Cupcake Monday: Mimosa Cupcakes and a Delicious Strawberry Topped Anniversary Cake

I've been a busy gal over the weekend.  I was asked by a friend to make Mimosa cupcakes for her Big Hat Brunch.  If you recall, I made chocolate cupcakes for her last year in the form of hats.  So this year, another brunch led to another brunch inspired cupcake.  I never heard of a Mimosa cupcake until she asked, but thought - cupcakes and cocktails - you can't go wrong. 

I looked online for a few recipes, and some of them really looked good, but most seemed involved and honestly for a drink that is so simple to make, I thought that the cupcake should be just as easy.  Eventually, I ended up using a recipe that I have orange buttermilk cupcakes and altered it by adding champagne to make it a Mimosa cupcake.  Can I just say....HELLO!!!!!

Here are the cupcakes packed away - they were put into gift boxes for the guests to take as favors.  You can't really see it in the pictures, but there is a champagne syrup drizzled onto the frosting.....cupcake heaven.

Here are the gift boxes I mentioned; I think this is such a cute idea!

I received another request last week to do a cake for an anniversary.  I normally try and stick to cupcakes but, I do make cakes.  The client wanted my Triple Vanilla Cake for her sister's wedding anniversary.  She requested that it have red and green colors and strawberries all around.  I was worried about the request initially because it made me think about Christmas and I also couldn't figure out how to make the strawberries work into it.  I mean I think of anniversary cakes and silver, pearl and gold come to mind, but after doing some research it seems that it's common to have red and green anniversary cakes.  I was told that red was for love and green was for propsperity - who knew?!!!  In any case, I was happy to take on the challenge and figure out a way to give my client what she asked for.

Here's the finished product:

My client said her sister absolutely loved the cake and ate all the strawberries first.  To be honest, I think I would have done exactly the same thing!