More than a Bumblebee, More than an Ant

I haven't posted in about seven years thanks to that good first date from my previous post turning into a good second date and third date and fourth date and...well, you get the idea.  Between entertaining the new boy, moving to a new city, and transitioning to a new job life has grown a tad frenzied.  That is a lot of new for one little mungbean.  It is also a lot of excitement and I can feel my eyes smiling (yes, eyes can smile...take it up with Tyra if you don't trust me) at just the thought of it all.

Somehow in the midst of all the bustle, I have found a little time to bake and thought I'd make up for the lack of posting these last few months with a few pictures.  Who wants to read the book when you can rent the movie, right?

These two pictures are chocolate cupcakes with a peanut butter filling.  The filling was essentially a (tasty) conglomeration of random things in the fridge, most of which I can't remember now.  The key ingredient was honey roasted peanut butter.  Yay for Whole Foods and their miracle peanut butter machines.

I also recently rediscovered the joy that is creating with fondant.  Fondant and I have had our ups and downs in the past, mostly because it tastes far less appetizing than it looks, but cakes like this and cupcakes like these or these make me rethink my fondant aversion.  I tried making the Iphone cupcakes with a friend of mine a while back.  She is a professor and wanted to make something fun for her students.  We tried making the fondant ourselves and it was EXTREMELY difficult to work with.  Never again.  Something like six hours and a couple stained shirts later we had these:

Lesson learned:  Cornstarch, cornstarch, cornstarch

So my recent forays into the world of fondant have been brought to you by the letter "W".  That is, the lovely people at Wilton made it for me.  I just had the pleasure of dying and squishing it as I fancied.  Much more successful, if you ask me.

The first couple are from my roommate's Little Mermaid themed party (she works the new Mermaid ride at Disney's CA Adventure).  I'm not going to lie...I was crunched for time and cheated by using a candy mold. The last picture is from a random Monday for a not so random boy who very much deserved a random three layer red velvet Sponge Bob cake sitting on his front porch.  As you can tell, I compromised on the yucky fondant taste issue of mine by making just the shapes out of fondant.  Good compromise, if you ask me :)