I made my boyfriend's favorite cupcakes for his 26th birthday - no better time to be a kid again! These are just chocolate cupcakes baked in soft-serve ice cream cones topped off with vanilla buttercream icing swirls and colorful sprinkles.

Here are some festive chocolate cupcakes decorated with white buttcream frosting for the fall - they are for a collegue who is "leaf"-ing the office.

I was inspired this weekend by a cake I saw at the neatest country market...it was a plain cake with a large single tulip on the top - my favorite flower. I thought I would try and re-create the look of the cake, but thought chocolate icing might be a nice contrast to the light pastel colors of the flower. It is a chocolate cake with oreo chocolate filling and chocolate icing. I did a shell border with matching pink pastel dots and on the top I crowned the cake with rosettes.

Course 1 is done but there is more to come...

Tah-dah! The finale cake for Course 1 of the Wilton cake decorating class. We learned how to make the perfect rose, and of course I had to kick it up a notch by making my roses two-toned. This is a yellow cake brushed with Chambord and filled with raspberry jam. I iced it with almond frosting, making it taste similar to my favorite Italian rainbow cookies. I had fun again with the swiss dots, and I enjoyed learning how to make the pretty sweet peas along the border with the shells.

With this cake we learned the art of figure piping, using bag-striping coloring method again. This is a yellow cake with buttercream frosting.

This is my first cake in Course 1 of the Wilton cake decorating class. Here I made a pumpkin spice cake with buttercream frosting. I used a star tip method to fill in an outline of a pumpkin - how festive! I also used a bag-striping method to create the multi-colored effect on the bottom border.

Then one day during a visit to the local craft store I noticed Wilton was offering a cake decorating class...how perfect! This way I could learn how to decorate by learning the basics and from there, who knows!

These are some mini cakes I made for fun one night I was craving some chocolate cake - I also wanted to practice some decorating ideas and techniques. These cakes are good size to share with someone or eat all by yourself!

This is another cake I made for Tom's birthday to feed the masses. Its a chocolate sheet cake with buttercream frosting. I did shell borders on the top and bottom in blue and yellow and decorated with green, blue and yellow squiggles.

This is my second decorated cake, made for a good friend, Tom. His favorite cake is walnut-maple, so I made him a walnut spice cake with maple flavored fosting. I did a shell border on the bottom with precisely-placed candied walnuts and I also did an s-shape shell border on the top. I finished the cake with swiss dots and three rosettes topped with candied walnuts. This is one of my favorites!

This is my very first decorated cake. It's a chocolate cake with chocolate icing. I combed the sides and did a basketweave on the very top of the cake. I also did a shell border on the top and rosettes on the bottom. On the top I made a rose bouquet with a ribbon. I made this cake after a co-worker made a demonstration and peaked my interest, and now I'm off!

This is a site where I will be posting my cake creations as I make them - this way I can track my progress and show people what I can do. Hope you enjoy! Abbey