Dinosaur Train!

I can't believe my little girl is 5 years old. Where has the time gone? She is such a sweet little girl, full of surprises and this cake was no exception. When I asked her what kind of cake she wanted a month ago, I expected her to respond with something like princesses, or butterflies, or fairies, but nope, she said loud and clear in her perfect little voice, "Dinosaurs!"
I suppose I should have expected as much - when we went to the zoo earlier this year, I bought her a green stuffed animal pteranodon, and it is now one of her favorites. And she loves to watch the show Dinosaur Train. And her favorite color is green, which many dinosaurs are.
Cecilia helped me design the cake - her input involved the colors of the flowers, and the grass border on the bottom. She must know that the grass tip is my favorite. I bought two little figurines to put on top, made one of my pretzel palm trees, and I was all set!
The cake itself is one of her favorites - chocolate with raspberry filling. She initially wanted strawberry, but when I caught a bad cold just a few days before her birthday, she was happy to compromise since I had raspberry filling on hand and making strawberry would mean a boring trip to the grocery store.

 

I also made cake pops for her to take to school before her birthday, on the last day of school before winter break since her birthday was on December 29th. I made them with strawberry cake, green chocolate coating and green sugar that I made myself with plain coarse sugar dyed green with food coloring. 

Happy Birthday Cecilia!

 

Merry Christmas!

This year, our family was invited to my Uncle Paul and Aunt Rita's house for dinner on Christmas Day. Right away I offered to make a cake for the occasion, and my aunt was happy to accept. I figured a present cake would be perfect for this holiday, so here it is! Red velvet cake, cream cheese filling, and buttercream frosting with fondant decorations and a fondant/gum paste bow.

Merry Christmas!

Compound Hulk Cake

A year ago, a friend of mine told me that her friend Leanne was looking for a cake decorator, since the lady she had gotten her cakes from before had just moved. I sent a message to her and found out that she had just celebrated her son Luke's birthday, but would definitely want me to make a cake for his next birthday. When the time came, I was super-excited to get started on it. Leanne told me that Luke loved comic books, but mostly the lesser known characters that you don't hear about much. Like Black Spiderman and Red Hulk. I found a picture of a really awesome Hulk cake that would work with their party needs. She then told me that the theme they were going with was Compound Hulk. If you don't know what that is, it's basically half the regular green Incredible Hulk, and half the bad Red Hulk, split right down the middle. A bit challenging to frost the cake half and half, but I love a challenge!

The cake itself is yellow cake with buttercream filling and frosting, and fondant accents, including some yummy chocolate black fondant for his crazy hair.

The delivery of this cake was the best part - the party was at a roller rink! Having grown up going to many rollerskating parties, it was awesome to go inside the one near where I live. I drive by it all the time, but have never been inside. Now I'm definitely going to have to go back.

Happy Birthday Luke - Hope you had an awesome day!

Monkeys!

After making mostly birthday cakes for the past few months, I was happy when my nephew Tom's wife Tasheena asked me if I could make a cake for her baby shower. I had made the groom's cake for their wedding, so suffice to say they are long-standing fans of my cake creations. I talked to her mom, and after a while we agreed on a super-cute design for the cake, and for some cupcakes that would look awesome with it.

I had initially wanted to make everything with banana cake, but since the mom-to-be has a food aversion to bananas, I decided to make the cake chocolate and the cupcakes banana. The cake was decorated with buttercream with fondant accents and a cute ball border that went along very well with the picture of a juggling monkey that was on the front of the baby shower invitations. Then I made a palm tree out of a fondant-covered pretzel, just like the ones I made for the topsy-turvy cake back in October. And in front of the tree, a cute little fondant monkey. Honestly, I love making these little creatures - it's so much fun. As I mentioned in my topsy-turvy cake post, it's like playing with playdoh. And who doesn't like playing with play-doh?

For the cupcakes, I had some help. My son's first reconciliation was the night before the shower, and then the morning of the shower I had an extra choir practice at church. I knew that if I tried to decorate all of them by myself, I wouldn't have enough time, so I called over my sister-in-law (and grandmother-to-be) Monica who brought over one of her sons, Raymond (who happens to be a big fan of anything having to do with cake decorating), and Tasheena's sisters Mari and Angaline, to help me decorate them. We had a lot of fun and got it done in a fraction of the time it would have taken for me to do it all myself.

Everything turned out so cute - and I hope everyone at the shower enjoyed them!

B is for....

Brian . . . and Banana . . . and Birthday Boy!

Yep, today is my husband's birthday! And of course what kind of cake decorator wife would I be if I didn't make a treat for him to bring to work on his big day? I asked him last weekend if he wanted cupcakes or cake pops. He said, since I had made cupcakes for halloween, he wanted cake pops this time. He decided on banana cake, which I mixed with cream cheese frosting and then dipped in milk chocolate before decorating with sprinkles and a letter B for his name. And of course, since it's banana cake, yellow was the obvious choice for an accent color! I gave him a sample cake pop last night and he loved it - and I hope everyone where he works enjoys them just as much!

Happy Birthday Sweetie!

Welcoming Baby Owen!

For anyone who doesn't know, I an not only a full-time mom and cake decorator, I am a part-part-time Medical Technologist as well. I basically pick up shifts as they become available, which is a pretty sweet deal. One night this past summer, I was talking to a co-worker about the wedding cake that I would be making (ahh . . . memories!), and Winston, one of the third shift techs who had just come in, overheard me. I showed him a few of my cake pictures that I had with me on my phone, and he said that he and his wife were planning an open house/baby welcoming party that fall. They are both from Africa, and it is a custom where they are from to have a celebration like this when the baby is around 6 months old. Well, you can't have a party without cake, so he told me right then and there that he and his wife were going to order a cake from me for the event.

Well, several months later (and a few communication gaps along the way thanks to my not working for two months!), I finally got all of the details ironed out and whipped this up. Pretty good considering I had finalized the design only three days before the event! The cake is a simple yellow cake with chocolate buttercream frosting and filling and lots of colorful fondant decorations!

Congrats to Winston, Emi, and little Owen!

Happy Birthday Monica!

I have many sisters-in-law. 8 to be exact. Yep... EIGHT. Gotta love that big family!

My sister-in-law Monica (who is the wife of my husband's brother Ed) turned 50 last month. Her son Matt is the one that I made the wedding cake for this past summer. So when I heard that her family was planning a birthday party for her, I offered to make cake pops. Everyone in her family that was at the rehearsal dinner for Matt's wedding loved the cake balls I made, so I went with the same cake flavor - yummy chocolate! And of course, being that it was a 50th birthday party, I had to put some awesome decorations on them too! I made 3 dozen cake pops with three different decorations. I had some with silver sprinkles, some with black fondant dots, and some with black fondant stars brushed with silver luster dust. Here they are at my house, all ready to go.

I put them in a big box for the party and actually brought the glasses too, since they worked so well to display them at home. Little did I know that my brother-in-law had already ordered a sheet cake for the party. A full sheet cake! No problems though - everyone was more than happy to eat my cake pops too (and luckily, the cake was yellow cake, so no OD of chocolate!) and several of my nieces, nephews and other in-laws brought cake pops home with them for their families.

Happy Birthday Monica, and here's to the next 50!

Halloween Cupcakes!

Last year in the middle of November I was grocery shopping and right there on the clearance table was a box of Halloween funfetti cake mix for 75 cents. I looked at the expiration date and saw that it didn't expire until December of 2012, so I bought it, figuring that I could make cupcakes for one of my kids to take to school for a Halloween party.

Well, fast forward to the beginning of September this year, when I discovered at the school open house that my daughter's K4 teacher is anti-cupcake. Gasp! Well, I guess I can understand where she is coming from. After all, I know all too well the mess that comes with giving a 4 year old a cupcake, and when you multiply that by 15, it would be quite a lot for even two adults to clean up! My son, being in the 2nd grade, is too old for silly kid parties at school (how is he growing up so fast?), so I had to come up with a way to use that cake mix and do it fast. I thought of making cake pops, but by the time I volunteered it to the teacher, she had already gotten offers from two other parents to bring Halloween treats and wanted to keep it at that.

So back I was at square one... what to do with this cake mix? Well, my hubby mentioned to me a few days ago that one of the ladies he works with, who did cake decorating when she was younger, was asking how my cake decorating was coming along. Bingo! I baked them up, decorated them last night and sent them to work with my husband this morning. He came home with an empty tupperware container, saying that "They were a big hit!". And of course I left out two for my kids to have after their dinner tonight. What kind of mother would I be if I didn't? :)

Here's the entire assortment:

 And a close-up of the mummy cupcakes - lots of fun!

Happy Halloween!!

A cake fit for a king!

Or rather... the king of the jungle!

Now, have I mentioned how much I love referrals? Because I do! This cake order came came to me by way of Nekia, who I made the whale cake for at the end of August. Her friend Ratna wanted a cake for her son Zarek's first birthday at the beginning of October. (If you are beginning to see a pattern here of first birthday cakes . . . never fear, I can make cakes for any occasion!)
She sent me a picture of a very cute topsy-turvy cake with a fondant lion and elephant, and after researching how to make a topsy-turvy cake, she sent me another message with a few changes to the design, all centered around the party decorations she had bought. Instead of a lion and elephant, she wanted just the lion, and a palm tree. I, being the roll-with-the-punches type I am, said, "no problem!" After all, it was still a few weeks before her son's birthday. And I made a few suggestions to make the cake even better!

The cake itself is chocolate with oreo buttercream - my first time making it and I had some left over so I used it on a 6 inch cake I had in my freezer. It. . . is. . . divine!

The top tier is covered in chocolate fondant, the bottom with plain green fondant, and all of the dots and stripes were fondant as well. One of my favorite parts of this cake though, was making the lion. All gum paste, and it was a lot like making something with play-doh! And since it's gum-paste, it dried hard and can be stashed away in a keepsake box for years and years. The trees are pretzels covered with chocolate fondant, and then I stuck gum paste leaves on the top with a little extra fondant to hold them in place. I had to do a little bit of "digging" to get them in the cake itself, but the end product was pretty cute. I even got to use my favorite decorating tip to pipe grass around the trees and lion on top and and around the base of the top tier. Ratna provided the candle, which I stuck onto the front of the cake since it wouldn't have fit on top without falling over.

When I delivered the cake, I was greeted by this adorable sign, so I knew I was in the right place

And here we are, all set up and ready for the birthday boy!

And of course, a first birthday wouldn't be complete without a smash cake! Same cake flavor and filling, but with orange buttercream since that was the other main color in the theme of the party, and fondant polka dots to tie in to the main cake.

Happy Birthday Zarek! I hope your birthday was wonderful!

A whale of a cake!

A little over a month ago, I received yet another referral -  Nekia, a friend of a friend who had heard about my cakes. She needed a cake for her son Kenneth's first birthday and at first, she sent a picture of a 3D whale cake. After looking at the cake itself, which was surrounded by fondant waves on a huge cake board, I told her that I could do it, but there would be a lot of waste from the fondant waves, which would comprise most of the cost. I then suggested a two-tiered cake with a smaller 3D whale on top that would be made out of rice krispies treats. Everything would be edible - less waste! She loved that idea, and after agreeing on the cake flavor and size needed, I set to work.

First I made a batch of rice krispies treats - my kids got to help with this one too! I pressed most of them into a pan for them to eat later, and took a couple handfuls to mold into the shape of a whale. I had only one problem with it - the tail. I took a piece of spaghetti and stuck it in the tail to hold it up, but it kept falling down. Then I put it in the fridge and that helped, but when I started frosting it and then covering it with fondant, the tail began to sag again. So this time I stuck a toothpick inside, and that did the trick. Then I added a few wires to the top with drops of gumpaste for the whale's spray. I had to explain to Nekia when she picked it up that there were a couple of reinforcements in there and to be careful when slicing it up!

The cake itself was lots of fun - I figured with the ocean design of the cake, what better cake than a blue and white marble! I filled and frosted it with blue buttercream, so when cut into, it looked like the ocean. The cake itself was a two-tiered cake with two smash cakes. One was for the party itself, and one was for a photography session before the party started.

For the decorations, I have my friend Ann to thank yet again. When I met her to pick up the cake pans she was lending me for the wedding, I mentioned this cake to her and she told me about a new product from Wilton - a silcone fondant mold for under-the-sea shapes. It included molds for waves, seaweed and starfish, so the only things I had to free-hand were the fish and the turtles. It was perfect!



I love the way the cake turned out, and I hope Kenneth did too! Thanks Nekia for thinking of me for your son's special day!

Something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue...

Not so long ago, in a kitchen not so far away, began the epic adventure that I will forever refer to as my first, and last, wedding cake.
Yes, you heard right. I am no longer doing wedding cakes. Well, at least not of this magnitude. If you are having a nice little backyard wedding and want a two-tiered cake, or maybe some cupcakes or a modestly decorated sheet cake, I'm up for it. I'm just not doing BIG cakes anymore.

And now you will get the chance to learn why.

Back in March, I was feeling rather ambitious one day. Of course, I hadn't made a cake in a while, so that may have factored in to my decision as well. Anyway, I sent a message to my nephew saying that if he and his fiancee hadn't gotten their wedding cake yet, not only was I available, but I would offer them a family discount. He replied, "sounds great!". So I planned a cake tasting and made some cupcakes for them to taste - two of each in chocolate (filled with raspberry buttercream) and yellow (filled with chocolate buttercream). All of the cupcakes had a white buttercream swirl and a few royal icing flowers that I had left over from another cake, to make them look pretty. Well, the bride got sick, so just my nephew came over and we talked for a while. He took the cupcakes home and they both came back a couple of weeks later, once his fiance was feeling better, to talk about the specifics. At this time, all I knew was that they wanted a square cake, the colors of the wedding were royal blue, white and silver, and that the invitations had whispy silver lines with hearts on them. So I drew up a design and presented it to them - they liked it and we got to work drawing up the contract.
Now, when I first drew up the contract, I had a 16" base tier, a 12" middle tier, and an 8" top tier. The top and bottom tiers would be chocolate with raspberry filling, and the middle tier would be yellow cake with lemon filling (because not everyone likes chocolate). Perfect for the number of servings they would need. Only problem is... after they left and I measured my oven - 16 inches exactly from front to back. No way I could bake a cake that large in there without the edges burning. So on to plan B - a 14" base tier, 10" middle tier, and 6" top. That only produced 150 servings, which would not be enough for the 175-200 people that they were expecting, so I gave them two options. I could make a grooms cake for the extra 50 servings, or I could make an extra 10" cake to go straight to the kitchen. No decorations, just cake. And being the wonderful, laid-back couple that they are, they chose the second option.
Next came the design. When I initially drew it up (with the help of my kids' crayons) it had blue ribbon around the base of each tier, with a silver bead border along the bottom of the ribbon, then royal blue wispy lines with either blue or silver fondant hearts. After seeing the actual invitations, I decided to do silver hearts instead. For the topper, I was going to make a blue letter R out of gum paste, brush it with luster dust to make it look pretty, and stick that in the top. Here is a picture of the invitation - simple but very lovely.

Then came the changes. And before I get into that, I do want to thank the bride and groom for bearing with me with all of these changes. It helped that they are family, and even more so that they are so laid-back and willing to roll with all of these changes to the design.
Change #1 - I found a monogram cake topper online that someone was selling in a resale group for $5. A beautiful silver letter R with rhinestones that would be perfect for their cake. And then I wouldn't have to make one out of gum paste and worry about it breaking. And - bonus! - after the wedding they got to keep it and have the option to pass it on to any future Rebros who would be getting married, to use as their cake topper.
Change #2 - After thinking about the design some more, I changed the blue lines to silver, to look more like the invitations. Instead of fondant hearts, I piped them with icing. This caused me a lot of headaches - trying to figure out the best way to make silver frosting. I could brush buttercream with silver luster dust, but that would get all over the place. I could cut thin little lines out of fondant or gum paste, but given the size of the cake, they could break. Then I found a recipe online for silver frosting that used a combo of luster dust, vodka and powdered sugar. I tried it out, but couldn't get the consistency right. Then one day I was making a new recipe for buttercream, and noticed how much it shimmered when it was done. So I tinted it with a little bit of blue and a little bit of black and - voila! - silver icing was born! Not as sparkly as I wanted, but close enough.

Now I was set. I borrowed some cake pans from my friend Ann, made up a grocery list based on calculations I had made to ensure I'd have enough of every single ingredient, down to the last spoonful. Then the Monday before the wedding, I started baking. First up, chocolate cake. I baked a 14" and a 6" together, since a triple-batch filled both pans perfectly. The only problem is, I forgot to line the 6" pan with parchment paper, so when I flipped the pan, the bottom half of the cake was all stuck inside. I just about had a nervous breakdown, and then I remembered - when life hands you lemons, you make, lemonade. When live hands you a cake wreck, you make...

Cake balls!

I called up the bride, told her I had a special offer just for her, explained the situation, first of all that it was no big deal, I could easily make another cake, but I was wondering if she had a dessert planned for the rehearsal dinner. She said no, and cake balls would be great! I decorated half of them with white decorating sugar, and for the other half, I put some of the remaining candy melts in a ziploc bag, piped little hearts, and dusted them with the luster dust that I would no longer be using for the actual cake. I attached the hearts to the cake balls with more candy melts.

 

On Tuesday, I baked the remaining chocolate cakes - all with parchment paper this time - and they all turned out great. I wrapped them all in plastic wrap and put them in my freezer downstairs. I even had time to take my kids to the park while the cakes cooled.

Wednesday I took a little break from baking and went to a baking supply store to get the cake boards, boxes, etc, that I would need for the big day.

Then came Thursday. Or as I will refer to it, "the day I almost quit". I baked five.. count them, FIVE CAKES on Thursday. I felt like a prisoner in my own kitchen. I was so stressed, I barely ate anything all day. I was up until 11:00 that night baking, and then I woke up at 7:00 the next morning to bake one last cake.

And then I was done baking! Whew! Here are all of the cakes, wrapped up and sitting on my kitchen table waiting to be assembled into the final wedding cake tiers. 

First came the bottom tier. I had to call a neighbor over for an extra set of hands to help me put one cake on top of the other. I would have asked my hubby but he was cutting the lawn and smelled like grass - figured it wouldn't be a good idea to have him near my cakes in that state. The top layer cracked a little, but nothing that some frosting couldn't fix. I frosted it, then assembled the top tier and frosted that as well. By then it was dinnertime. I took a break to make dinner, and after that my parents came to pick up the kids for the weekend. Then I set to work assembling the middle tier and the kitchen cake. The first tier I put together quickly turned into a possible cake wreck and I ended up calling my friend Ann in a panic - the wedding was tomorrow and my cake was falling apart. After talking me down, we agreed that the best option would be for me to "put that bad boy in the freezer". So I carefully carried it downstairs to where I had propped the freezer door open and slid the box containing the cake inside. The next day it was solid enough that it wouldn't be shifting or wiggling anywhere! Whew! I learned from my mistakes on that one (first one being that the cakes weren't straight on the sides, and the second one being that I over-filled them), and the second one turned out much better. Definitely more worthy of being placed on the wedding cake. And then I rested... or tried to.
Saturday morning, I woke up, slightly groggy, but ready to put everything together. It was the big day - in a matter of hours, my job would be complete! First, I took out the iced tiers. I had smoothed them the day before. Here is the top tier, ready to decorate.

I decorated that and the batteries in my camera went dead. While hubby was getting new ones, I finished it and got started on the second tier. Here it is with just the ribbon, and lines scored on the sides with a toothpick so I'd know where to pipe the silver icing. I put waxed paper behind the ribbon (attached with double-stick tape) to prevent the fat in the icing from bleeding through.

And here is the middle tier with the silver icing lines and hearts piped on.

I did the same with the bottom tier, then piped a white bead border around the bottom edge since it was already on the cake board. I couldn't do that with the other two layers yet because it would have fallen off when the tiers were stacked at the reception. So in the boxes they all went, then in the car, packed in nice and tight so they wouldn't move or shift. A few prayers to St. Christopher and we were on our way. We had a close call with a traffic jam, but everything worked out and the cakes made it safely to the destination. After bringing them inside, I got to work.
First came the middle tier. This is the one I was the most worried about. It was so big... and so heavy.

 I used a wide spatula to lift the cake off the board in the box (it was already on a board the same size as the cake), and we both carefully lifted it and placed it on the bottom tier. I used the spatula to move it until it was centered - it wasn't perfect, but I thought it was good enough, and no smudges! Then I used my trusty hammer to tap a sharpened dowel into the middle of the two bottom tiers to keep them from shifting when the cake was moved.

Finally, I put the top tier on (much easier - I did this one myself!)

Then I piped the border on the top two tiers (which in addition to completing the look of the cake, also hid the cake boards very well!).

After piping the border, I put the cake topper on, added some silk flowers, cleaned up my mess changed into something more appropriate for a wedding reception, and viola!

Here are close-ups of the entire cake and the top tier.

 Now, normally when I make a cake, I deliver it and then I leave. There have been a few occasions for which I have made a cake for an event that I have attended. But then, every time I've brought a cake to an event that I have been invited to, I've ended up cutting the cake, or seeing it get cut. This time was different. After the bride and groom cut their pieces to feed each other, I sat and watched (holding my breath) while the cake was lifted off the table, placed on a cart and then quickly wheeled into the kitchen. I tried to get a picture of it being wheeled away but it was too late.
My cake... my magnum opus... was gone. Off to the kitchen to be cut into 150 thin little pieces.
I almost cried.
Then, 2 hours later, when dinner was done, I was reminded of why I bake cakes. Not just so people can look at them and ooh and ahh about how gorgeous they are. Cake is meant to be eaten. And there, laid out on the buffet table, was my cake.

After all was said and done, there were only a little over a dozen pieces of cake left. And from what I hear, it tasted pretty good the next day too :)
So there you have it, the story of my greatest confectionery work to date. Was it stressful? Yes. But in the end, seeing how happy it made everyone, it was all worth it.
To close, I want to thank a bunch of people, without whom none of this would have been possible. My grandmother - for giving me her cake decorating me supplies and sending me on this journey of cake decorating.
My mom - for encouraging me when I started to doubt myself, and also to her and my dad for picking up the kids so I could finish the cake in peace on Friday night and Saturday morning. No way I could have finished it otherwise.
To my nephew and his new wife - for trusting me with this task, knowing that I had never made a wedding cake before. It means a lot that you had that much faith in me.
And lastly, but not leastly, to my friend Ann - without her none of this would have been possible. She was the one who told me the day I took the Wilton Tiered Cakes class that I should do wedding cakes, thus planting the seed for what was to come. And through all of the stressful times she was right there with helpful advice and a ready ear.
And of course much praise to God for giving me this talent and watching over me every step of the way. :)

Whimsyshire!

First, some backstory. I got this order from my friend Sara. She is the one who gave me my first ever cake order a little over a year ago so when she asked for another cake, this time for her hubby, I was happy to say yes. Then came the design. She mentioned a game called Diablo 3 and a special level called Whimsyshire with unicorns and teddy bears and rainbows and pretty pink flowers. She even sent me a picture.

Now hearing the name "Diablo 3", the first thing I thought of wasn't exactly happy unicorns and smiling clouds. Then she told me that no.. it is not a happy game. These characters are from Whimsyshire, a secret level of this game. The game itself is very dark. In fact, she sent me a link with a video of game footage. Feel free to google it yourself if you want. The gist of this game is that once in this happy place, the object is to kill as many unicorns and teddy bears as possible. Yeah... pretty gruesome.
Well, good thing she wanted me to make this a bright happy cake. I did make a few changes though - I omitted the purple unicorn and replaced it with a teddy bear. A pink, decapitated teddy bear. I giggled a bit as I was putting it together, and in doing so I was able to add another talent to my cake decorating repertoire - painting! Basically used gel colors with almond extract to give the picture the shading it needed. The colors aren't exactly the same, but it's pretty close

And here is a full view of the cake - I had meant to do rainbows on the sides of the cake between the flowers, but by the time I got the flowers on, it was almost midnight and I was having a hard time keeping my eyes open. I figured that wasn't exactly a good time to be using an exacto knife.
The cake itself is dark chocolate with chocolate ganache filling. Had to get the dark theme in there somewhere :)

For my little slugger!

My son Lucas started playing T-ball with the local little league organization this year. When I got the schedule, I saw that his last game was scheduled for the day after his birthday. Perfect opportunity to have a built-in theme for his birthday celebration. It didn't take much for me to convince him to have a baseball birthday cake, but he had one more request - it had to have an airplane too. It didn't take long for me to figure it out. I found a die-cast airplane that came with its very own stand and put that on the cake. If you use your imagination (which for my son was very easy!), it looks like the plane is doing a fly-by past the baseball diamond! The cake itself, per his request, is chocolate cake with chocolate frosting (no filling here) and lots and lots of green grass, crushed graham crackers for the infield, and fondant bases

Happy 7th Birthday to my little slugger - congrats on a great year!

For one of Milwaukee's finest!

A couple of months ago, when my friend Diana had told me her son's birthday was coming up, I hinted that I was available to make a cake for him. She was more than happy to have me make his birthday cake, but then her boyfriend Joey, surprised her and bought a cake for him instead. And again, a couple weeks later, I had another chance to make a cake for her and her boyfriend bought one instead. Really great guy - buying all these cakes for her kids, one of which wasn't even his own child. Well, two weeks after the 2nd birthday I was talking to her again and she said that her boyfriend's birthday was coming up and she definitely wanted me to make a cake for him. She has made cakes before, but wanted this one to be extra special because of everything he had done for her in the past year. After looking online, she sent me a picture of a police car cake - really cute and looked pretty easy. Joey is a police officer with the Milwaukee Police Department, so a police car cake is very fitting for him. Well, the picture she showed me used a special 3D cake pan. I could not find said cake pan, so I decided to improvise. She wanted yellow cake with chocolate buttercream filling, so I made an 8 inch square cake, cut and stacked it to look as close to the shape of a car as I could. A bit disproportionate, but still pretty close.

Then, using the picture Diana sent me, I filled in the rest, and used Oreo cookies for the wheels (very popular with her younger kids!)

And a shot of it driving away to its destination...

Hope you liked your cake as much as I liked making it - and thanks for keeping us all safe!

Cinderella - and cake pops!

A few weeks ago, I got my first referral customer! My friend Ann, who taught me everything I know about cake decorating, is currently on maternity leave, had referred a client to me! Her name is Daniella and she wanted a Cinderella cake like the one that I made for Cecilia, along with cake pops decorated to look like pumpkins, all for her daughter Lauren's birthday. I decided to decorate the Cinderella cake with fondant, since I remembered how difficult it was to use buttercream. Little did I know that the day I decorated the cake, the temperature outside was in the mid-70's, and because of my oven being on, the temp in the house wasn't that much cooler. Yikes! I ended up having to do a bit of patch work and was a little disappointed that the cake wasn't as perfect as I wanted it to be. But it still looked pretty good!

Next up was the cake balls. I decided that cake pops would be really cute, and I bought a styrofoam ball that I decorated to look like Cinderella's carriage. This was my first time making them, so I did a ton of research. I went to the Bakerella website, my friend Ann's blog, and asked a few other friends as well. I mean, I know the basic idea is pretty easy - make a cake, break it into crumbs, add frosting, roll into balls, dip in chocolate, and viola! But still... I wanted to make sure I didn't mess them up. After I felt confident enough, I got started - and everything was going smoothly until I started dipping the pops in the chocolate. They started falling off the sticks! Maybe it was because I had scored the sides of the balls to make them look like pumpkins, but anyhow, I ended up having to spoon the melted chocolate over them and they didn't look exactly like I wanted them to, but close enough.

 I then decorated each with fondant stems and leaves before the chocolate set. Then I wrapped them, tied them off with ribbon and stuck them in the styrofoam pumpkin, just to see how it would look - very cute if I do say to myself!

And here is Cinderella with her "coach"

I took the cake pops out of the pumpkin (couldn't deliver them that way without worrying about the whole thing falling over!) and put them in a nice little box.

Hope you had a wonderful birthday, Lauren, and that you loved your Cinderella cake and pumpkin cake pops as much as I loved making them!