Curious Bryson!

A few weeks ago, I received a message from my friend Nicci, asking if I could make a cake for her son Bryson's birthday. I made his cake last year - my first vegan cake, decorated with the face of Mickey Mouse. She wanted another cake, same dietary needs (except this time there was no soy allergy like last year), and this time she wanted Curious George and balloons, since we all know how much Curious George loves balloons. I love that cute little monkey! And I had so much fun decorating this cake. My daughter watched me make the decorations and at one point she said, "mommy, is that playdoh?" She was referring to the fondant that I use, and I said, "yes, it's like playdoh you can eat. And that's what makes decorating cakes so much fun!"

The cake is a delicious chocolate (you'd never know it was vegan!), and it is frosted and filled with a dairy-free vanilla buttercream, decorated with fondant and gum paste accents.

Hope you enjoyed your cake, Curious Bryson, and I hope you had a wonderful birthday!

A special cake for an amazing lady

Several months ago, while talking to my friend Jennie, she told me that she might be seeing more of me in May and June. Her mother has been affected by tremors for years and they had been getting to the point where she needed help to be able to function. She could barely hold a glass of water without her hands shaking. She soon discovered that Froedert hospital here in Milwaukee had one of the best neurosurgery teams in the state and went through an initial consultation. She was accepted as a candidate and the appointments were set for her pre-op appointment and the two surgeries required for her procedure. Both surgeries were scary for Jennie and her parents. After all - it's brain surgery. But she made it through both with flying colors. What an amazing woman. And my friend, being the awesome person she is, shaved her own head when her mother had to have hers shaved for the surgery.

Anyhow, the day of Jennie's mom's second surgery happened to be the same day as her birthday. When Jennie told me that after the first surgery, I said right away that I was going to make a cake for her mom. She may have been in the hospital, but dang it she was going to have her cake and eat it too! I asked Jennie what her mom's favorite color and cake flavor were, and she said yellow to both, and that yellow roses were her favorite. I didn't have any royal icing roses left and didn't have time to make more, so I did the next best thing - I made yellow roses with buttercream! The cake itself didn't even require any baking on my part. I used three cake layers that I had wrapped up and tossed in the freezer a couple of months ago. They were still just as moist as the day I had made them. The outside of the cake is vanilla buttercream and the layers are filled with the same.

Jennie's mom didn't know that a cake was on its way, so when I walked through the door to their hotel room, said, "I hear it's someone's birthday today" and presented the cake, she was so happy I almost started crying. I honestly have so much appreciation for everything she has gone through and her strength through all of it!

Happy Birthday Mrs. Silver. And many, many more!

Cupcakes fit for a princess!

I know I've said it before, but I just love repeat customers. They remind me, in the midst of my doubts, that I must be doing something right because they keep coming back! In this case, it's my friend Rachel. Last year she ordered a La La Loopsy cake for her daughter Luci's birthday. I made a strawberry cake and although she only asked for enough cake to feed the children at her party, she said that the adults ended up wanting some too. She even said that they were happy to have the tiniest sliver, just so they could have some of that cake!

This year, she asked for the same cake, but in cupcake form. Decorations were up to me, but she wanted the colors pink and purple. I had some princess cupcake liners and picks that I had purchased a few years ago, so I used those. I whipped it up, put them in the oven, but when I took them out, something happened that reminded me of a previous experience. The cupcakes... sank. They were completely cooked, but it was because of the moistness of the cake that they did this. Didn't change the taste of the cake, but being a perfectionist, I wanted to make this right. I gave Rachel two options - I could put more frosting on top, or fill the cupcakes in addition to frosting them. I suggested lemon buttercream, which would make the cupcakes taste like strawberry lemonade. She was sold! (I even tasted the combo with an extra small layer I made with extra batter from the cake recipe and it was delicious!

Here they are!

There were only 23 picks in the package, but I figured, this way the 24th cupcake would be perfect to put a candle in for the birthday girl!

Happy Birthday Luci!

A Frozen Cake (that's not really frozen)

I can't believe my daughter Cecilia is 6 years old. Seems like just yesterday I was celebrating her 1st birthday. When I started planning the design for her cake at the beginning of December, she initially wanted a Sophia the First cake. I even drew the basic shape of a round cake and she drew what she wanted the decorations to look like, complete with a Sophia doll on top. I even bought purple candy melts for the cake pops she'd be bringing to school. And then we saw the movie Frozen. She loved it. So after more thought, she decided she wanted a Frozen cake instead. She helped draw the picture for that one as well (but she spilled hot chocolate on it so I couldn't take a picture to post here). It was kind of funny - when I told people that we were having a Frozen cake, they immediately thought ice cream. But it's not. It's a regular, baked cake. In fact, the flavor of the cake and filling is a stark contrast to the wintery design on the outside. Lemon cake with strawberry buttercream filling. Which is fitting considering that in the movie Frozen, Elsa the snow queen puts the kingdom in a deep freeze in the middle of summer.

Here's the cake - the Anna doll (the one with red hair) she got for her birthday from my sister, and the Elsa doll I bought her. I wanted to get an Olaf figure as well (he's the snowman in the movie - and in my opinion the best character, hands down), but every store was out of them. I added a little sprinkling of silver luster dust to the top of the cake to give it that more magical look.

For her birthday treat at school (which she handed out before winter break), I made cake pops with white cake, a bit of vanilla frosting tinted blue, covered them with white chocolate and decorated with special snowflake sprinkles.

Happy Birthday Cecilia!

C is for Cookie, and Z is for Zarek!

It's so much fun getting cake orders for birthdays. This time last year I was making my first topsy-turvy cake for a little guy named Zarek, and this year I was asked to make a cake for his 2nd birthday. I can't believe he is 2 already. Where has the time gone?

This cake was considerably smaller and less complicated than the cake I made a year ago, but just as fun. It stars one of Zarek's favorite characters - Cookie Monster! I have to admit, I'm a fan of that silly blue cookie lover myself.

When Ratna, Zarek's mother, asked me to make the cake, I immediately thought of making a cake recipe that my friend Ann uses - chocolate flecked cake. It looks like a chocolate chip cookie when you cut into it and I thought that would be perfect for a cake featuring cookie monster. Then I looked up the recipe and calculated the cost - as wonderful as the cake sounds, it is a lot more expensive than most of the cakes I have made. Probably because it's a Martha Stewart recipe. Dang that Martha Stewart and her expensive tastes! Well, since Ratna had just ordered Bollywood cupcakes from me and wasn't ready to spend the amount of money that the chocolate flecked cake would cost, we went with a chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream filling. And then, an added twist - in the past year Zarek has developed an egg allergy, so Ratna was requesting a small egg-free smash cake just for the birthday boy. Having just made a vegan cake two weeks ago, I was all ready to take on this extra request.

Here are the cakes - I had so much fun decorating them, because they use my favorite tip.The smash cake was especially fun. If I'd had enough icing, I would have done the same with the big cake, but my 5 year old daughter insisted that the cake would look much better with smooth sides. So I added some "fur" at the base and stuck some cookie crumbs in the front. Very cute!

Happy Birthday Zarek!

Carnations for Stephanie's mom

The beginning of this story goes back... way back. Earlier this year, I joined a book club. The books we have read have been very interesting, many of which are ones I never would have chosen myself but ended up loving. One of our most recent meetings was for the book "The Jefferson Key", and a big part of that book is pirates. Being the cake decorator I am, I made cupcakes - I used a box mix to which I added rum extract and then, I made this amazing spiced rum frosting. No recipe. I just made my usual buttercream and added rum extract, orange zest, baking spice and a touch of allspice. I baked the cupcakes in special pirate liners and put little flags on them.

Stephanie, one of the members of the book club, just fell in love with my spiced rum frosting. In fact, as we were leaving the meeting, she asked me if I could make a birthday cake for her mom at the end of September. She wasn't sure of the decorations yet, but all she knew was that she had to have more of that wonderful spiced rum frosting.

A few weeks later, we touched base again and she told me that she really liked the cake I made with the pink carnations and ribbon curls on it and wanted something similar, but without fondant - just lots of frosting.

I was beyond excited. The last time I made gum paste carnations was two years ago when I made them for my final cake decorating class. They were so much fun to make, but in the past two years, I haven't had any requests for that specific kind of flower. Until now. With this being a 6 inch cake, I made only three flowers, and dusted them with purple luster dust since purple is Stephanie's mom's favorite color. I even brushed the ribbon curls with it too, to give them a bit more sparkle.

And since Stephanie loves the frosting so much, I decided to cut each of my two layers in half to give her four layers of yellow cake and three layers of the yummy spiced rum frosting that she loves so much.

Happy Birthday Stephanie's mom! I hope you loved the frosting as much as your daughter does!

It's Mickey! (and he's vegan!)

Actually, Mickey Mouse probably isn't vegan. After all, he is a mouse. Mice eat cheese. But that's beside the point. My point is... that this was my very first vegan cake!

It all started a few weeks ago when I was visiting with some friends from out of town and got a message on my phone from my facebook page from a lady named Nicci. I was very excited - I hadn't had a cake order in two months and was itching to get back to decorating cakes again. And then came the actual message. The person who wanted to order a cake from me had several requests - the cake had to be egg-free, dairy-free, nut-free, soy-free and corn-free. Yikes! I almost sent this potential client to a gluten-free bakery (and I later discovered that among all of the birthday boy's allergies, gluten was not one of them), but I decided to give it a try. I asked my friend Ann if she knew of any good recipes that would work and she sent me one for Wacky Cake. I discovered that not only has this recipe been around for decades, but it is completely vegan. No eggs. No dairy. I did a test run and my kids and husband loved it. I even gave a piece to my mom when she came over one day and she didn't believe that it was vegan. I was set with the cake then, but still unsure of the frosting. After all - powdered sugar has cornstarch in it. Kind of hard to make frosting without it. I sent a message to Nicci telling her about my dilemna. She then informed me that her son's corn allergy was very mild so he should be okay to eat the frosting. Yay!

So, I made the two cake layers, got ready to make the frosting and something made me look at the  ingredients on the container of shortening. I almost fainted. Right there, ingredient number one - soybean oil. I went to the store to see if they had a soy-free shortening alternative (aside from lard - and really, who wants frosting made with lard? yuck!) and there was none. It was the day that Nicci's husband was supposed to pick up the cake and I just about had a nervous breakdown. I sent a message with many apologies, asking if perhaps her son's soy allergy was mild like the corn one. I then started looking for soy-free shortening online and found one - but just as I was about to call Whole Foods to see if they sold it, I got a message back from Nicci - the shortening would be fine, they could just scrape it off their son's piece of cake. Double yay!!

I got to work decorating the cake, and in the end was very pleased. The design is modeled after the party decorations with everything in fondant except for mickey's face, which is a fondant-gum paste mix. The cake itself is vegan chocolate, with vanilla buttercream filling and frosting.

I felt bad that the birthday boy couldn't have any of that yummy frosting, but I figure, with all of his food allergies, at least he gets cake!

Happy Birthday Bryson and I hope you had a wonderful day. (and next year, I'll make a cake with frosting you can eat - I promise! :) )

Princess T-Rex!

I've done some pretty interesting cakes in the past two years (yep! two years!) but I have to say that this one is one of the funnest cakes I've ever made. It all started when I saw a new friend of mine, Meghann, post on facebook about planning her daughter Mollie's upcoming first birthday. Being the savvy businesswoman I am, I sent her a message asking if she needed a cake. Why yes she did! Upon asking what her theme was, she replied, "Princess Trex". At first I thought it was some new kids toy... and then I realized, this was T-rex. The mean, carnivorous, vicious dinosaur. I did a google search of images and didn't come up with much, but then I saw a link in a regular search for Princess T-Rex puzzle and clicked on it. I showed it to Meghann and she loved it! Here it is:
 
I was going to get a different template for the dinosaur, but the more I thought about it, the original design was just more fun. And it worked so well with the final cake, it's like it was meant to be.
Here it is: two layer cake with chocolate on the bottom, yellow on the top and creamy chocolate buttercream in the middle. Buttercream on the outside with fondant and gum paste decorations.

But something was missing. And the more I looked at that dinosaur, the more I realized what it was. The way she was standing on one foot, she almost looked like she was . . . dancing! I found a piece of lavender tulle in my sewing basket from a tutu I made for my niece last year, got my trusty needle and thread, and made a tutu for the dinosaur. And here is the final result.

Pretty cute, huh? And of course you can't have a first birthday without a special little smash cake for the birthday girl! Same flavors of cake and filling, in a smaller package. I even put diamonds on the side to tie in to the "regal" feel of the main cake.

As a side note, I want to throw out a shout-out to Meghann's sister Beth, and her business Lylas Designs. She had posted a picture of an adorable sunflower pin shortly before Meghann placed the order, and I ordered one for myself to put on my purse. When I dropped off the cake and asked how much her sister wanted for the pin, she said it was taken care of. An extra little bonus for making such a wonderful cake! And here it is on my purse.

Happy Birthday Mollie, aka. Princess T-Rex! Hope you're birthday was amazing!

Happy Birthday to Owen!

Just a few months ago, I made a cake for my friend and co-worker Winston for a baby welcoming party for his son Owen. He's brought pictures to work, and his son is just adorable. Well, I can hardly believe it, but the little guy is a year old. How time flies!

A few weeks ago when I was at work, Winston came up to me and asked me if I could make a cake for his son's birthday. He wanted something similar to the last cake I made, but this time with different colors - yellow, orange and red. Turned out Owen's birthday outfit was going to be yellow, so I focused on yellow for the main color. And instead of doing plain stripes, I did zigzag lines on the sides of the cake and stars on top. And of course, no first birthday is complete without a smash cake for the birthday baby!

The cake itself is yellow cake with chocolate buttercream frosting and filling, both for the main and smash cakes. All decorations are made with fondant and the letters are a fondant-gum paste mix.

Happy Birthday Owen! I hope you had a wonderful day!

Star Wars, and Legos!

I love repeat customers. They are proof that I must be doing something right! This time, my friend Ratna, for whom I made the topsy-turvy lion cake, wanted a cake for her nephew's birthday. He was coming to Wisconsin from California with his family, and Ratna wanted to surprise him. I'm so glad I was part of the surprise!

The first thing Ratna told me is that her nephew loved Star Wars. Well, that opened up a whole world of possibilites. Classic Star Wars, Angry Birds Star Wars, Lego Star Wars.... and then there were all the characters! She told me that he loved Lego Star Wars, and after poring over some ideas, we found one that would work well. I would put some figurines on top of the cake, and decorate around them with fondant accents. I was going to get some star wars lego figurines, but they were a bit out of Ratna's price range, and she didn't know which ones he already had, so we went with a couple playskool star wars figurines. They are a bit young for the birthday boy, who is 9 years old, but perhaps he can pass them down to a little brother. The best part - the figures are posable, so when I couldn't shut the lid to the cake box, I just bent Darth Vader and the Storm Trooper over at their waists and down went the lid. It looked really funny, these two figures crouched over under neath the cake box lid. I would have taken a picture too, if the batteries on my camera hadn't died.

The cake itself is chocolate with oreo buttercream filling. I made the same combo for Ratna's son and she loved it so much she had to have it again. Then I added a fondant star wars logo with the birthday boy's name on top, with some fondant lightsabers and stars, fondant legos around the base of the cake, and a message on the cake board using  a lego font I found online. So it might not be Lego Star Wars, but it is legos and star wars. Very original, very fun! I hope the birthday boy liked it!

Happy Birthday Aazil!

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!

 

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!