My friend Amy made a feast including homemade Peeta’s nut and raisin bread, Prim’s reaping gift of goat cheese wrapped in basil leaves, lamb stew, goat cheese and apple tarts, Cinna’s orange chicken – and she asked me to bring cupcakes. Sticking to the theme, the only thing that would make sense would be Mockingjay cupcakes, what else?

I bought a silicone mockingjay mold on etsy, which gave out perfect impressions. I used plain white fondant and pressed it into the mold and out popped a perfect mockingjay!

I realize from this photo that no human needs 32 ounces of vanilla but trust me – I go through it rather quickly. I mixed vanilla extract with edible gold dust to make an edible ‘paint.’

Using a clean kitchen paint brush, I painted the mockingjays with the edible gold paint which gave the fondant color and more defintion and sheen.

Once that dried I added a little more ‘bling’ by brushing straight edible gold dust on top of the painted areas.

I made “decadent chocolate cake” cupcakes (per the book) and frosted them with a cream cheese frosting.

Then I dipped them in ‘coal’ (i.e. silver black sanding sugar) to represent District 12. District 12 specialized in coal mining you see. I’m realizing if you haven’t read the book this post makes no sense to you…

I placed the painted fondant mockinjays on top of the cupcakes and presented them to everyone before the reaping. Oh yes, there was a real reaping.

The game went well, people died (sort of), there was a winner proclaimed and everyone loved the cupcakes! May the odds be ever in your favor!

I designed the logo for the event and also have a little pop-up shop at the store which will be there through June. As a thank you for involving me in the event I made special cupcakes for the opening night. I happened upon some luscious blood oranges at the farmer’s market and they were the perfect ingredient for fragrant summer-y cupcakes.

I melted white chocolate into candy molds to make lollipops…

…then printed out the Supahcute and Leanna Lin logos onto edible sheets with edible ink.

I finished it off with some piping detail and sanding sugar.

They had a very cool Japanese candy bar at the event and they placed my cupcakes right in the middle. Cupcakes and Pocky for all!

Blood Orange cupcakes (recipe here)

ingredients:
2 cups cake flour
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
pinch of salt
3/4 cups (1-1/2 sticks) butter, softened
2 cups sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup buttermilk
2 Tablespoons Blood Orange zest
2 Tablespoons freshly squeezed Blood Orange juice

blood orange frosting (recipe here)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Prep a cupcake pan with liners.

In a bowl whisk together the cake flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer cream the butter and sugar. Add the eggs until combined.

Alternate the flour mixture with the buttermilk – then fold in the Blood Orange zest and juice.

Fill the lined cupcake pan and bake for 14-15 minutes depending on your oven. Let cool on a wire rack.

Once cooled top with Blood Orange frosting. Because the frosting is made with whipped cream and mascarpone keep these in the fridge and then bring them out 15 minutes before serving!

Food Network magazine approached me and to say I’m excited is an understatement. I am a *huge* fan of Food Network so it was great to work with them and have one of my creations featured in the magazine!

I first made these cupcakes for my friend Cheryl’s baby’s first birthday party two years ago! First birthdays are a huge deal for people from Hawaii and I wanted to make something special, so I took the idea of Hawaiian shave ice but made it in cupcake form. It’s a great summer party treat and Food Network thought so too!

Here’s a bigger pic from the interior of the magazine:

Very cool! My name is in there in super fine print but you have to buy the magazine to see that part. I’m thrilled with how they look! Thanks Food Network!

This year The Comic Bug invited me to come down and sell some things and take part in the events. I was next to the fantastic UglyDoll table! David and Sun-Min are the niceset people and they even tho they have a global brand, they came down to fill their table with their wonderful toys and even give some away! That’s what Free Comic Book Day is all about.

I go to a lot of comic shops around the city and the Bug is one of my favorites. The staff is kind and knowledgable and the space is large so they hold a lot of cool events there too. The owners Mike and Jun are always helpful if you’re looking for something specific or just getting into comics.

Every year FCBD seems to grow and the line seemed neverending. What you shouldn’t forget is that all the shops PAY for those comics that they give away, so it’s nice to not only pick up your free ones, but also buy from the store and the vendors they invite. It’s not a requirement, just a courtesy to say thanks for hosting such a great event.

As a thank you to the shop for inviting me down I made cupcakes and they gave them out to the best cosplayers in line. True, the lines were long but it was worth it to get all your free comics in the end. Hopefully a lot of new fans were made that day.

I printed out The Comic Bug logo and the FCBD logo in edible ink on edible paper and then placed it on lollipops that I molded out of chocolate. Piped a frosting outline and dipped it in sanding sugar for some bling.

It was a crazy, fun event and I encourage everyone to go support your local comic book shop!

Javi is a friend of mine who has worked on a number of beloved tv shows, from Seaquest to the Middleman to Charmed and the ever popular – Lost.

Javi has also worked in comics, with his most recent release being Ramiel: Wrath of God. Ramiel is about a fallen angel with a conscience. The book is dark, yet thoughtful and the art of Steve Gendron & Peter Wonsowski forms itself around the words, bringing life to the page.

Javi’s Nerdist panel featured a signing for Ramiel followed by a screening of his short film Reverse Parthenogenesis which stars two Buffy alums, Amber Benson and Adam Busch and also Edmund Lupinski. There was a Q & A with the cast and of course what to feed a hungry geek crowd? Ramiel cupcakes!

For the cupcakes I tempered chocolate and poured it into moldes to make lollipops for the logo but I knew I also wanted to focus on the cover art, so I also molded small chocolate picture frames. I printed out the cover of Ramiel 2 onto edible sheets with edible ink and then placed them on the chocolate frames.

Then I used edible pearl dust and painted it on the frames to give it a ‘weathered’ look.

I made Javi’s favorite vanilla cupcakes and frosted them with mascarpone frosting before placing the custom chocolate pieces on top. The cupcakes were a hit and the comic and the film were both well received. Another great night of comics, friends and fantastic writing!

And genius marketing too because of course you have to collect all the various Skylanders! One of the favorite characters is Stealth Elf – I love that she’s a girl but both boys and girls alike enjoy playing her character. I decided to make Stealth Elf cupcakes so I took the figure while the kids weren’t playing and used that sketch out how I was going to make this edible.

Here’s where things go wrong. 1. The figure does NOT have the same colors as the character on screen. As the kids pointed out RIGHT AWAY. But, but…why is the figure’s face blue and her hair purple but on screen her face is green and her hair is blue? ARRGGHH — JENN SMASH. 2. My frosting colors did not come out the way I wanted and therefore didn’t match the figure either. WHAT. Not only does that make no sense but that means I’m wrong…twice. sigh. At least it was delicious.

ingredients:
chocolate cupcakes (recipe here)
cream cheese frosting (recipe here)
blue candy melts
various colored frosting

In a double boiler melt the blue candy melts and pour into a round candy mold. Place in the freezer until solid, then pop out the rounds. Set aside.

Using the same melted blue candy, make ‘ears’ on a piece of parchment by dipping a spoon in the melts then tapping and pulling the spoon back. Once you do a few you’ll get the hang of it and soon you will be the master of making pointy ears. Place those in the freezer until solid.

Take the solid ‘ears’ and dip the ends into the melted blue melts and use that as an adhesive to attach to the blue rounds which will become Stealth Elf’s head. Place one on each side.

Now you have the base of the head! To make the mask I used a #5 tip and piped across the bottom 1/3 of the round.

Again using a #5 tip I piped the bangs, then the sides of the hair.

In white with a #5 tip I made two slight ovals just above the mask for the eyes.

Then with a fine #2 tip and black frosting I went in and did an outline around the eye then the arched eyebrows.

Once the faces were set I placed them on top of chocolate cupcakes frosted with cream cheese frosting.

Even though the color was off, these little Stealth Elves were well received and made for good food fuel for the gamer guys I presented them to. They are pretty adorable and now according to my kids – I need to do ALL of the Skylanders. Uh, you know there’s like 32 of them right…? Yikes.

ingredients:
whipped cream cupcakes (recipe here)
whipped cream cheese frosting (recipe here)
marshmallows
chocolate pearls
cocoa sharks

I wanted the cupcakes to be light and fluffy so I made whipped cream cupcakes. Airy and sweet, they were the perfect polar bear match. I topped them off with a whipped cream cheese frosting.

I put out some cut marshmallows, valrhona chocolate pearls and even some Cocoa Sharks cereal. Anything I could find to make bear faces – and then let the kids go to town!

Even though we all worked on our own cupcakes, all the bears ended up looking related. That’s a family for you!

My journey into playing with chocolate continues as I found these chocolate dipped cookie molds. You don’t need a mold of course but it certainly gives cleaner edges.

I tempered some Belgian milk chocolate and dropped approx two Tablespoons into the molds. Then pressed an Oreo into the center. I then came back and topped it off with more chocolate.

Tap, tap tapping – lots of tapping to get all those air bubbles out of the molds.

Into the freezer for 10 minutes then I popped them out. Perfect!

I printed out BSG logos with edible ink onto edible paper and cut out the circles, then simply laid them on top of the chocolate dipped Oreos.

I used these as toppers for cupcakes because there’s no better gift than dessert upon dessert. So say we all!

ingredients:
12 lemon cupcakes (recipe here)
lemon mascarpone frosting (recipe here)
2 cups shredded coconut
green gel dye
Bunny Fruit Snacks
36 toothpicks

Put the coconut in a lidded bowl and add a drop of green gel dye and a drop of water. Put the lid on and shake shake shake until the coconut is a lovely light green.

Pile the coconut on top of the frosted cupcake. Set aside.

Skewer (sorry, bunnies) the gummis onto the toothpicks and place them at varying heights on the cupcake so they look like they are jumping through the grass.

A display of these at an Easter brunch will make for a lovely field of sweet cupcakes!