Big Baby Mickey Cake and Super Bowl Cupcakes!

My weekend was full of cake. Between work and home, there was a lot going on. I had my first 12" cake-- it could barely fit in my tiny oven! Then I had my usual Super Bowl cupcakes (this is the 4th year, I believe). I finally got to attend the Super Bowl party my cupcakes were going to--as well as even eat one!

For the Baby Mickey cake, I started with yellow cake iced it in vanilla buttercream. I had also baked off one cupcake as the baby's "smash cake" (client's preference). This 12" cake made me learn that 3 boxes of cake mix and its ingredients was the absolute most that I could fit in my Kitchenaid at one time!

Anyhoo, after base icing the cake, I scored the Baby Mickey design with my trusty fondant tool.

Then I started filling in the lines and smoothing it with a warm spatula.

What I like to do to save icing is start with one color then mix in more colors as I go along. So I started with light blue then mixed more blue into it later. I started with yellow also, then mixed it into the orange, then mixed that into the brown until eventually everything ended up being mixed into black.

And voila! Here's the finished product with its matching little cupcake. From one of the party-goers, I heard the cake was a huge hit, and I may be getting a call for someone else's birthday party. Fabulous!

So yesterday, I made two dozen super bowl cupcakes, a dozen for each team. Honestly, I am not a football person at all, so I barely knew who the teams were. I was glad, however, to find out that they pretty much had the same colors. For the Giants cupcakes, I went with base icing in white (the smaller the amount of blue icing, the less likely there will be blue teeth at the party). Then I added "ny" in blue and outlined in red. Pretty simple.

But when it came to the Patriots, it got a little tricky... Instead of drawing the whole patriot's head, I just went for the hat, which I thought was more of a focal point of the logo anyway.

They seemed to work out, even though they kind of look like a map of Kentucky or something... Hmm Ah, well. The cupcakes were still a hit at the party, and people ate the Patriots cupcakes despite the fact that they lost... I think. Hey, I was only there for the food and the commercials (I loved OK Go in the Chevy Sonic ad, by the way).