Stroller Cake

It is a busy cake week for me!!! I have 4 cakes in all this week and 2 of them are stroller cakes. This is the first of the stroller cakes. I will post pictures of the other cakes as I get them finished.

5th Wedding Anniversary

This weekend I made an anniversary cake for Scott's sweet aunt, Mamie. She and her husband, Randy, have been married for 5 years this week, so we had a little celebration for them. I wanted to do an all white (or pearl) cake for her. I decided to do the inside red-velvet and cover it with marshmallow fondant, which I dusted with a shimmer dust. It was a nice combination - they tasted great together. I made a white chocolate "B" for the topper (their last name begins with a "B"). Happy Anniversary, Mamie and Randy!

On a different note, I used my beautiful, new stand mixer for this cake and it was amazing how simple it made everything! That thing made fondant like it was no big deal! Everything was so easy to do and it really cut down on the amount of time it took me to actually make the cake and icing. What a great purchase that was!!! Just in case you are interested... I have narrowed the name choices down to Scarlett (suggested by Kelsey) and Esmerelda (suggested by Mary Margaret). I think that I need to get to know her a little better before I decide on one, but I am leaning towards Esmerelda. Then I can call her Esme when I am particularly fond of her, and any of your Twilight fans out there will appreciate that reference!!

New Toy

A new toy was delivered to my house today! I am so excited about this new toy because it is going to make my cakes so much easier! Up until this point, I have always used a hand mixer to make all of my cakes and icings. At the suggestion of my sweet, thoughtful husband I decided to use some of my cake money to buy a stand mixer. I got an empire red kitchen-aid artisan series stand mixer, and I cannot wait to see this thing in action. As soon as Taelyn goes to bed tonight I am going to make a batch of fondant to try her out. May as well start her out with something heavy-duty and see how she handles it!

Now for the important details. She needs a name. A highly suitable name that says just what a strong, yet beautiful woman (er, mixer), she really is. I take this seriously!! Please comment to leave your name suggestions!!

And... if anyone is interested - the beautiful silhouette lady carrying the massive cake in the header of my blog - her name is Charlotte. A lot of thought went into this. I think it fits her... do you?

Plain Ole' Chocolate Cake

My Sunday school class had a baby shower this weekend for two very sweet girls and, as the title implies, I decided for this one to make a plain ole' chocolate cake. Part of the decision stems from a very busy week and not much time left for cake making - VBS every morning with some adorable 2 year olds, a night of eating and painting with Theresa Friday night and the fabulous opening ceremony of the USA International Ballet  Competition on Saturday night. Yes, my husband was wonderful enough to watch Taelyn for these weekend events! He's a keeper!!!

That being said, chocolate cake it was. And I took the opportunity to try out some new recipes. I tried a new buttercream recipe, which I liked, but not as much as my regular. Because of this, I ended up embellishing the plain buttercream for the cake filling and turned it into white chocolate, chocolate chip buttercream.

The outside of the cake I covered with a chocolate ganache mix. Then I topped it all off with broken pieces of chocolate. It was very rich... great for the chocolate lover, which I'm not! Here are some terrible pictures. I forgot to take pictures before we cut it, so these were taken with my phone after the shower was over.

Welcome, Baby Lucy!

My best friend in this world, Haylie Mulliniks, is having a baby girl next month, and I think I am almost as excited as when I had Taelyn! Sweet Lucy Caroline is truly a blessing from God and maybe one day I'll get around to posting Haylie's amazing story! This past weekend we all loaded up and headed to Olive Branch for a shower for Haylie, Nick and Lucy. I made the cake for the shower and this was an interesting task, for one, because I had to make it in Haylie's kitchen instead of my own kitchen with all of my "cake supplies" on hand!

Secondly, this was an "interesting" task because my friend, Haylie, is "particular" - not to be confused with "difficult," because I would never call her difficult (at least not on my blog that she reads!!!). You see, Haylie is in that small percentage of people that does not really like cake. Even at her wedding she nibbled at the cake and didn't touch any of the icing. She also won't hardly touch a hamburger, and she orders BLT's without the L's and the T's (She is going to disagree with this, but it's true!). So I called her before the shower and asked what it would take for her to actually eat some of the cake that was being made for her shower. She said that she likes cream cheese icing as long as it is not too sweet. So that was my task for this shower, not-too-sweet-cream-cheese icing that you can use to decorate a cake with.

The cake turned out delicious and everyone loved the not-too-sweet-cream cheese icing (especially Haylie), but it was a huge mess as far as decorating goes. The icing was sticky and wouldn't get smooth, and the fondant accents were soaking in moisture from the icing, leaving the cake looking wet (Haylie said it looked "glazed!"). I kept shooting Haylie looks every time someone would comment on how "great" the cake looked. I did like the chocolate plaque that I used as a topper though. I copied the exact stroller from the invitation and it turned out cute!

After the shower I told Haylie that was the last time that I tried to cater to her tastes! Of course I am completely kidding - I'll make her a plain bacon sandwich anytime she wants one!! And the next time we are throwing some sort of party for Haylie, she will get her very own miniature cake with not-too-sweet-cream cheese icing and everyone else will get a beautifully decorated buttercream covered cake!