Wayne's 12th Birthday

Today is one of our friend's birthdays, so we gave him the gift of cake! Yum! Wayne is a neighbor friend of ours who is often here playing with my boys. All I could get out of him for favorite cake flavors and colors was "CHOCOLATE!" So... here it is! The only design element he suggested was "Silly bands." Late last night I decided that wasn't going to happen and I created the stars instead. Had I only woken my almost 7 year old... he had the great idea (this morning after I showed him what I did make...) of using his silly bands to imprint various shapes and then piping them in with frosting. Leave it to the 7 year old to come up with a great idea! Argh.... .next time I get the request, I will do it. In any event, Wayne's parents were very happy with the cake when we dropped it off this morning. The birthday boy was still asleep in bed! I am sure we will hear about it and maybe even eat some with him later... Happy Birthday Wayne!

The cake is a new chocolate cake recipe I tested, based off of an America's Test Kitchen cupcake recipe. It has coffee and cinnamon in it along with Dutched cocoa powder and unsweetened chocolate to really boost the flavor. It does taste a little different from my basic chocolate recipe, and for cupcakes I really liked the texture -- not sticky and had good loft. The cake is covered in chocolate butter cream frosting and the stars and balls and birthday banner are all fondant or fondant-gumpaste mixtures. 

Pirates Ahoy!

I had a call for pirate cupcakes for a 4th birthday party --- the younger brother to a school mate of my eldest son. I suggested a Jolly Roger cake like one I had done for a dear friend in Montreal (sorry - no digital photos of that one), and I figured it would transfer pretty easily to cupcakes. The issue was with black. Mom and birthday boy preferred chocolate on chocolate, so I had to incorporate black into at least half of the design. So, I went with the entire Jolly Roger flag instead of just the skull and crossbones, leaving a ragged and wavy appearance all around the flag edges to make it feel more tattered, like a well worn Jolly Roger! You can see from the side view that half the cupcakes were indeed chocolate and the rest were yellow cake. Everything was then covered in chocolate butter cream frosting, and I piped the white skull and crossbones design on and smoothed the icing down with a wet spoon.

Hope they all enjoyed it!

Emily's Graduation!

So, I haven't posted anything for a while. I've done some cakes and cupcakes since my last entry, but due to camera breakage, a two week vacation to my sister's, post vacation recouping, and summer vacation acclimation.... I have been lazy.

We went out to California for my incredible niece Emily's High School graduation. Where have 18 years gone?! We talked for a couple of months about me doing a mad hatter style cake for the event, with as much as I could cram on to it that represented who Emily was, is and will be. Not a small task when you look at how incredibly active she is and the number of teams and organizations she has been a part of! The biggest hurdle for me with this cake --- other than the fact that

1. we were arriving about 36 hours before the party so all the actual baking was left up to my sister and mom (normally I make the cakes with less time, but this was originally going to be a 4-tiered cake and we needed the kitchen oven and space to prepare the rest of the party food)
2. my tools, fondant and food colors had to pass through TSA inspections
3. I broke a toe packing my fondant rolling pin the night before we left for the airport and boy! does that hurt! 

.... apart from all of that, the colors of her High School and her University were totally clashing. Em decided the party theme colors should be entirely different from either school to top it all off; green and purple. So color was my biggest hurdle. Hence, the green and purple cake, with red, blue, black, and gold colors on the structures. Her High School was the Los Banos Tigers (crimson and gold), and she will be attending UC Santa Barbara in the fall (blue and yellow with the Gauchos as the mascot --- you have to look it up if you are clueless like I was!).

All of the structures were fondant-gumpaste combinations; some of the animals were solid fondant. We had both schools represented by their letters and their mascots. The pig represents her many years in FFA (Future Farmers of America) raising and auctioning pigs and I also recreated the FFA emblem by hand-painting it in food coloring. The frog represents her interest in studying amphibians at UCSB. And two of her sports also made it onto the cake... swimming and water polo. Emily is also a very accomplished public speaker, served as student rep on the Board of Educators, and held various officer positions throughout her high school career. None of these things made it onto the cake, more from my exhaustion than for any other reason --- although it is hard to represent those things!

The cakes were baked by my mom and (I think!) my sister. The bottom was carrot cake -- which I have to say was out of this world! The middle was a chocolate cake, and the top was a yellow confetti cake. We decided to not include the fourth layer that I originally planned. I was going to test a new recipe on them, but alas... it will have to wait for another opportunity. Everything was covered in butter cream frosting and then covered in my home-made marshmallow fondant (that my mom help make for the first time --- go mom!).  This cake was truly a family affair! Emily's gorgeous little sister, Elizabeth, and our amazingly talented sister-in-law, Kelly (http://www.florettedesigns.com/), helped make and paint the silver fondant balls around the second tier. Elizabeth also colored most of the fondant for me and I think she probably did more that I am forgetting by now! Mom or my sister made the frosting - possibly both of them. It's all a blur! So, in the end, it all came together and was actually almost all consumed by the end of the party. We had a perfect amount of carrot cake left over for us to savor the next day.

It was an awesome trip. I can't believe Em is on her way to UCSB at the end of the month. I'm crying for my sister! Makes me think of Toy Story III -- bring Kleenex!

UNCW 2010 Graduation

Graduation season is upon us and here is the first cake I did in celebration of a recent UNCW Psych grad, who is on her way to graduate school after the celebrations (and hopefully a relaxing summer!). Her sister called me to do this cake after seeing Maycen's Phineas and  Ferb cakes from last week, so a huge thanks (again!) to Courtney! Emily knew what she wanted --- polka dots and stripes in UNCW teal, and the University logo complementary colors of yellow and dark blue incorporated into the accent work. Hope they all love it!

Didn't get any good macro pictures of the cap and diploma. Oh well... next week for my niece's cake, I will!

The top layer is a marble cake (my yellow cake recipe with a portion turned into cocoa and swirled together) and the bottom tier is my dark chocolate recipe. Buttercream frosting under all the marshmallow fondant, as usual. Brushed on pearl dust to get the glimmer and shimmer to the dark blue and yellow. Stars and numbers were gumpaste-fondant mix and the hat and diploma were all fondant.

Seasonal Fruits

One of my earliest experiences as a chef's assistant was for Carla Snyder at a Food Festival weekend in Morgantown, West Virginia. She is an incredible baker and my favorite all-time recipe comes from her. The original recipe was for a pear tart, but you can easily substitute any seasonal fruit or fruit of choice. This week, I made a seasonally fresh berry tart with locally grown strawberries and blueberries (that we picked ourselves at Lewis' Farms!) and added raspberries and blackberries. The tart is a free-form tart, which yields a beautiful and rustic pie/tart. Carla's dough recipe produces a scrumptious, home-made pastry that is perfectly crusty and melt in your mouth delicious. She also has you make an almond frangipane paste that is spread onto the rolled out dough before you pile on the fruit. When I make rhubarb tarts, I leave the frangipane out and make my mom's rhubarb pie filling instead --- now that version is my all time favorite dessert. Ever. Served cold, for breakfast. Mmmmmmm. =)  But I digress.....

The tart I made yesterday was for a friend who was hosting a women's group. She wanted something yummy and different, and although we first talked about doing something chocolaty... I got excited about the fresh fruit and doing this tart. Luckily, she loved it!

The blueberry muffins were for a Church bake sale. I tried the America's Test Kitchen blueberry muffin recipe, and I have to say..... it was not worth the trouble. They are very good muffins, do not get me wrong. But again I go back to my mom's recipes and she has in incredible blueberry cake that I have adapted for muffins. They are every bit as good as this new recipe, but far less time consuming and complicated. But they sure were pretty!

Maycen's 4th Birthday

The fun thing about this business is seeing people's reactions to my creations. The more I do, the more fun I have. It's addictive! The cake I did this weekend was for my friend Courtney from Cuttin' Up. Her son turned 4 and he wanted anything having to do with Phineas and Ferb. I was soooo glad he didn't say Michael Jackson, who he went as for Halloween this past year! I don't think I could have pulled that one off.... a big white glove with music notes? Who knows?! LOL.

I delivered the cake to the picnic site (and man did they luck out with a gorgeous afternoon! with thankfully no humidity) and was met by dropped jaws and utters of amazement. Grandma didn't want to cut the cake and I hear from Courtney that her husband "got possessive" of Perry and wouldn't let many people eat him. Funny! Courtney now has a large platypus in her fridge. =)

Here are some of Courtney's comments:
"Can't thank you enough for the cakes today!! Got several moms that were at the party that I am sending your way. I will need another one in July and then again in February!!! Thanks so much!!!!.... They [tasted] amazing, but the yellow was my fave!!! Most everyone had to try a little of each!"

Phineas (the triangular guy with red hair) was rich chocolate with raspberry filling and vanilla buttercream frosting. The other two characters were the birthday boy's (and his mother's!) favorite, yellow cake with vanilla buttercream frosting.  The swirly blue board that the guys are on is covered in fondant. I LOVED the look! Unfortunately I had started with Perry on the plain white board and didn't dare move him to cover his in a similar manner. Always something to learn! That's what also makes it fun.... =]

Bryceon's 1st birthday

The first Mickey cake was so popular, a guest at Collin's party wanted the same (but bigger!) for her son's 1st birthday. We added Goofy to this cake and I have to say I was very happy with him. He may replace the giraffe as my favorite!

The cake was, again, my standard yellow cake with vanilla buttercream frosting. All fondant was homemade marshmallow fondant, with the exception of the dark chocolate fondant that makes the hat and Mickey-polka-dots. This is the Satin Ice product that I swear by as the ONLY fondant worth buying. Very yummy and very forgiving to work with. Mickey and Goofy are also gumpaste-fondant mixtures and hand painted.

Krystal, the birthday boy's mom, had this to say after the party:
"The party was a huge success. The cake was such a great addition to a perfect day!  I enjoyed seeing the faces of our guests as they walked down the front hall into the kitchen to where the cake was presented.  Everyone thought it was such a special cake and beautifully made!  My parents were thrilled by the cake.  I have a flip video to send you of their reaction. 

Even more comments rolled in after the cake was cut and people began eating it.  I heard from six adults that this was the best cake they had ever eaten.  They were very serious in that statement too as they kept repeating it.  :)  That made me happy because that's exactly how I felt when I tried your cake for the first time back in April.  I heard the comment, "Cakes that look that good usually do not taste that good".  I also made that comment back in April. 

We would like you to be our family baker!  :)  Get ready for many more orders in the future!"

Thank you, Krystal!