Sophie's Birthday

My favorite niece, Sophie, had her third birthday this weekend. My sister-in-law said that the only thing that mattered about the cake was that it was hot pink! So, hot pink it was! I did a round french vanilla cake covered in HOT PINK buttercream with white marshmallow fondant accents. Happy Birthday, Soapy (as my daughter calls her!!). I love you!

Canton Academy High School Reunion

The Canton Academy classes of 1992 and 1993 had a high school reunion this weekend and I was able to do a fun cake for them. We (the host of the party and I) decided to do a cake that looked like a yearbook, but put items on it that represented the school. This included their mascot, paw prints, etc. The cake was french vanilla covered in buttercream.

We represent... the lollipop guild!

That is the song that I was singing all night while I worked on this cake! A sweet one-year-old was having a lollipop themed party for her first birthday. The main cake was a two-tiered cake covered in lollipops and other fun accents. The bottom tier was chocolate fudge and the top tier was strawberry. The icing was buttercream. The lollipops, curly-cues and polka dots were all made of marshmallow fondant. These lollipops were so much fun to make. The colors of the fondant matched the colors that were on the invitation. Her smash cake was french vanilla covered in buttercream - made to look like a lollipop.

Fun Cakes!

A friend that I teach with asked me to do two cakes for him this past weekend... one for his son and one for his daughter. I asked what they wanted, because typically I do more complicated cakes, and he said chocolate cake with chocolate icing. Do you want it shaped like anything in particular? No. Do you want anything on it? Not sure. One day last week when his son and daughter were at school I got a chance to find out what they wanted. His little girl drew this cute picture of what she wanted her cake to look like.

His son said he just wanted it to say, "Happy Birthday, Logan" with purple and gold colors. He's an LSU fan, but don't blame him... it's his father's fault.

This is how the cakes turned out!

                             

I was certain that the kids were going to hate the cakes since they seemed so plain to me, but my friend's sweet daughter came to me at school and said that her smiley face cake was the BEST cake she had ever seen. She said that it was even better than the picture she had drawn :). I love kids... it is so easy to make them happy! Happy Birthday, Logan and Liza!

Firetruck Cake

This cake was done last weekend for Parker's third birthday party. I've been a little slow in posting all of my cakes since school has started!! The party was decorated so cute! There were these great fireman hats to wear and the party took a field trip to the local Fire Station! It was really great. The firetruck on this cake was french vanilla covered in fondant. The sheet cake was french vanilla and covered in buttercream. Yes, another black cake. There were little black mouths running all around this party! The accents on the sheet cake were fondant.

Book Cake

I did another retirement cake last weekend for one of the sweetest government teachers EVER!! I am really, really fond of Mrs. Renee and couldn't wait to do a cake for her in order to somewhat thank her for everything that she has done for our family!! The cake pales in comparison to her generosity, but it was a start to show my gratitude!!

This was another book cake since these seem to appeal to me when doing cakes for teachers. Probably because I like to read ... and this one was appropriate because Mrs. Renee and I share books! Since she was a government teacher, I decided that I should drape a flag over the book, in addition to the same classroom items that I put on the last retirement book cake. The cake was french vanilla (seems to be a favorite lately), the icing was buttercream, all of the accessories on the cake were marshmallow fondant.

I put all three pictures up because I wanted you to see all angles of this cake. Not like you care! But I would have been wondering what the other side looked like if it was me viewing these pictures for the first time!

Happy Retirement, Mrs. Renee! Enjoy yourself!
              

Four-Wheeler Cake

Last weekend I did a four-wheeler cake. This cake was so much fun! I really enjoyed it. I made a fondant four-wheeler and then decided to make it look like mud tracks through the middle of the cake. The rest I covered in grass and rocks. It was a real "boy" cake!!! The cake was french vanilla, icing was buttercream, four-wheeler and rocks were made of marshmallow fondant. Oh, and I threw in a little mud... only, kidding!

Minnie Mouse

I had a weekend full of birthdays! In addition to the 2 first birthdays that I posted about earlier, I also had a cake for sweet Sophie's second birthday! Just like all of the other 2 year olds in the world, she loves Minnie Mouse. So her mom and I worked together to come up with this cute design of Minnie.

Her ears were milk chocolate fudge and her face was french vanilla. Her bow and her nose was marshmallow fondant. You can't see this in the picture, but she had a marshmallow fondant edge all the way around her that matched the bow... pink with white polka dots. The rest of her face was covered in buttercream. Don't you just love Minnie Mouse? It was hard to keep myself from talking to her while I was making this cake :)

Slowing Down

During the summer, I got to where I was doing 3 or 4 (5,6...) cakes a week. I loved having the ability to do this while I was off. However, I go back to work again tomorrow, so I am going to slow down my cake making during the school year. Each cake takes time to make and bake, time to make the icing/fondant, and then usually 4+ hours to decorate. This takes a considerable amount of time away from my family, as you can imagine, so I am going to try to limit myself to one cake a week while I am teaching. I have a hard time saying "no," but I am going to try really hard to keep myself in check on this - for my sweet husband and precious daughter. Next May when school lets out I will go back to doing multiple cakes a week for the summer.

I am going to talk to my webmaster, Theresa (hehehe... she is going to loooove that!) about seeing if there is some type of calendar that I can put on the sidebar of my blog that will show what weeks I already have a cake booked. If you know how to do this leave a comment and let me know!! Thanks to all of you for all of the cake business this summer! It was so much fun making so many different types of cakes, and I continue to learn so much with each one! If you would like for me to do a cake for you during the school year, please make sure you talk to me about it in advance so that I can get you booked!

Whooooo's Turning One?!

Bad joke, I know. But I did a couple of very cute first birthday cakes for this weekend! And one of them had an owl theme. It is soooo cute! Sweet Blaise's mom is a graphic designer and made the cutest invitation for his first birthday party. I designed the main cake to match the owl on his invitation. The main cake was milk chocolate fudge covered in buttercream icing. I have attached the invite and the cake below. Let me know what you think!

This was the outfit that Blaise had to wear at his party. I designed his smash cake to match the bib. The smash cake was french vanilla covered in buttercream.

This was another first birthday cake and smash cake that I did this weekend. Both of these cakes were designed to match plates that were being used at the party. Both cakes were french vanilla covered in buttercream. Below are pictures of the plate and the cakes.

Stroller Cake

This has been a popular choice this summer! This stroller cake was dark chocolate fudge with buttercream icing. I used the colors and a little of the design from the invitation (posted below).

I LOVE this cake!!!

I made one of my most favorite cakes ever this week!!! Two of our very best friends, James and Mary Margaret, are missionaries in Zambia, Africa. They have been home for about 7 months, but are heading back to Africa in the next few weeks for another 3 years. These two show more faith than I can wrap my mind around! Mary Margaret has had both of her precious children in Africa and they are faithfully raising them in their home there. Me... I would be a wreck if I couldn't call my pediatrician every other day when I feel like something is not quite right with Taelyn! Anyway, Mary Margaret had a birthday recently, so while all of our best friends were together yesterday I wanted to celebrate her birthday. MM and I share a deep appreciation for the Twilight books, so I immediately knew what kind of cake I wanted to make for her. I have seen some Twilight cakes on the internet so I have been wanting to do one of these for awhile now and her birthday was the perfect excuse to make one!

I wanted to make it look like a book, but wanted a representation of all four covers. And, of course, the inside of the cake had to be red velvet! I love the way this cake turned out and I think MM loved it too! She was really excited!

I put both of these pictures up because I wanted you to be able to see the "pages." Let me know your thoughts of this cake!! 

If you'd like to keep up with what is going on in the world of James and MM once they are back in Africa, I have their blog in my favorites list to the left. 

Cake Catastrophe

I've heard about it. I know it happens to others, but it had never happened to me. Until now! I was completely finished with a cake - had taken finished photos and everything - and I had a cake catastrophe. It all happened very quickly, so quickly that I can't really remember vivid details, but it involved a fondant rolling pin in my hands and a dog under my feet. And the fondant rolling pin piercing the bottom half of the cake. Sigh. Oh, and some tears. And a lot of freaking out.

This is the bachelorette/lingerie party cake that I mentioned in a previous post. Like I said, we had decided to do a Victoria's Secret bag. And like I mentioned previously, this was my fourth cake of the week and I had a lot of packing and cleaning to do before I left on an 8 day vacation the next day. So once I ruined the cake, I knew that I wasn't going to be able to start from scratch because I just didn't have the time. Plus, Kacey, who was attending the lingerie shower and requested the cake, told me at the beginning of the week not to stress out over this cake. I felt like I could do something to salvage the cake and make it semi-cute without having to start all over again. So I chopped off the ruined bottom half and added some fondant "pieces" to the bottom of it. I was hoping to pass it off as tissue paper, but in all honesty it looked very ridiculous. Kacey assured me that it was fine and still looked cute, but I know that she was just being nice. Here are before and after pictures.

Before

After

Then the cake had to travel 6 hours to Destin. It made it in one piece, luckily. Kacey said everyone at the party loved it. Sigh. 

Busy Week!!!

It has been an incredibly busy week for me! But as I am writing this we are in a wonderful condo in Destin, Florida relaxing so I am starting to come down from the whirlwind of it all! I'll tell you briefly about my week (because I know that you don't really care), and then I'll get to the cakes I made this week!

Okay, so in my busy week I made a record number of cakes for one week - four! I've never made this many cakes in such a short time before, but at the very beginning of the week I took some time getting organized and figuring out exactly what needed to be made when. That helped me keep my sanity through it all! So, not only did I make four cakes this week, but I also managed to fit in a pre-beach mani/pedi (thanks to my sweet husband for the mother's day gift certificate to Trio!), I went to see Eclipse (all by myself at 10:15am on Thursday - I already know I'm lame so you don't have to say it!), I packed for an 8 day trip for Taelyn and me (started with this on Thursday night after my last cake was finished and we left today, Friday, at noon. I only packed for Taelyn and me because I let Scott pack for himself - I'm nice like that), and I also managed to clean my house from top to bottom before we left today because let's face it, there isn't much worse than coming home from a long vacation to a messy house. As much as I hated to do it, now when we get home we will have clean sheets, clean floors, laundry is all done and put away (other than the massive loads that we brought with us), and everything is dusted - okay never mind on that one - there will be dust waiting for me on every surface despite the fact that I dusted every inch of the house today, but the others still apply. So... that was a synopsis of my week. Now on to the cakes!

I already posted the first cake that I did this week - the brown and blue paisley stroller cake. I did another stroller cake in addition to that one. It was brown and aqua harlequin pattern, which is how the baby's room is decorated. Nothing gives you a hand workout like piping harlequin pattern, but I think this cake turned out cute. It was dark chocolate fudge with buttercream icing. I realize that in the picture it looks aqua and black, but trust me - it is just a dark brown. The coloring is a result of me taking cake pictures with the camera on my cell phone. Which is a result of me finishing most cakes late at night and being too lazy to get out our good camera.  I hope you like the cake!

The next cake that I did this week was a horse cake for sweet Reagan's birthday party! She wanted a cake that looked like a horse, so that is what she got! I really enjoyed this cake because it was a challenge for me. I love doing cakes that I haven't ever done before! The cake is french vanilla with white chocolate chips covered in buttercream with marshmallow fondant accents. 

The fourth cake that I did this week deserves a post of its own, as I am still recovering from it! I will try to get it up in the next few days. I'll just tell you that it was for a lingerie/bachelorette party. Have you ever googled "bachelorette cakes?" The results aren't pretty! We finally came up with the idea to do a cake shaped like a Victoria's Secret box/bag. The one idea that didn't make me blush with just the thought of cutting a cake shaped like it! Pictures to follow!

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.