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!

A Cake for a Friend

A few weeks ago, I was talking to my friend Jennie, asking her if she was ever going to come to visit me in Milwaukee. She lives three hours away and has been busy looking for a job, and most recently, helping out while her parents' house is under construction. All this while recovering from having major hip surgery after a nasty fall almost two years ago. After telling her that Lucas had a week off of school for spring break, and that Brian was taking that week off of work, she said that sounded good and she'd be coming to visit on Thursday and staying through the whole weekend. Needless to say, I was thrilled about having one of my best friends coming to visit me (and my kids were even more excited about getting to see Miss Jennie again), so I began planning. I had some activities planned, as well as the menu of all of the yummy meals I was going to prepare while she was here. Then, I posted pictures of my Easter cake and she made a comment about how I needed some cake testers - you know, for quality control purposes. Well, after seeing that, and knowing everything that she has gone through in the past two years, I just had to make a cake for her. Something simple, but heartfelt and as beautiful as she is.

The cake itself is yellow cake with chocolate buttercream frosting and filling, decorated with some of the royal icing roses that I had made a week before (and was able to use up some of the blue flowers that I had made last year, since blue is her favorite color and all.)

It was great to see you, Jennie, and I look forward to seeing you again soon :)