Lucas's First Communion

I can hardly believe how quickly the years have gone by. It seems like just yesterday I was celebrating my son's baptism, and here he is, 7 years old and receiving his First Communion. I was so proud of him - he's been working so hard to be good in church, even when the mass was longer than he thought it would be. He was even chosen to read one of the petitions at mass, and read it perfectly . After everything he has done, I knew I had to make an extra special cake for his extra special day .

One of the things he did for his First Communion was to make a banner. I made one for my First communion as well, so it was fun helping Lucas make his. Cecilia actually played a role in the design. After I helped him draw a picture of what he wanted the banner to look like, Cecilia asked if she could color the picture while we cut out the pieces of felt. I told her, "sure, go for it!". When she got to the cross, she asked if she could make it colorful, after which Lucas said, "I want my cross to be colorful too!". I asked him how he wanted to do that, and after thinking a little bit, we decided to make a stained glass cross by gluing scraps of different colors to the black cross we had cut out. It was beautiful. Here Lucas is on his First Communion Day with his banner.

When it came time to make the cake - I decided to base it on that stained glass cross. The cake itself is chocolate and yellow with raspberry filling (just like the one I made a few weeks ago!), and the stained glass effect was acheived using black icing for the borders and tinted piping gel for the glass. The circle in the middle is fondant with the message written in black icing.

But I didn't stop there - nope, not this proud momma. I had some leftover frosting, so I put it to use making a special breakfast for my little man. Whole wheat pancakes with white frosting crosses, strawberries and grape juice!

Happy First Communion Lucas! We are all so proud of you!

Emma's First Communion

Ah - spring is in the air. The flowers are blooming, grass is getting greener, trees are budding, and it's time for that wonderful sacament - First Communion! My son Lucas is receiving his First Communion in May - I still can't believe it's almost here!

A few weeks ago, someone called to order a cake from me for her daughter, Emma's First Communion. I was beyond excited for this. Don't get me wrong - I'm excited about making my son's cake too, but boys don't really like flowers, and I just love making cakes with flowers on them. Right away we decided on the size and shape of the cake - it would be a cross cake, for which I had purchased a special cross-shaped pan. I don't normally buy shaped pans, but I figured I'd get plenty of use out of this one. It's a two-layer cake with chocolate on the bottom and yellow cake on the top, with raspberry jam filling. For the bottom layer, I used the cross pan, but cut off the beveled part to make it more stackable (and gave the scraps to the kids with some ice cream that night). I did need a little bit of help with stacking, and got it from my friend Ann who suggested putting the top layer in the freezer to make it easier to handle. Otherwise it would have fallen apart. Thanks Ann!

The decorations on top were my favorite - the bow is made out of gum paste and the roses and rosebuds are royal icing. I had actually made the roses last year, but thanks to the fact that royal icing dries hard and lasts forever, they were as beautiful as the day I made them. Only problem was that they were a bit large and kind of clunky looking. I love making roses, but for some reason that last row of petals always looks a bit off. I had an extra rose, so I decided, what the heck, let's cut off the outer row of petals and see what it looks like. It was gorgeous! So I did the same with three more, positioned them around the bow with the rosebuds, and voila! A beautiful cake topper for a beautiful little girl!

Here are some pictures of the entire cake

Blessings to Emma and thanks to her mom, Kim, for letting me make the cake for this special event!