candy clay cupcakes

Today I'm featuring an interview with my friend Jennifer Kim of Candy Clay Cupcakes.  She makes gorgeous custom fondant cupcakes that range from whimsical to chic.  You can find more of her work on her website and follow her on her Facebook page, Pinterest and Instagram feed.

How did you start your business?  

I started by biz by happenstance.  I wanted fondant cupcakes for my son's birthday party.  I was going to ask my friend to do them but didn't want to overwhelm her since my son's birthday is December 26th and it was smack in the middle of all the holiday frenzy.  I decided to try them myself and HAD SO MUCH FUN!  I kept making them for friends, and potlucks, as gifts, etc.  Everyone kept encouraging me to start a business, so with a final push from some good childhood friends, and much help from totally awesome, wonderfully supportive girlfriends, I launched Candy Clay Cupcakes at the beginning of 2014.

How long have you been baking?

I've been baking most of my life, since I was 6-years-old.  I really got into it after taking Home Ec in junior high.  I even got the Home Ec award when I graduated junior high, lol.

What are your favorite combinations of frosting and cake?

I love all things chocolate!  Devil's food chocolate cake with a rich chocolate ganache frosting...yum!!

Why do you think cupcakes are so popular?

I think because of their convenience.  At parties, you don't have to trouble yourself with cutting the cake, putting them on a plate, grabbing a fork for each plate, yadi-yadi-ya.  Cupcakes are quick and easy.  And pretty cupcakes definitely add to your party decor!

Where do you get inspiration for your designs?

Everywhere!  Everywhere I go, I always see things that can be translated into a fondant cupcake design!

What’s your favorite baking or cooking memory?

In college, I used to study sitting in front of the oven.  I would be baking cookies while digging out the themes in A Midsummer Night's Dream. :)

What else do you like to bake or cook besides cupcakes?

I love baking all kinds of DESSERTS--triple chocolate brownies, crinkle cookies, cheesecakes, peach cobblers...anything sweet and scrumptious. :)

Photos by Jennifer of Candy Clay Cupcakes, edited by Michelle Sterling.  

journey

I love all the wordless story books coming out these days.  Journey, a 2014 Caldecott Honor picture book, is about a girl who, with her red marker, draws a door to a secret world.  An incredible adventure unfolds throughout the story and she traverses many a land.  Avery’s favorite part: "Then it was a magical forest with lights and lanterns...”  Where do the girl and her companion red marker end up?  You’ll have to pick up Aaron Becker’s Journey and find out. :)

we built this city

This Gothic City Blocks set, made in Poland, comes with many blocks with which you can build a castle or small village of houses.  The blocks provide a great starting point for the imagination to wander and think about what life might have been like in the 14th century.  Time to check on that cauldron of stew...

Thanks to The Land of Nod for sending us this set.

building with tracks

Recently, Avery and Nate have been putting together tracks like this, sort of like a roller coaster.  Their dad taught them to place a piece of track upright (as seen on the left side) to achieve more height, thus producing more speed as the cars start down the track.

thunderstorm

I thought it would be the perfect time to read Thunderstorm by Arthur Geisert after our recent storm here in Southern California.  Thunderstorm is a (mostly) wordless story book that chronicles a particularly squally day in the rural Midwest.  There is no narrative except for time stamps at the bottom of each page, showing the progress of the day.  I love how Geisert uses line to depict the movement, energy and mood of the storm and the flurry of activity it produces in the course of one day in a prairie town.  It provides a wonderfully detailed perspective of the countryside that is invaluable for my kids to see since we live in a mostly suburban setting.  There is a richness of rural terrain and a great deal of new words associated with the rustic and agrarian way of life that, for now, my children might only learn from books and stories like this one.  I try to read books about different parts of the country and world to my children to increase their background knowledge, which will hopefully diversify their point of view and support their reading comprehension later on in school.  Our next acquisition of Geisert’s works will probably be Country Road ABC.

Also, don’t miss the interesting note about the illustrations on the book’s back cover!