Life is Sweet!

I think it comes as no surprise by now that I'm food obsessed. Or that I take my search for the full on sweet life very seriously. OK, not too seriously, I mean that's the whole point of leaving corporate America to find my true passion and enjoy life to the hilt. I have, however, completely committed myself to doing and trying everything I can to make my life happier, sweeter and just more fun. To that end and to the complete dismay of my dear hubby, I've embraced my inner rebellious teenager...

I got a tattoo!
A BIG one!

My new cupcake tattoo!! I LOVE it! It took me a while to find the right tattoo artist to do it because I really wanted it fully shaded and great color. It's about 4"x 4 1/2" on my lower right shin.
I love it, love it, love it!

A huge thanks to Markus at Lucky Soul Tattoo in Ansonia, CT

I also have other new cupcakes from online friends. I did a swap with Emily from Sugar & Meringue. Aren't these the cutest faux cupcakes? They absolutely look deliciously real. I love the ballerina cuppie! They look so awesome in my bakery themed studio.

I sent Emily one of my jumbo cupcakes made just for her:

I've wanted one of these amazing cupcakes for a while. This fantastic cardboard cupcake was made especially for me by my friend Patianne Stevenson from Art on the Menu. I've shared her work with you before, but now I own my very own Patianne cupcake!

Isn't it so cool? And check out that wicked cool matching serving tray. She even sends it with a tag to tell you what type of boxes she got the cardboard from. Now that's a green crafter! The cherry is my favorite part :)

Thank you soooo much Patianne! I hope you like your felt cupcake.

Now for your Thursday sugar rush, here are a few of the latest cakes from school:

Flourless chocolate cake covered with ganache and raspberries. This is now the hubby's new favorite!

Chocolate genoise and peanut butter buttercream covered with ganache. Aren't the vertical stripes cool?

To make the vertical stripes is actually pretty easy. You do need to assemble the cake in a cake circle lined with acetate. Put a layer of cake on the bottom and frost it with buttercream, then you take long stripes of cake 1 1/2 inches wide, frost them and roll them like a swiss roll, keep adding strips until it fills the entire circle (The swiss roll goes onto the cake flat so you can see the rings, similar to the rings of a tree stump). Then top the giant swiss roll with another layer of buttercream, another cake circle, a crumb coat of buttercream and enrobe the whole thing in ganache. When you slice it, you get the vertical stripes. Cool huh? Hope that made sense.

This one is called a Dobos Torte. It looks more exciting than it is. Basically it's a hazelnut layered torte with 7 layers, covered in chocolate buttercream. The triangles on top are caramel covered sponge cake that have been dipped in chocolate.

This entremet is called Eleanor: Framboise soaked cocoa genoise, outer rim of raspberry jam layered sponge cake, fresh raspberries, raspberry Bavarian, topped with raspberry gaze, whipped cream & fresh raspberries

This Fraisier Entremet is composed of: Kirsch flavored genoise, strawberries, mousseline, French buttercream and topped with a marzipan disk.

Mini Fraisiers. The acetate is still around them so you can't see the strawberries very well.

Havana Torte is a hazelnut cake with three separate layers of hazelnut sponge cake, two chocolate layers, and one vanilla, the whole cake is crumb coated in chocolate buttercream and enrobed in chocolate ganache

I hope you've gotten your sugar fix. I'll check back soon!
XO H