Happy New Year! {But Half of the Real Title is on the Picture Below}

For Bake Happy Blogger's first post for 2012, I am sharing two very important things. 

Life changing really. Stuff, that if you wouldn't scroll down, you miss half of your life. Just kidding. But please scroll down. Seriously, please.

First, a tutorial. I want to show you how to make Shirt Cupcakes. Like the ones on the picture above. You remember this Valentine post? This is how I made it plus a little something more to spice it up a bit. We're making Statement Shirt Cupcakes. You know, of the things I wish for the world for 2012 and beyond. 

To make statement shirt cupcakes, I used these lettering press that you can assemble to form any word you want. I bought this at Love2Bake in Paranaque. I'm not sure what it's really called so I am calling it the lettering press. 

What we need:

Fondant in white and orange

Square fondant cutter

Small piping tip (any type of tip will do) fondant cutters, one smaller than the other Rolling pin 

Knife

Water and brush

Lettering Press

Here's how:
(1) Roll white fondant thinly and cut out a square using the fondant cutter

(2) Using the small tip, cut a half moon on top of the square fondant.

(3) Using the square cutter, cut out slender rectangles on the sides. By now, we have the basic t-shirt. You can actually do a lot of things with it. Paint a unicorn, a dragon, a peace sign or how about a cake? Or even a cupcake? In this case, I made statement shirts. Here's how.

(4) Roll orange fondant thinly

(5) Press words into the rolled fondant.

(6) Cut the boarders and paste into the shirt.

Second, I'm sharing my 12 for 2012. I know many will make new year resolutions, many will not. But I... well... I'm sharing my partial and unofficial 12 things to look forward to in 2012. Wanna read through my list? 

1. Wear a pink wig - now, where will I wear a pink wig? Let's find out soon.
2. Watch a horror film in 3D inside the cinema - the last horror movie I watched in the theater was Kevin Costner's Dragonfly. I swear, in my books it is a horror movie but Wikipedia insists it's drama movie. What?!
3. Find someone with my exact same real name - Ma gave me a really beautiful name, Marie Lette, now how did my nickname become Aikko? I might tell you the story sometime. 
4. Eat all the escargots I can get hold of - cooked in coconut, I can feast on escargots all day.
5. Learn how to make balloon animals - When you know how to make balloon animals, you know magic.
6. Watch all Clark Gable & Claudette Colbert movies - I know there is only one, but I am begging you to prove me wrong.
7. Organize all my baking cookbooks - I have some under my bed, in the bathroom (but you really don't need to know that), in my closet, some still has the store plastic cover screaming to be opened. Care to organize it with me? 
8. Get to watch that I-know-will-be-awesome Avengers movie
9. Do nothing once in a while - my aunt once told me, "Kay Aikko walang nasasayang na oras" that's because I hate to be idle. I always have something to do, so I look forward to doing nothing once in a while. 
10. Attend a culinary school - I have been putting this off for years!
11. Meet all of you dearest Bake Happy readers - last year, I met Amie. This year, I want to meet all of you. Okay, that might not be physically possible but nothing's impossible, right? 
12. Turning 30 - yeah, the big three oh on April 2. Is it really this year? Oh wait, I have to check, I stopped counting when I turned 21.

What are you looking forward to in 2012? Care to share? :)

How to Make Clock Cupcake Toppers

Is 2011 really almost over?

How come times  flies so fast nowadays? Has anyone invented a time delaying contraption yet? Or has anyone suggested a 30-hour day? I was originally writing only 25 hours but a few extra hours into a day won't hurt. So 30 hours a day it is. Uh... anyone? Anyone at all?

Okay, so I know these things aren't possible right now so I better start this tutorial before time flies again and before we know it it's already 2013.

What we need:

Fondant in white and brown

Two small fondant cutters, one smaller than the other Rolling pin 

Edible food marker (black) or brush and a black gel food color 

Water and brush

Here's how:
(1) Roll white fondant thinly and cut out circles using the smaller fondant cutter

(2) Do the same for the brown fondant, this time using the bigger fondant cutter

(3) Using water and brush, paste the white fondant to the center of the brown fondant.

(4) Use the edible marker to draw the dots and the hands of the clock.

Happy New Year to my ever dearest Bake Happy friends. Thank you so much for taking the time to leave a comment to my posts, tweet me, like posts on Facebook and most of all, send me the sweetest emails. I read every single on of them. :) 

From the bottom of my heart, thank you so much!

Have a very happy 2012 everyone! 

How to Make a Christmas Tree Cupcake Topper {Two Ways}

Hey guys!


It's the day before Christmas! Are you done with your shopping yet? Currently in  transit? Prepapring for Noche Buena? Doing some holiday baking? 

So how about me? I am writing this post while eating brunch - chorizo fried rice with salted egg and tomatoes. Thanks so much, Cielo for the delish chorizo! 

Many have asked me how I made the Christmas Trees from this post. So I decided to make a tutorial for it. 

But wait there's more! I made a tutorial of how to make Christmas Trees another way.

Marissa, I hope you're reading this post. This is for you :)

Christmas Tree #1
What we need:

Royal icing (mint green) in a piping bag with a small star tip

Parchment paper cut up in squares

Fondant (Yellow)

Rolling Pin

Small star fondant cutter

Sprinkles in yellow and red (or whatever color you have)

Here's how:
Before we begin, I made a guide on how to pipe the royal icing into the parchment paper.

(1) Get a small square of  parchment paper, pipe a "shell" in one end. 

(2) Pipe another one beside it.

(3) Pipe a third one. This is the base of the Christmas Tree.

(4) In between the three base shells, pipe two more shells.

(5) Then pipe one last shell on top. We now have the basic Christmas Tree.

(6) Now, we can decorate the tree with sprinkles.

(7) Roll out the yellow fondant and cut out stars

(8) Place on top of trees

(9)  Let it dry for at least a day and a half before placing on top of cupcakes.

Christmas Tree #2

What we need:

Fondant (in yellow and sky blue)

Sugar (colored in electric green)

Round sprinkles (I used just the pink ones)

Polvoron shaper or round fondant cutter

Water and brush

Here's how:
(1) Roll out blue fondant and cut out round discs using the p

olvoron shaper or round fondant cutter

(2) Shape white fondant into a ball. If there are creases formed, don't worry.

(3) Shape it into a long tear drop or a vampire's tooth or an ice cream cone (whatever it looks like)

(4) Flatten the base to make sure it can stand up

(5) Brush the tree with water and roll into the colored sugar. 

(6) Roll the tree into your hands to secure the sugar into the fondant. If there are empty spots, roll in again in the colored sugar and make sure everything is covered.

(6) Using water and brush, attach pink round sprinkles into the tree.

(7) Attach trees onto the round flat discs. Pretty simple huh?

Here are the trees on top of red velvet cupcakes with vanilla buttercream frosting.

Enjoy the holidays everyone!!!

How to Make a Fondant Dress Topper (and an early greeting)

Wow! How time flies, it's just 13 days before Christmas. If you ask me, I don't know how that happened. It still feels like July to me, except that everywhere you look there is proof that it is indeed December. 


So for my first post for the merry month, I'm going to show you how to make a simple dress topper then let's see where that'll take us. 

 What we need:

Fondant in black and white

Rolling pin

Heart fondant cutter

Polvoron Shaper or Round fondant cutter

Yellow Sprinkles

Royal Icing or water (to paste sprinkles to the dress)

Here's how:
(1) Roll out black then white fondant. Cut out the small heart from the white fondant, then cut out the round polvoron shaper (or round cutter) from the black fondant.

 (2) Remove bottom part of the heart, this will give the top of the dress the sweetheart cut.

 (3) Divide black fondant into two, with one part more than the other. This will be the skirt part of the dress.

 (4) Position the white fondant on the top part of the black fondant.

 (4) Cut out the sides  of the black fondant using the white fondant as a guide as to where to cut. And just like that we know have a simple dress cupcake topper. Easy huh? :)

We can then jazz it up a bit (and hide the line that divides the top from the bottom part of the dress) by adding some yellow sprinkles (to serve as a belt) with the help of some water or royal icing. 

And now that we know the basics, the possibilities are endless! Here are some of what I came up wtih. 


I went to Gourdo's a few months back and saw these dessert designs on sale. I didn't know what I would like to with them then, they just look so pretty not to be bought. So glad I did.

They are like stickers, only that they're edible. Just remove the design from the paper and place it in your cake/cupcake using water as glue. Pretty simple, yeah?

 Pink, white and black looks like a good color combination. 

 In one design, I used the pink design on top, and on another, I used it on the skirt. Then I used royal icing to make the belts of the dresses.

Remember this post of Salvacion Lim Higgins' Iconic Terno made into a cookie? I can not get enough of Slim's designs. They transcend time, such a classic works of art. 

And when I say, I can not get enough of her designs, I made cutie-fied versions of two of her dresses. You remember the terno of course and a flowy blue and yellow dress. 

And since where on - 
(a) the subject of dresses
and
(b) it seems Christmas is just around the corner...


why not make a dress for Mrs Santa?

 Okay, make that two dresses for Mrs Santa. Here's another dress with a pencil cut skirt.

 Hope the Mrs would love these.

And so, as the post title says... here's an early Christmas greeting from Bake Happy!