cuter ;)

Here is a close up of the white flower.

We'll miss you Katherine!

Thanksgiving Treats

2009-11-30T21:41:00.000-05:00

Thanksgiving is hands down one of my favorite holidays. I love all of the delicious foods, sweets, and getting together with my family to kick off the holiday season! Last year, I made cupcakes and used chocolate frosting and colored chocolate to create little turkey toppings. Unfortunately, I cannot find a picture anywhere, but I'm pretty sure that one will pop up at some point. Anyway, so this year, I decided to build on last year's idea. I created turkeys out of red velvet and cream cheese cake balls and dipped them in milk chocolate. I used colored chocolate to make the tail feathers and beaks, and then drew on eyes with an edible marker. I placed them on top of chocolate cupcakes with green tinted icing piped to look like grass.

I also made a few pumpkin cake balls to add some variety and color to the cupcake display. Photo credits go to my bro, Nick.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Pumpkin Pops

2009-10-26T13:26:00.006-04:00

With Halloween only a week away, I wanted to make something festive and fun. Not too long ago, I was at the local bakery in Bethesda and saw cake lollipops. They looked really good and delicious so I went online and decided to try a recipe I saw on Bakerella's blog for cake pops. I went ahead and created the filling with red velvet cake and a buttercream frosting. I dipped them in melted orange candy melts and topped them with green stems I made from green candy melts.

I went a step further on some and drew jack-o-lantern faces on them with yellow royal icing.

Happy Halloween!

Blackberry pictures

2009-10-23T10:29:00.011-04:00

So I found some pictures saved on my Blackberry from the summer that I wanted to upload. They aren't the best quality, but definitely worth remembering!

This first picture is one of many cupcakes for my younger sister Teresa's sweet 16. She decided on a beach theme, so Rose and I made about 50 of these "sandy" cupcakes for the party. We iced each one with vanilla icing and sprinkled them with brown sugar. Next, we added candy flip flops that we previously made with Wilton candy melts and sugar pearls. The cupcakes were topped off with a colorful toothpick umbrella that we picked up from the drink aisle in the grocery store.

The next picture is a cake I decorated for Rose's co-worker, Greg, who apparently likes cars! Rose picked up a Lightning McQueen cake mold and had the cake baked and ready for me to decorate the night before the party. I had a hard time tinting the buttercream frosting to make the bright red, but finally got it right!

Birthday Sliders

2009-09-24T09:27:00.010-04:00

Today is my sister's 'Golden Birthday' so I wanted to do something a little extra special and fun for her birthday cake. Since Rose is a self-proclaimed carnivore, I decided to make cupcakes that look like mini-burgers (I got the inspiration online a while ago, but haven't had the chance to try it yet). They were really easy to make and so cute to look at!

I used white cake for the buns, brownies for the patty, colored icing for the ketchup and mustard, and green daisy sprinkles for the lettuce. I topped them off with a dash of sesame seeds on top and packed them in a box to take to her birthday dinner.

The restaurant was nice enough to stick a candle in one of the sliders and bring them out for dessert.

Happy 24th Rose!

Breakfast at Tiffanys

2009-09-15T16:22:00.005-04:00

My cousin Jamie is getting married on 10.10.09 so I threw her a Tiffany's-themed bridal shower this past weekend. I had a blast trying to come up with ways to incorporate the theme in the games, food, and favors.

These are mini cupcakes made with white cake mix, vanilla icing (with teal coloring), and edible silver balls. I'm guessing that they were good since they disappeared rather quickly!

These are bite-size chocolate Tiffany's boxes. They turned out better than expected! My sister Rose and I spent an evening making them and froze them until the day of the party. My friend Aimee took a great picture of them at the actual bridal shower (see below).

Aren't they so cute?

Here is a nice pic of the favor table. On the left are homemade high heel sugar cookie favors (See below). In the middle, we put out some of the chocolates wrapped to go, along with these really cute diamond ring wine bottle stoppers that I picked up from beau-coup. On the right are cute little boxes that I ordered from the same Web site and put together with diamond ring key chains.

Here is a close up of the high heel sugar cookies. I used a basic sugar cookie recipe then we iced them with a vanilla almond frosting and sprinkled them with sugar pearls. The recipes are below:

Roll-out Sugar Cookies

2/3 cup butter
1 cup white sugar
1/4 cup milk
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
4 cups all-purpose flour

Sugar Cookie Icing

1 cup confectioners' sugar
2 teaspoons milk (add more if the icing is too thick)
2 teaspoons light corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon almond extract

Here is a close up of the diamond ring key chains in the favor boxes (both from beau-coup as well).

Me and the happy bride-to-be with her rehearsal bouquet. (Can you tell that most of her gifts were from Victoria's Secret?)

More to come...

Blogging, take 1...

2009-09-14T10:56:00.000-04:00

So after years of going through several cameras, laptops, and losing numerous pictures; I have decided to keep this blog as an attempt to organize a portfolio of some of my creations. I love to bake and have made it somewhat of a hobby. I've never taken any classes, but have learned from making cakes, cupcakes, cookies, and other sweets for family and friends throughout the years. As I find pictures on old hard drives and memory sticks, I will get them up. In the meantime, I will start with my most recent creations. Enjoy!