CakeStar

Under the Sea

2012-01-29T22:11:00.001-05:00

Today was the first birthday of a precious little girl... It was fun to celebrate and see all of my friends. Her birthday is perfectly placed so it will force us to have parties in the winter and get to catch up with each other...
Her mom gave me lots of creative freedom. She provided some of the birthday girl's favorite toys for inspiration. She loves her crab, clown fish and Orka so I used those as inspiration. A search on cake central.com produced some great inspiration (in addition to giving me a computer virus, but that is another story...) Below are some pictures of the cake coming together. Enjoy!

The Octopus in its infancy...

Made the coral out of white chocolate. Poured it over crushed ice to give it the trademarks of coral.

Pictures of the finished cake:

The aftermath...

Shades of Blue

2012-01-14T14:53:00.000-05:00

Made this cake for an after Christmas friend's party. The theme was the 12 Days of Christmas. This cake represented the pipers pipping... Lots of pipping... I learned the technique from the website mycakeschool.com. I can't wait to try some of the other tutorials and cakes from the "school".
Here are some pictures of the cake coming together.

Wouldn't be complete without a picture of my super cute nieces...

Jillian wanted in on the action...

Yummy Desserts...

I also made an onion tart which turned out great. Lots of sauteed onions, Gruyere cheese, Thyme baked on a puff pasty sheet. yummy...

Gingerbread Houses

2011-12-28T19:04:00.002-05:00

We had lots of fun decorating our ginger bread houses!!! Tried it for the first time this year. I think I was more excited then the kids, which isn't surprising. I had to hold myself back from researching designs and getting too involved with the decorating... It was, after all, an activity for the children :)

Lilly's Finished House

Avah's Finished House

Mini Ginger's designed by the next door neighbor girls.

Lindsey and Uncle Kevin's Ginger Bread house- This is Uncle Kevin's side

This is Lindsey's side...

Both Working very very hard... Uncle Kevin "Leased" some space from Lindsey

Kevin Tried to repair a gingerbread house construction accident, but it didn't work... Oh well...

This was soooooo much fun... I'm already planning for next year!

Christmas Cookies

2011-12-28T18:50:00.008-05:00

Made lots of Christmas cookies this year. I found a few designed from some very talented cookie artists and had to give them a try. My favorite were the Grinch cookies. Although he is green and scary he is also cute and delicious! Here are the cookies getting decorated.

First I coated all of the cookies with a first coat and allowed it to dry.

Started with Grinch eyes, allowed them to dry, then filled in with green.

Next was the details work. Added faces, the belt to Mrs. Claus's dress, the details to the ornaments, lights for the trees etc...

They were bagged and boxed up... Ready to be eaten... Happy Holidays!

A Happy Holiday Snowman

2011-12-11T20:28:00.000-05:00

Made this cute little guy for a family Christmas celebration. My aunt, who is the host, loves snowman so at her request, I made her a snow man cake. Here is the finished guy...

Christmas Cupcakes

2011-12-03T18:33:00.002-05:00

Made these cupcakes for a friend's "ugly" Christmas sweater party. The Hanukkah cupcakes were for my friend throwing the party who is Jewish and made the most outstanding customized sweatshirt complete with a candle-lit Menorah. It was awesome. Cupcakes are all buttercream.

Turkey Day

2011-11-24T08:24:00.000-05:00

Happy Turkey Day!!! I'm thankful that I get to spend some quality time with both families today. In celebration I made some fun cookies to eat after we eat lots of other food... :)

Cookies ready for transport

Here are the candy corn before they got their personalities....

Happy Thanksgiving!

Puppy Love

2011-11-13T20:44:00.000-05:00

It's a Happy 1st Birthday for my nephew! He loves puppies and has a Bichon named "milk" so that was the theme of his party. The dog on the cake is a replica of milk.Eric's parent gave me the inspiration for the cake design. If you look closely, the green carpet under the puppy has paw prints. So fun to make.

Eric's Cake

Forming the milk bone and cutting out the paw prints.

This is milk before the icing....

More cutting....

Eric trying to figure out what to do...

A little unsure of what fondant tastes like...

Here is milk- disassembled....

The aftermath.... Not too bad...

SOOOO Stinkin CUTE!

Butterflies, polka dots, and Halloween

2011-10-23T20:29:00.000-04:00

My youngest niece turns 5 tomorrow. Can't believe it. When brainstorming ideas for her cake we came up with butterflies. Specifically monarch butterflies because they hatched one from a caterpiller this summer and because the monarch has the same coloring as Halloween. Then to top it off she likes polka dots so I found a way to incorporate all three things into one cake.

They aren't exactly butterflies but as lillies said "They are halloween butterflies"...

BEFORE- Drying Butterflies

After... They collapsed and the wings broke off... Opps. Guess the extra black fondant was too heavy and the thin orange fondant underneath couldn't support it. Lesson learned. When I put them on the cake I pushed the edges of the wings into the icing. It worked...

I made cookies for Lindsey to take into class.

Here they are all bagged up and ready to go...

Everyone dressed up for the party...

Home Run!!!

2011-08-27T19:58:00.001-04:00

Can't believe it has been a month since I've made a cake. Time flies... I Made this cake for my super fun Cousin Beth who is getting married this fall. They are true Phillies fan and thus a Phillies inspired bridal shower cake was in order. Beth gave me the cake topper and told me to do what I wanted... So, I thought it would be funny for "beth" to be dragging "john" to home plate...

Here are some pictures of the assembly....

Cut out the retro Phillies P out of fondant and added them to the baseball circles.

The field is finished. The cake is buttercream with fondant accents.

Start of the frozen buttercream transfer of the logo.

Ready to go in the freezer...

The logo got a little messed up when I transferred it to the cake. I didn't use the right icing and thought I could get away with it... Apparently I could not...

Congratulation Beth and John!!!

Pretty Lilies

2011-07-27T18:21:00.000-04:00

This cake was for a close friend of my sister who is celebrating her upcoming nuptials. The invitations were covered in lilies so it seemed appropriate to cover a cake with lilies... I haven't made lilies before so I looked to my Wilton resources and found instructions in my gum paste book. I only had one style of cutter. If I make them in the future it would be nice to have different sized flowers to give some variance to the design. I played around with my powder food colorings which was fun. Because there was some distance and travel associated with the delivery of this cake, my sister added the flowers when she got to the shower. This way they stayed fresh and didn't flatten from the storage of the cake in the refrigerator. Here are some pictures of the assembly.

From this cutting of gum paste the lilies are born...

The lilies are stretched, smoothed and wrapped around to make the basic flower. They are drying upside down to give them some structure.

The flowers are ready for their highlights.

Ready for Transport...

This little cutie enjoyed the flowers and couldn't believe that they were edible. Too cute!

Ashley's Graduation

2011-07-10T22:19:00.001-04:00

My beautiful cousin graduated from High School this year. She is off to cosmetology school to start to build her empire... We had a picnic this weekend to help her celebrate with friends and family. The nail accessories on the cake are made out of chocolate. The graduation hat and diploma are fondant. The cookies were sugar cookies decorated in school colors. I'll be posting more pictures from the party soon...

More cookies...

The start of the cake...

The chocolate and fondant accents drying...

The cookies are drying...

Everything is packed up ready to go....

Fabulous Four Turn 40

2011-07-04T22:18:00.000-04:00

Four of my fabulous friends turn 40 this year so we had a celebration for everyone at our annual Fourth of July Picnic. Each friend was represented in their own fondant likeness... Although I took some creative liberties I think they turned out pretty darn close to their likeness :)

The one in the upper left corner was an extra... She didn't turn out as cute so she got thrown in the trash...

The pieces of the cake drying

Held the faces on with royal icing. The toothpicks helped while drying and during transport to make sure they didn't fall off...

Fourth of July Cookies

2011-07-03T21:40:00.000-04:00

This was my attempt at being festive for our annual fourth of July Picnic. I experimented with sugar cookies again. This time the recipe I used had a little too much butter, my cookies never hardened and essentially crumbed on the way to the picnic. I didn't get a picture of them nicely displayed in the tray because they essentially broke apart. Surprisingly or maybe not so surprisingly they vanished in about 30 minutes of being displayed... Guess it doesn't matter what they look like, as long as they taste good...:)

An Elmo 1st Birthday Celebration!

2011-06-26T10:12:00.001-04:00

I made baby Kourtney's baby shower cake and now it is time to celebrate her 1st birthday. Time flies... This cake presented a few new challenges for me, which I like.... It was harder to model Elmo then I thought it would be. At first I thought he was going to turn out like a jaba the hut elmo but covering him up with a diaper for baby elmo and putting the bow in front of him made him look better I think... I also played with my funky letters and got better at using them. Overall I was happy with the fun elmo cake and I'm sure little Koutney had fun eating it too!

All of the pieces for the cake drying...

The smash cake...

Getting better at using the funky letters. The key is lots of corn starch powder on the letter mold and tylose powder mixed with fondant to make it easier to work with ....

The final cakes together

Father's Day

2011-06-19T23:44:00.000-04:00

My nieces helped make the father's day cake this year. They were so excited to help. We made a cake in the shape of a fish... It was the best I could come up with on short notice and no planning... They also decorated cupcakes with some sprinkles (jimmies) and royal icing circles I had leftover from previous project. We had lots of fun together. I'm looking forward to our next creation.

An Animal Kingdom 1st Birthday

2011-06-05T16:13:00.019-04:00

My friend's daughter celebrated her first birthday with a theme of an Animal Kingdom. After searching on cakecentral.com we found the perfect cake to go with the party theme. The thing that made this cake tricky was the delivery. I was traveling for work and couldn't make the delivery. Every thing went well in my absence and the cake made it to the party with no issues... Yeah! Here are some pictures of the cake assembly and Celia devouring it! I love 1st birthday cakes!

Celia's Smash Cake

Action Shots of Celia enjoying her birthday cake!

The end...

Happy 93rd Birthday GG

2011-05-29T15:21:00.000-04:00

Seriously, how cute is my grandmom? She just celebrated her 93rd Birthday. It was great to have the family come together to celebrate. My niece slept over at my house the night before and she had a chance to help me decorate GG's cake. She rolled the fondant to make the daisy. She learned how to cut the flowers out and she even kneeded the fondant to mix the color's needed. She was a great helper!

All of the pieces drying ready for assembly

Picture of back of cake

Catch Up Blog

2011-05-24T15:25:00.000-04:00

I made some cakes recently and haven't had a chance to blog...
Happy Birthday to my brother who likes a race car driver in the 51 car... and a hydrangea cake to celebrate mother's day.

Easter Cookies

2011-04-23T16:02:00.000-04:00

I have the cookie bug... I've been wanting to try cookies but was afraid of baking and royal icing... Neither of them have really worked in the past. I found some great recipes from -I am Baker (cookies) and Bake at 350 (royal icing). I'm still trying to figure out how to get the best consistency for flooding the cookies but the more I do it the more I will get the hang of it, hopefully. I found inspiration for the cookies below from SugarBelle's Blog. There are so many talented cookie artists out there. I want to try most of everything I see...
Happy Easter everyone!

Here are some pictures of the cookies coming together. I'm a little messy but I will get the hang of it...

Flooded the cookies and let them dry overnight.

My dinning room table as my work space...

Guest Blogspot on Frosting for the Cause

2011-04-18T08:10:00.002-04:00

Hi everyone, I'm the guest blogger on Frosting for the Cause today. Check it out...

http://www.frostingforthecause.com/2011/04/amys-pink-ribbon-sugar-cookies

Cindy turns 40...

2011-04-03T21:17:00.000-04:00

My big sister turned 40 this weekend. Like most people, I think my big sister is awesome... But, I'm serious- she really is... She is a great wife and mom, she keeps things running smoothly in her house and balances many different roles in life on very limited sleep (I worry about that, but she already knows that...) I have a lot of love and respect for my sister so I wanted to make her a cake that made her feel special and celebrated her big birthday. Here are pics of the assembly...

This was my first attempt at Tulips. Here I am cutting the gum paste

Forming the flower on th end of the rolling pin...

Placed cotton balls around the outside of the flowers to help keep the petals standing straight up to dry...

Finished drying... Now ready for the inside...

Surprise Goodbye

2011-03-30T17:51:00.002-04:00

I'm still smiling and probably will every time I think about my last day at Temple University. My awesome co-workers threw me a surprise "dessert competition" going away party today. Everyone made a special dessert/treat and I got to be the Judge! There was much creativity on the table. It meant a lot to me that they would go through so much planning and take the time to makes these great treats. Thanks guys! You are the best!!!

Here are the final products:

I got to make my own categories...

Judge's Favorite went to Naomi's Temple "T" made out of mini cupcakes...

Best Use of Judge's Name went to Alexis: (see my name in the middle row- awesome!)

Looks Delicious went to Alicia's wonderful chocolate bird nests:

Best Effort went to our student Amy:

and last but certainly not least- Best Try went to Toni and Kim:

Wipeout Birthday

2011-03-27T11:52:00.000-04:00

For my niece's 7th birthday she wanted a Wipeout birthday... She loves the show and specifically asked for the cake to have the three big red balls in blue, not muddy, water with happy birthday avah written on the balls... No small order. She also wanted the cake to be half chocolate and half vanilla but I couldn't figure out how to do that without making it marble so I made the base chocolate and the water and the balls were vanilla. The bridge was graham crackers dipped in blue colored white chocolate.
Here are some pics of the cake coming together..

Used a special pan to make the 1/2 ball shapes and then just icing them and put them together to make the big red balls for the cake...

Used a stray to keep the balls in place on the cake.

My messy work space and the covering of the graham crackers:

Tried to recreate the logo freehand using buttercream icing... Not that easy but I attempted...

Birthday Celebrations

2011-03-13T21:45:00.000-04:00

Here are a few birthday cakes I've made in the past few weeks for some special people in my life. The inspiration for the purple and black cake came cake central. The swirly cake came from "I am Baker" which is something that I am not... I don't claim to bake- I just like to decorate...

Pictures of the Black and Purple cake coming together:

I really don't drink that much, but you can't really tell by this picture, now can you???

My work space:

I went to the Philadelphia Flower Shower and much to my surprise there was a cake made by Buddy from Carlo's Bakery in Hoboken, better known at the Cake Boss. It was really pretty- had many gum paste flowers on it. It was a little overdone for my taste but as my sister said- Well- it is for the flower show.... True, very true...

Eric's First Cake

2011-02-06T21:17:00.001-05:00

This is the first cake for my super cute nephew. He was baptized today so we had a party. The cake design was inspired by a few I saw on cake central. I'm excited that we have a boy in the family now... I'll get to use boy color's and create boy designs... Yeah!

Here are a few more pics

In the right light he has RED HAIR!!!!!

Princess Lilly's Rapuzel Cake

2011-02-05T20:50:00.001-05:00

Had the honor of making my goddaugter and oldest niece's birthday cake this weekend. She turned 7. I can't believe how old my nieces are getting. They are such a joy. I love visiting with them. Lilly requested a rapuzel style cake. I used rice krispie treats to make the tower. It was my first time using them and I was pretty happy with the result. They got rock hard... Like so hard they could have been a weapon. I guess that is o.k. since no one really wanted to eat the tower anyway... The rest was inspired by a cake I found on cakecentral. I still like that website even though they took some of my pictures out of the gallery since I had my blogspot address in the description. They said it was advertising and deleted my pics. I wasn't and I am still not that happy about that...
Anyway... Here are some pictures of the cake coming together. Enjoy

The Tower before assembly:

Seeing the cake for the first time...

Blowing out candles...

Lilly is a great big sister...

Shrek Castle for Jilly

2011-01-07T21:18:00.000-05:00

I had the honor of delivering my first cake for a family as a member of the Icing Smiles organization. Icing Smiles is an organization that provides custom celebration cakes and other treats to families impacted by the critical illness of a child.   To learn more about them click here.
I was SOOOO excited when I got the e-mail from my cake coordinator, Rose, that I was being asked to make a custom cake for a little girl named Jillian. I had submitted my name to Icing Smiles but wasn't sure I would be called to make a custom cake because I'm not a professional baker...    I was connected to Joy, Jilly's mom, and we exchanged e-mails about idea's of what she would like for her cake. Jilly is a huge Shrek fan and they call Jilly "princess" so we came up with a Shrek castle cake for her 4th birthday. Jilly's had heart issues since her birth and has been in and out of the hospital over her short life. She's never been home (away from the hospital) to celebrate her birthday so this year we made it a special one with a special cake. Jilly's older brother has also missed out on a few birthdays, most recently this year, and Joy wrote into Icing smiles requesting a cake for her son to help make him feel special. It is important for him to know how much the family appreciates him and he deserves special recognition for being a great big brother to Jilly. His cake is being delivered tomorrow by another baker. I can't wait to see pictures of it.
For Jilly's cake I incorporated hearts where ever I could think of them. I made the top two layers of the castle in a heart shape, added heart windows, and added heart shingles to the torants.   Below you will find some pictures of the cake coming together.

Covered the ice cream cones in chocolate.

Added the stone effect to the buttercream icing.

A test run of my ideas...

Adding some of the trim and decorations...

Almost done...

Ready to be moved to the car...

Jilly was checking me out... She was a little rambunctious today and didn't want to look at the camera... I feel honored to have made her 4th Birthday cake and had a chance to meet Jilly and her amazing mom! Heart Hugs!

Jackie and Steve's Wedding

2010-12-31T11:15:00.020-05:00

I did it... Made my first wedding cake. I was so honored when my cousin Jackie and her fiance Steve asked me to make their cake. It was in the summer on the day we had a picnic for my Grandmom's 92 birthday. That day was my very first cake wreck... The cake fell over when I rounded the off ramp of the turnpike. Despite seeing the cake wreckage Jackie and Steve had confidence in my abilities... We discussed a few different designs but settled on the snowflake theme a few weeks before. A really touching detail of the wedding was that Grandmom crocheted snowflake ornaments that were hung on a Christmas tree outside the reception hall that served as our table cards. It was a really unique way to deliver the seating assignments and the wedding favor.

Below are details of the cake assembly.

The secret is out... Well I never have kept it a secret... I use box cake mixes!! I add applesauce and egg whites to make them a little healthier and to change the taste a little bit. I admit it. I like to decorate and not bake so this gets me to the point that I have something to decorate...

Used lots of eggs...

Made 11 cakes...

7 batches of icing...

Here are the various snowflake cutters I ordered and decorations I used on the cake. I wasn't sure how big I was going to make the snowflakes so I bought a bunch of different ones to try out. I ended up liking one of the sets most and used it for the majority of the snowflakes.

I used a Styrofoam dummy at the bottom of the cake. My oven can't bake a cake this large... I had to glue it to the base... Apparently certain glues eat away Styrofoam- Who knew? I ended up using double sided tape and white Elmer's glue. It totally worked... Here is the evidence of the eating away of the Styrofoam...

The base of the cake with wooden dowels to hold up the cake...

A test run of what it would look like... Yup- it is leaning...

Onto making Snowflakes... Used fondant and different colored sprinkles and accents to make each snowflake unique... I had fun cutting each snowflake in different way and adding the decorations. This was the most relaxing part of making the cake.

Snowflakes drying

O.K. the cake is ready for transport... These are all of the tools I took with me to the venue...

The top of the cake

The bottom of the cake... I transported the cake in three pieces and assembled it on site.

Here it is all finished. It took about an hour on site to assemble and decorate. It was leaning a little bit but other then that I was really really pleased with the way it turned out. Jackie cried when she saw the cake and that was reward enough for me! I had a great time making this cake. I'm not sure I'll be making many more wedding cakes- it is a little stressful- but I really wanted to do something special for Jackie and her family. They mean the world to me and it was an honor to make their cake.

One of my favorite snowflakes...

The beautiful Bride and Handsome Groom...

An Early Christmas Celebration

2010-12-11T16:02:00.001-05:00

Had the Christmas gathering of my Dad's side of the family on the 11th. It is always good to see everyone and get into the Christmas spirit early. My sister came over to help me decorate the cupcakes for the party. We went with wreath's, Christmas tree's and my favorite- Santa stuck in the snow... Hilarious! Happy Holidays!

Michelle working hard...

The star cut outs are stacked to make the tree's

Bought myself a new cupcake carrier for Christmas... It worked great. The cupcakes didn't fall over in transport...

Cody discovering the truth about Santa's leg...

Lillie's for Sharon

2010-11-17T22:36:00.001-05:00

Made my first gumpaste Lillie's for a dear friends bridal shower cake. She sent me a picture of the wedding cake she ordered so I made my version of the cake for a work wedding party. Instead of a round shape I used a square pan and I changed the colors from black to more fall tones. The lillies were easier to make then I anticipated. I watched a video by edna from designmeacake.com. It only really required a heart cookie cutter, a pointy cup and some powder food coloring. Enjoy the cake!

Here are some shots of the flowers coming together...

I needed cone shaped cups, so I cut up bathroom cups and taped them to form a point. They worked nicely because they were wax coated and the gum paste released nicely when it was dry. I used 20 guage floral wire and formed yellow stamen's for center of the flowers.

Measuring up the stamens to make sure they were the right size. The calla lilies were made with the heart shaped cookie cutter, then wrapped them around the cone cups and frilled the edges.

The supplied needed to add the coloring and shading.

Making the bows...

Added the stamen and hung the flowers to dry on a pitcher...

The finished flowers ready to be moved to the cake.

The finished cake

Jaclynn's Bridal Shower

2010-11-07T18:08:00.001-05:00

I'm so excited about this cake! I have been wanting to make this design... It is for my cousin who is getting married on new year's eve. I have the honor of making my first wedding cake for Jaclynn's wedding!!!! I'm very excited and a little nervous but I have faith I can pull it off. This cake design was inspired by those on cake central. I used layers of fondant to make the dress. The roses are also fondant. I sprayed the dress with a irridescent food grade spray to give it a special shine. The cake was a hit!

Here is the cake with the crumb coat

Added the final layer of buttercream

Used a cut out template of the dress top and started to add layers of fondant. I didn't really follow a pattern, I would cut strips, lay them on the cake and then cut the ends off...

Ready for the bouquet...

Almost done...

Finished... Yeah.

Baby Morgan's Shower

2010-11-07T18:04:00.000-05:00

Made this sophisticated baby shower cake design for a good friend's baby shower. I had this design in my "favorites" folder for a while and was hoping the right occasion would come along. I used wilton's rose petal food coloring and it came out a little browner then I had hoped. I also learned that even though I used the same food coloring the buttercream and the fondant are not the same color... I should have known that but another lesson learned... Overall I was happy with the way the cake turned out. I'm looking forward to meeting Baby Morgan!

A naked cake... waiting for icing...

Used imprint to trace the lettering. Fondant flower is finished-made it using a heart cookie cutter.

Lettering is finished...

Cake is assembled on site and finished...

A Cupcake Birthday Cake

2010-10-30T13:45:00.005-04:00

My Niece's Birthday celebration falls around Halloween which is always fun. I dressed up like a cupcake so I made her a cupcake cake and delivered it in my costume! So fun.

The birthday girl

How sweet are they???

Lindsey got to eat the cherry on top...

Reach the Beach- Slow but Pretty

2010-10-22T13:45:00.000-04:00

I participated in a 209 mile relay race across New Hampshire in Early October Called Reach the Beach Relay. It was one of the best running experiences I've had. My 11 teammates totally rock! We had a blast. I was worried about this race for a few months before we left but everything fell into place. Check out the 6 minute video we made of our experience click here. This cake represents more then just a copy of our team logo...Slow But Pretty. I'm not sure an experience like this can be repeated but we are apparently doing it again in Miami in 2012. We'll see...

Our race shirts...

The turtle was a frozen buttercream transfer of course...

Jamie got to cut the cake...

Missing Socrates....

The girls taking pictures of the boys...

Awaiting My New Nephew

2010-10-17T22:41:00.001-04:00

Had a baby shower for my new nephew who will be arriving in about a month. We are all very excited to meet him. I found the inspiration for the cake on cakecentral.com. I combined two cakes I liked and came up with the Onsie and clothes line combo. Here are some pics of the assembly...

Cut the Onsie out of fondant with a steak knife...

What I used to make the snaps

Making the buttons...

Making the washline poles... Best thing I ever did was buy premixed black fondant. Black is the hardest color to mix.

The finished iced cake waiting for the pieces to go one... They are all waiting in the background.

The cake is finished for now. I assembled it at the shower. I didn't want to transport it on the cake stand and risk a cake wreck...

The finished cake...

Can't resist sharing this picture of my super cute Niece. She was practicing her smiles today and got this one just right...

The rest of the girls... All looking fabulous!

Snowflakes

2010-10-02T16:48:00.002-04:00

I know... It is just October and I shouldn't be thinking about winter yet... But I was asked to make a cake for a bridal shower with a Christmas theme and I couldn't refuse. This is the first cake I've made that has some non-edible hardware but I fell in love with the design when I was looking for ideas on cakecentral.com. Here is a link to the original. I added some color and I couldn't figure out how to cut that large snowflake so I used the cutters I had and made some modifications to cut out the centers. Overall I was really pleased with this cake. To me it sophisticated and modern...

The crumb coat is down...

Inserted the wooden dowels for stability

Snowflakes are dried and sprayed with luster dust...

The finished product

Lady Bug's 1st Birthday

2010-09-26T00:11:00.001-04:00

This cake was made for a special little girl's 1st birthday. I made her mom's babyshower cake so couldn't pass up the chance to make her 1st birthday cake.
After a few e-mail's we decided on the cake design and the rest is history... Here are some pics showing the cake as it unfolds. Thanks to cake central for the inspiration/cake idea...

The basic covered cake...

This is the naked lady bug for the top of the cake. The smash cake was made in a similar way...

Head covered in fondant

The start of the assembly

My secret to writting on cakes, since I hate doing it... I press these letters into the cake

Can you see the impressions?

Then I trace over the imprint with icing... Looks much better then my freehand...

The little smash cake... SO cute!

The finished products...

August Birthday's

2010-08-29T15:35:00.012-04:00

There are a few Virgo's in my family... Including me! We had a picnic to celebrate our birthdays and I attempted a cake I've been wanting to try for a while. I got to use my new extruder which was 1,000 x's easier to use then my old one. Happy Birthday to everyone!

Here are some action shots... I cut the long strands into stem pieces to place around the outside.

Used different shades of green...

Made some leaves and roses for the top...

We had help blowing out the candles...

Katie T's Baby

2010-08-28T13:29:00.001-04:00

You know when you meet someone and after talking to them you feel like they have been your friend for a while... We'll that's Katie T for me... Although we don't see each other that often I feel like we have been friends forever because number one- she's super nice and number two- my friend Leigh gives me updates of what's going on in life. Kate posted a picture of a cinnamon bun in a toaster oven as her profile picture to announce that she was pregnant. Genius. I used some inspiration from the invitation and recreated the baby bump. The cake was chocolate with buttercream icing with fondant accents. Here are some pics...

You may notice some alcohol behind the cake... Don't worry I didn't drink all of that while I was making the cake... I waited until after I was finished... :)

I used the image from the invitation to make cut outs in fondant.

Then I moved her to the cake...

Added some fun circles... and a brown boarder and she was good to go...

Here's the invite. I loved the colors.

Birthday Adventure

2010-08-25T13:51:00.013-04:00

I've been wanting to make a cake with a dramatic flower... So for my birthday I decided that is what I would make. I found a flower cake (this one) that used heart shaped cookie cutters to form the flower leaves. I thought simple enough... "I can do that" so I tried it... Below is the result. Happy Birthday to me :)

This is 2- 6 x 3" chocolate cakes with buttercream. Flower is Fondant & Gum paste.

For my birthday I took a trip to the cake mecca that is New York City... We visited NY Cakes where I bought myself the newest clay gun/ extruder- it is awesome as well as a few other toys including my first copy of cakecentral magazine. Here is my loot:

We also visited three cupcake stores- Sugar Sweet Sunshine, Cupcake Land and Crumbs. All three were good but the winner in my book between these three was cupcake land. A close second was sugar sweet sunshine, if not just for the name, but the cupcakes were really tasty as well. Of course everything in my book is compared to Magnolia bakery and no one has yet to surpass them...

Here are some shots of the cupcakes...
Beautiful cupcakes at crumbs....

I had a peanut butter candy cupcake and it just didn't have enough peanut butter flavor. The cake itself was o.k. but wasn't really that chocolaty... It was o.k. but definitely looked better then it tasted.

The counter at cupcake land in Brooklyn... I had a peanut butter cupcake here. It was awesome. The icing tasted like real peanut butter and the cake was light and fluffy...

Sugar Sweet Sunshine cupcakes. They were the cheapest of them all- only $1.50 each and they tasted really good. Much better then the almost $4 crumbs cupcakes.

Randomly found this place called Economy Candy... I have never been in one store with this much candy in one place in my entire life. It was great!

Another really fun store was Fishs Eddy- if you need plates- This is where you need to go. It was a GREAT store... I'm glad I don't live closer because I could get into serious trouble..

Happy 100th Hazel Ave

2010-07-26T21:26:00.001-04:00

The houses on Hazel Avenue in West Philly turn 100 years old this year. To commemorate this special occasion my friend commissioned me to make a cake for the house party. It was also their one year anniversary and it just so happened to be the hottest day of the summer with temps above 100 degrees- It was a 101 theme all around... I was up for the challenge of making this cake yet I had no idea how I was going to do it. Should it be 3-D, a frozen buttercream transfer (FBCT), fondant over lays etc... I had much angst. In the process of researching how to make this cake I made a new cake friend- so exciting! . Thanks Linda for sharing some of your secrets. You can check out Linda's work here. She is really talented....
I decided to go with a FBCT and tried to make a line drawing from pics that my friend sent me... I'm really NOT good at drawing so I employed the artistic abilities of another friend's dad.... He drew me a beautiful line drawing of the house that I was then able to outline and make into a FBCT for the top of the cake... Without the help of cake friends I'm not sure this cake design would be possible... I was really pleased with the way it turned out.... Happy 100th Hazel and Happy One Year Anniversary Reba & Steve!!!

The cake ideas went from this picture

To this drawing

To This FBCT design

To See how I make FBCT's you can see more of assembly of pics here.

Here are more pics of the cake coming together. This is the outline of the design. I use plastic page protectors, they work perfect to hold the drawing in place and they allow the design to easily release once it comes out of the freezer.

Adding some colors to the drawing...

The Carnage... The flavor was Strawberry with Raspberry filling... Yummy!

Tools of the Trade...

2010-07-10T18:36:00.004-04:00

It is my Brother in Laws 50th birthday. He's an overall handy guys so I thought a theme of tools would be appropriate for his 50th birthday celebration... I took my mom and my grandmom out to lunch last week and we made a run to foose cookie cutters in fleetwood, Pa. If you ever need cookie cutters, and are in or near PA, this is where you need to go. They also have an on-line store. I LOVE this store. I bought the 4 tools you see on the cake. I also picked up some bugs and butterflies so you will see them on future cakes.
The cake itself is a white cake with a fresh strawberry puree added. The filling is a blackberry Jam. Yummy... The tools are made of a 50/50 mix of gum paste and fondant. I made the original cut first then added the handles to give them some depth. After I added the tools I felt like the cake needed a bit more so I made a tape measure and added the measurement of 50 all the way around... This cake was inspired by many I saw on cake central. Thanks ladies for the many ideas. I dabbled in taking a video while I worked on this cake as well. I'm working on how to shorten it into a 3 minute clip and will hopefully post in the near future. Enjoy!
My messy work area...

The tools are on... Just needs a little something else...

A tape measure... Here it is cut...

Added to the cake...

I added a few nails and screws and the cake is complete...

The carnage...

This Marks 100...

2010-07-05T10:17:00.004-04:00

This is my 100th Blog entry... Crazy how time flies. I feel like I'm still just a beginner but I guess I can't keep thinking this way now that I'm in the triple digits... Since I added a counter to my blog on 6/14/2008 I've had 5,914 site visitors. That is even crazier...

This entry is about my non-traditional 4th of July cupcakes... I bought a new cupcake book called "What's New Cupcake?" It has some super cute and easy to make cupcakes. I fell in love with the Chinese food cupcakes so I decided to make them for the two 4th of July picnic's I attended this year. Isn't Chinese food symbolic of that which is American cuisine anyway? We are a melting pot... I thought the pies were cute as well and "borrowed" the M&M's from my mom to make these...

Here are some pics of the assembly...

Cutting the starburst's into carrots and flattening yellow starburst's to look like egg...

Cutting the licorice to look like green onions..

I had help from my snuffy again with cutting and assembly... He did a great job, here he is placing the "peas" onto the fried rice...

all ready to go...

Assembling the pies...

Pies are cooling...

A sampling of the finished product...

In honor of my 100th blog I found what I believe is my very first cake creation... I made this cake in 1999 for father's day.

I didn't start to seriously indulge my urge to be creative with cakes until 2007 when I decided to take a Wilton cake decorating class at JoAnne Fabrics in Springfield. My creative spirit comes from my mom. Growing up she and both of my grandmother's were always trying to come up with the next latest and greatest craft to sell at the Christmas bazaars. My mom has an entire room of what I consider to be her "raw materials" to her latest and greatest creation. She is a great recycler...She can make most anything into a craft... I played around with crafting growing up. I painted using the "One Stroke" technique and made glass vases, flower pots, magazine racks etc... I didn't like having all of these leftover supplies and creations hanging around my apartments. I didn't have much space and certainly didn't have a dedicated room for my supplies. I decided I need another approach. I tried scrap booking but just couldn't seem to get myself organized enough to stick with it. Then I realized that Cake would be the greatest craft. I could have an outlet for my creativity yet, the end product wouldn't stick around and collect dust and take up space... It would be eaten and then I would get to make it all over again... Perfect! My main goal when I started was to make my three nieces a special birthday cake, a cake of their choosing (when they were old enough to decide). It has since grown to making cakes for my siblings, parents, family and friends. I don't sell cakes, I'm not interested in starting a business. It is a lot of work to make these cakes and right now it is a labor of love... I don't want that love to go away...

Here is where I believe the love started... Mom had the 1977 Wilton catalog and it lived under the end table closest to the T.V. My "spot" in the living room, when we would all would watch T.V. as a family at night, would be to curl up on the floor next to this T.V. stand. I would page through this catalog endlessly.

I always wanted someone to make me the cake of the girl smiling. I loved the cheeks and I think it was also because she had freckles... Perhaps this will be the cake I make for myself this birthday... We'll see... I have so many cakes I want to make...

Graduation Hats

2010-06-28T18:03:00.004-04:00

Made these adorable graduation hats that were inspired by the amazing Bakerella. It took me a few trips to a few different grocery stores to find the right "hat" tops to the peanut butter cups. I ultimately settled on the Hershey's special dark chocolate bar. There is probably grocery store video of me inappropriately feeling the packages of chocolate bars to make sure they were the right size... The ghirardelli squares were too big and weren't flat, others were too small, too big, had too much of an imprint of decoration etc... I wasn't able to make it to a Godiva store to pick up the recommended squares, so I improvise. I think they worked out nicely... The 95 degree heat and an hour and a half drive in my car caused a few casualties but overall most of them survived the trip...
Here are the pics of the assembly:

The materials

Wrappers are removed...

Getting Ready for Assembly

The tassels are done and "glued" down with chocolate, now it is time to insert the lollipop sticks. Had to make sure they were room temperature so they didn't crack

Now I just have to glue them together with chocolate.

Finished

All done

The final product

Grandmom's 92nd Birthday

2010-05-31T17:50:00.001-04:00

My sweet grand mom (GG is short for great grandmom, which is what my nieces call her) turned 92 years young this week and the family gathered to celebrate her birthday. My Aunt and Uncle threw a BBQ and most everyone was able to make it. I paused for a minute at one point in the afternoon and took in the familiar and comfortable site of most of our family sitting under the huge Oak tree in the back yard just hanging out and talking. I'm hopeful we get many more chances to do that...
I made Gram a special cake- vanilla with strawberry rhubarb filling. The cake was inspired by this one
on cake central. I had some help making this cake from a special snufalufagus who was invaluable in helping me push the fondant through the clay gun to make the "rope" that was arranged into the flower shapes.
The only problem that happened was the delivery of this cake was not so smooth... I should have used straws through the middle of the top cake to secure it in place. I didn't do that, for some reason, and as I was exiting the turnpike the top cake flipped off... It was still edible but certainly didn't look as pretty as I wanted it too. Lesson learned about layered cakes and transporting...

Here are some pics of the process...
The cake filled...

Me spreading the strawberry rhubarb filling:

We experimented with a test run of some iphone video of some of the cake action. Once I figure out how to insert it into the blog I will post...

Snuffy's Hands at work :)

The Carnage...

On another note, my awesome brother in law gave me two rose bushes from his yard. The roses bush pictured below is from my Grand mom. She planted it in her yard many many years ago (it is probably over 60 years old.) It is a Frau Karl Druschki Rose bush. My grandmom loves flowers and it makes me so happy to have a piece of her yard in my yard... These are the first two flowers from the plant this year... Very exciting!!!(thanks to my sister for clarifying the history of this rose bush for me...)

A Princess Castle

2010-04-30T22:31:00.001-04:00

This cake was made for my friend Jen's Twins- Emily and Madison. They are big fan's of the Cake Boss and Jen wanted a special birthday cake for them, I was happy to supply. Jen gave me creative freedom and this is what came of it... It is buttercream with fondant accents. The turrets are ice cream cones covered in buttercream and the top are covered in purple sprinkles or jimmies...

The water in the front is colored piping gel. I used an impression mat to make the brick imprint on the buttercream. This was a fun cake to make. Perhaps someone else will want a castle cake so I can make another one...

Here are pictures of the cake coming together... The top ball is a little off center... oops...

Lining up the cones

Covering the cones in buttercream, then sprinkles

The cones decorated...

More accents...

Baby Shower

2010-04-25T22:00:00.001-04:00

Made this cake for Brandi and Matt's baby shower. The idea came from her sister Stephanie who was inspired by a cake from a cake central artist (sorry don't know the exact cake maker). Instead of attemping a frozen butter cream transfer for the bear I enlarged the image, cut it into pieces and then tried to match them as fondant pieces. It looks o.k., I had some trouble with the piglet- but you can tell that it is a bear in a cover holding something... The bee's are fondant pieced together. The cake itself is yellow with Strawberry Rhubarb filling- yummy...

More CORE Birthday's

2010-04-22T09:22:00.000-04:00

Made a quick cake to celebrate the birthday's of two of my co-workers- Caitlin and Kelley. I choose green for the base color because it seems spring like and appropriate and much to my delight it matched the color of the pants that Kelley wore that day. Coincidence? I think not.... Happy Birthday to my friends and co-workers...

Hoppy Easter & Birthday

2010-04-04T22:22:00.003-04:00

Today we celebrated Easter and my sister's birthday. Good times and good food... Yummy! I made Cindy a cute little cake to go along with the 20 other desserts that were on the table... I also made strawberry cupcakes to add to the table as well. I had my mom make cupcakes wrappers from her leftover scrap booking paper. They dressed up the cupcakes nicely... Possibly mom's next craft project for the winter bazaar's... Overall a great day!

The beginning- Smoothed out buttercream icing

Used my new Funky Alphabet Cutters- Very Excited about them. You will be seeing them again...

Made the green swirly things using the clay gun. I added gum paste to the fondant and it was 1,000 times easier to push threw... Thank goodness I discovered this trick because I was thinking I was going to have to give this tecnique up since it hurt my hand so much to use... Yeah!

Made the flowers and rolled a yellow circle for the center. Made them pop off the cake.

The end result... Cute!

The final result...

Here are the Easter Cupcakes... Cute as well...

Mom working hard putting together the cupcake wrappers...

Avah Still Loves Taylor Swift

2010-03-13T21:44:00.001-05:00

Happy Birthday to my adorable niece Avah who turned 6. She had a very specific cake in mind. She wanted the screen to be black like it was turned off with Taylor Swift's name on it. She did not want Happy Birthday written on the cake, rather she wanted her first and last name. I took creative freedom and just used her first name. She didn't want headphone or really anything else... So... Here is Avah's Ipod cake. She seemed happy with it. It was vanilla with buttercream icing and fondant accents.

Len & Leigh are no longer 30...

2010-02-28T20:58:00.000-05:00

(Note- Tasmania)

Happy Birthday to Leigh!!! After seeing my inspirational Australian themed cupcakes an Australian flag birthday cake was ordered to help celebrate the fact that Len and Leigh are no longer 30... It is all buttercream with fondant accents.

Carving the cake- I made a pattern so I carved the shape of Australia not Antarctica...

Crumb coat down and final layer of icing smoothed with the viva papertowel method.

I cut the white part of the flag as one piece and used strips of red on top. I originally cut white & red strips but they all crossed in the middle and it looked strange.

Side view

I couldn't figure out how to cut a small star for the center star on the right so I originally just made 5 similar stars... But then I found a flower cutter that sort of looked like a star so I replace the middle star for the smaller star. I think it looks better.

A Wizardry Birthday

2010-02-07T20:00:00.000-05:00

It is Lilly's 6th Birthday with a challenging theme of the Wizards of Waverly Place...

After a few cake consultations I felt I had a sense of what she wanted. The main goal was to make an edible magic wand so in Lilly's words "she can eat it and share it with Lindsey and Avah"... Too precious... I was going to make an open book of spells but I couldn't find my cake pan so I ended up making a sheet cake, cut it in half and stacked it to make it look like a thick book of spells. The cake was inspired by sonia57's version from cake central.

I'm most proud of the Wizard's logo. I hand painted it using food coloring on a fondant plaque I imprinted with bricks. I learned some lesson's along the way like I normally do... but had a fun time making this cake...

Lesson learned number one... I should have put a little more icing on the top layer and made it smooth so the fondant piece that lays on top would be smooth... Here is the cake waiting the top of the book. I should have also cut the pieces of fondant I tucked in to the sides of the bottom of the cake a little wider so they would show through after the extra icing was added... They disappear in some spots.

This is the back side of the fondant piece for the top of the cake. I covered the star cut outs with a thin piece of purple fondant and used a icing tip to make the holes for the book binding...

Just need to add some extra on top of the crumb coat so I can make book page impressions on the side of the cake.

Lesson number two- Don't break the most important element of the cake... I tried to fix it but it broke apart even more... So I re-made it. I put a piece of wire through the center of the new wand so hopefully it will give it enough strength to survive transport...

The finished logo. I free hand painted it used the food coloring powders on the left side of this picture as my paints. I mixed with a little vodka to make them liquid... I didn't drink any- I swear...

This is what the real one looks like... Not bad, right?

I covered the top of the cake with a layer of luster dust mixed with vodka again but you can't really see it in this picture. It gives the cake a little bit of a sheen in the right light.

All of the pieces just waiting for assembly. I'm going to put it together at my Sister's house so I don't have any issues...

I found this picture on the Disney website. I cut around the image to isolate the girl then added a text box for Happy Birthday. I traditionally HATE writing on cakes so I'm trying to come up with creative ways to not write on the cake...

College Reunion

2010-01-17T20:10:00.009-05:00

Reconnected with a wonderful group of friends from the first years of my college life. We haven't seen each other since about 1994... A lot has happened since then- We had a lot to talk about! :) Facebook reconnected all of us but it was nice to see each other and truly reconnect. It was fun listening to everyone share stories and talk about the old times. We even broke out some old albums... I feel so fortunate that I had such a great group of friends when I first moved away from home. We have a bond that is undeniable. I'm hoping this is one of the first of many get together's...
Andrea (who was my roommate my freshman and sophomore year) celebrated her birthday yesterday so it was only perfect that I got to make her a cake. I used some of the new tools I picked up at the cake convention. I also used my clay gun for the first time to make the rope for the leaves and around the base of the cake. The cake was raspberry with buttercream icing and fondant accents.

Pictures of the cake coming together...
Used my clay gun to push green fondant through for a nice even rope to make the leaves and the base around the cake...

Used my new flower plunger/cutters. They make it easier to make flowers because the plunger pushed the finished flower out from the cutter. I rolled impressions of leaves on each petal and piped yellow dots for the centers.

The larger daisy flower is drying in the flower former... I wanted it to stand up from the cake to give a little more depth...

The finished product. I was happy with they way it turned out...

My super cute friends! In the back row- Anderea, Amy G & Amy V, Front Row- Robin and Jacqui

My very first roommates- Amy G & Andrea... OooohhHH the days of triple room assignments...

Australia Day

2010-01-16T18:39:00.000-05:00

This weekend we had our annual friends christmas dinner. Denise out did herself with the theme, decorations and the food. It was yummy... It is always great to get together with our friends. This group of friends is unique in that we are all pairs of sisters. It started with my sister's three friends and then grew to include a younger or older sibling and now includes husbands and kids... We have annual trips to NY, hang out at summer picnics and are generally making our way through life together. Good times...

To go along with the Australian dinner theme I made cupcakes representing various aspects of Australia.
Here are some pictures of them coming together...

Naked Cakes:

Flags...

The multicolor base of the oprah house... Water and Sky...

The boat looking cupcakes are the Sydney Oprah House... See it now...

Cupcakes ready for transportation... The red shelf liner kept them from spilling in transit. It really worked well...

I played with some of the toys I got at the cake convention. The flowers are hydrangeas... I made 1/2 a dozen flowers with cupcakes just to test them out...

Pictures of some of the many happy little faces that got to eat cupcakes.... :)

(The red cupcake is what it looks like when Lindsey is finished... The blue is Lilly... I'm not sure why I bother making the cake... I should just bring icing and let them eat it off of spoons...)

An electrifying 28 Watt Birthday...

2009-12-26T11:09:00.000-05:00

To help celebrate the family electrician's birthday I made a cake with an almost working outlet... The cake was chocolate with buttercream icing. The outlet and cord were fondant...

Fra-Gee-Lee

2009-12-25T10:00:00.002-05:00

"Fra-gee-lee, that must be Italian, I think that says fragile honey".... Love this scene from the Christmas story movie and made a replica for the Shellaway family Christmas party this year. Special thanks to my sister Michelle for help with brainstorming the cake idea.

I used this cake for inspiration (stole the idea thank you Christy81071 ). The leg is white chocolate that I traced from a very rough drawing. I had a hard time getting the proportions right so it didn't look like a leg stump. I made two leg's in case one leg broke... It is always good to have a back up leg. That is what I always say...

Super cute cousins...

All the girls in one spot... (they lined up the forks- I didn't)

One layer of the cake was fresh raspberry. I thawed, pureed and strained a big bag of raspberries... Made for a really good cake!

White cake and raspberry cake cooling. I cut in half and stacked the cakes

Melting the chocolate.

Coconut prior to food coloring...

Now it is packaging material...

The leg stump...

My very rough drawing... Drawing really isn't my thing...

More pics of the lamp coming together...

The two legs... I used the one on the left because it looked a little more feminine...

Testing the legs... Which one looked better?

The inside of my refrigerator... The outlet cake is being delivered tomorrow... Will post next...

Happy 60th Aunt Linda

2009-12-15T21:24:00.005-05:00

(My cousin Matt, Uncle Steve and Grandmom with my Aunt Linda's Cake)

I made this cake for my Aunt Linda who is celebrating being 60 years young. We had the christmas gathering for my dad's side of the family this past weekend and my uncle requested a special cake for my aunt. Unfortunetly Aunt Linda got sick and didn't make it to the party...So sad... My aunt also specifically requested that he NOT make a big deal about her birthday and that she did not want a party so it is sort of curious that she didn't show up ;)

Getting ready to pipe...

My mostly straight, slightly not straight lines...

No centers or leaves yet...

Done...

Hungry Hungry Lady Bug...

2009-12-14T21:45:00.012-05:00

I made this cake for sweet little Adeleine who turned one last week. Her awesome aunt happens to be one of my cool friends so I was more then happy to help make Addie's first birthday a little extra special.

The design was borrowed from one we found on the internet (I can't find the reference at the moment- sorry I can't give full credit). The intention was a lady bug but it looked more and more like a pig or a hungry hungry hippo as the cake progressed... Oh well... It was cute none the less.

I used a pampered chef glass bowl to make the curved body of the lady bug and then cut a circle for the head out of small 6" cake. The dots and accents were fondant. Frosting was buttercream. The antenna's were flower wire I colored black (this was the non-edible part).

I love that she devoured the head! She looks like she had a great time! Happy Birthday Addie!

Naked cake

This is the cake I took the head from...

It really looked like a pig... At this point I was worried...

But once I added the fondant accents it started to look a little less like a pig...

A cute lady bug!

Singing Happy Birthday

The first few bites...

Notice the eyeball on her chin? Priceless!

Yummy Yummy!

I can't take credit for these beauties... They were beautifully decorated by Addie's loved ones in honor of her birthday. They look great! Fun and festive!

Gobble... Gooble them Up!

2009-11-25T20:42:00.014-05:00

Happy thanksgiving! I made an attempt at the Bakearella's Turkey pops. Cake balls are essentially cake and icing mixed together, formed into a ball, covered in chocolate and then decorated. They were a little harder to make then I thought, but that is usually how it goes... I used a variety of flavored candy corn I gathered at the end of Halloween season. I used chocolate writing pens to make the eyes and gobbler thing that hangs down... I used the top of a candy corn for the mouth. I created quite a mess in my kitchen but hopefully it is worth it when my nieces and family taste the turkey's...

My messy work area...

Waiting his face...

The leftover cake balls... I covered some in chocolate and sprinkles for afternoon snacks tomorrow...

Packing up the turkey's

All packed up... ready to go...

I also made potato and Ham soup for tomorrow as well... Here it is getting ready to boil...

My niece enjoying the Turkey...

Two weddings and two cakes

2009-11-18T21:57:00.000-05:00

Two of my co-workers are celebrating special occasions so two special cakes were in order.

I made a chocolate chip chocolate cake for Stella and a vanilla cake for Alicia. Both were a hit with all of my co-workers!

Here are the guests of honor...

The bobble heads make another appearance...

Magnolia Bakery

2009-11-07T22:28:00.000-05:00

Went to NY and got a chance to visit the Magnolia Bakery (Made famous by this episode of sex in the city). They were really really good... The icing had a cream cheese after taste- pure butter- really slightly unbelievable for buttercream... Here are some pics of the cupcake fun!

I started with the chocolate...

Jason wanted to start with chocolate as well...

The line was out the door... The wait wasn't too bad... Only about 10 minutes.

Princess Lindsey

2009-10-24T23:05:00.011-04:00

Today was my niece's 3rd birthday. I can't believe she is growing up so fast!!! When first asked about her birthday cake she requested a cake with backyardgens, Ariel and Handy Mandy all surrounded by sprinkles. Luckily my sister narrowed it down to a princess party theme and every princess needs a castle right?

I searched cakecentral and a few other websites for inspiration. I was challenged with figuring out how to make the torrents and not make the cake too complicated for transport. I used sugar ice cream cones and painted them with food coloring and added a little sparkle for fun. The top pointed cones were coated in icing and then covered in sprinkles. The cake was two boxes of chocolate baked in 9” cake pans. With one 6” for the top. The moat was blue food coloring and piping gel. Rocks were fondant along with the lettering. I used a stone mat to make an impression around the outside of the cake to make it look like a castle… Added vines and flowers to make it look girly and princess like… The best part of making cakes for my nieces is the delivery. Lindsey and Lilly were both so excited about the cake, which was awesome. Lindsey turned to me and said "Aunt Amy, I love you". Melts my heart every time I hear that... That's the best thank you you can get...

A few pictures of some action shots along the way...

Sister Lilly getting in on the picture action

Lindsey Showing off her earings. I love this profile shot.

This was the castle that inspired my cake...

Cake in the trunk ready for transport

CakeStar meets Ace of Cakes!!

2009-09-23T07:42:00.029-04:00

I entered a contest with A&P markets, which I found by reading the Charm City Cakes Blog. I had to submit a short essay describing my favorite birthday memory. Here is my submission:

My Family Rocks

For my 30th birthday a few years ago my family threw me a surprise birthday party. The theme of the party was 1980's candy. It was great! We had pop rocks, pez, rock candy, candy straws, and lots of other fun stuff. I was surrounded by friends and family and felt very loved. The attached picture is from my 1st birthday. Although I don't remember it, my family has always made our birthday's special. Thanks for a chance to possibly meet duff. I have a great amount of respect for the work that his bakery does. It is amazing. I make cakes for my friends and family and it would be a dream come true to be a part of the A&P 150th birthday celebration. You can check out my cakes at www.cakestar.blogspot.com

That was it, short and sweet. That got me selected as one of the 50 winners from over 800 applications. Pretty Cool. It wasn't until I was at the event that I realized how lucky I was... I think my baby picture sealed the deal... I'm pretty darn cute. When I got the call from Paige telling me that I won, I was in disbelief. I think I said to her 4time- "Seriously?". It was one of those moments when you are like- is this really happening? Do people actually win these contests? I was on my way to dragon boating practice when I got the call. When I arrived to practice I bounded out of my car and announced that I just won... I was so excited!!!

Duff and Geof were exactly like they are on the show. Geof is laid back and duff is excitable and lovable. Duff MC'd the event and told us a little story about how we was connected to both A&P and Blue Bunny. He grew up in Sandwich, Massachusetts and the A&P was the only thing in the town which was his life saver. His connection to blue bunny is in the magic of it's ability to motivate his staff to be more productive. He believes he can get two or three more hours out of Geof if he offers him ice cream.

I took pictures of the day and have laid them out in photo essay of sorts... I hope it captures my excitement. It wasn't just the fact that I got to meet Geof (and Duff), I also got to be part of a charm city cake event. Duff and Geof likely don't show up event together too often so I feel lucky to have been a part of such a fun afternoon.

It all started at 7:30am. I drove to Hoboken. I parked and took public transportation over to Manhattan. On my walk to the path train in Hoboken, I stopped at Carlo's- home of the Cake Boss. It is a real bakery with beautiful pastries... They were getting ready to take pictures or something that morning for the show so they had security and lots of stuff in front of the bakery. It was open so I went in. I saw two of his sister and his mom. I didn't talk to them, they looked really busy but I did get my picture taken with some of the bakery staff. I don't watch the show enough to know if they were ever on it (probably not) but at least I can say I was there... I didn't eat any pastries- I didn't see any low fat or low cal anything- it is a bakery! so I bought some water and went on my way...

Here is the Cake Boss bakery- Carlo's - All the production equipment was out on the side walk....

Some staff at Carlos's. Buddy's consult area was to the left in this picture.

The inside of the bakery

Buddy's mom walking into the bakery

New Jersey Transit was welcoming me to the Hoboken Terminal...

The view of the empire state building from the Hoboken side of the river.

The hoboken train station is pretty cool... Beautiful old train station...

The event was held in the Boathouse Restaurant at 72nd & 5th Street in Central Park. I navigated my way from Hoboken to 33rd St station to central park (Special thanks to my cousin Anya for here navigation consultation on Monday). I was set to go and didn't get lost...

Here I am, I have arrived... At this point I only knew of Duff being there but then all of the sudden out of the back of the parking lot- Geof made his way into the restaurant. I was SOOOOOOOO excited! It was confirmed. I would get to meet Geof. Don't get me wrong- I love Duff like everyone else. But Geof is more my man- quite, sincere, a great-dry sense of humor and I imagine having good meaningful conversation (of course I don't know him but this is in my mind...).

As soon as we got in we got in line to get our picture taken with Duff and Geof! Very Very Very exciting!!! One of the staff took my camera and took these pictures for me. It all happened so fast that I didn't think to put my arm around Geof. Duff gives you a bear hug and Geof came in on the side. I shook their hands and introduced myself and said something to the effect of I love your work!

After the pictures we mingled with the staff of blue bunny and A&P then we found out seats. I sat with a mother/ daughter pair from Connecticut or Massachusetts that I met when we were waiting outside. the mother's name was Sundae, she was really nice and her daughter was really excited to see duff. They served wonderful hor devours and a fabulous lunch. Here are the the pretty center pieces on the table. Hydrangea's are my favorite flower...

I didn't really get a good picture of the cake in the beginning so I went back and took a few more...
The cake took a little over 80 hours to complete. They had 2 cake deliveries in NY on Tuesday. I can't remember where the other one was going but obviously this was the more important one since we had both Duff and Geof. Duff said he is making a new rule that there will be no cakes on Tuesday because that means they don't get their weekend... And they like their weekends...

Elana made all of the little ice cream containers.

This fan brought Duff and Geof a cake. It had the staff laying on the beach. I think they were excited to get it but I doubt they will eat it... They are surrounded by cake all of the time...

The CEO of A&P Markets cuts the first piece

Duff sounding the horn on the truck. Geof was working with some dry ice. Because it was an ice cream truck they wanted it to look cold and were going to put the dry ice in the back. They ultimately decided not to do it so we settled for some more horn blowing and lights flashing...

Duff talking about Geof installing the horn

Duff still talking about the cake

I asked duff if he would be tweeting about this event. He said he would and that he tweeted for the first time yesturday. I said I know I saw it!

The first piece cut

The paper had details of A&P's beginings

The A&P sign on the top of the truck rotated. The light in the lamppost flickered. The street signs were authentic to the area where A&P started same with the backdrop buildings. They added a lot of detail....

The back of the truck was open. I guess because of all of the electronics

During lunch they rotated pictures that the 50 winners uploaded with their applications as well as some pictures from of delivery trucks and store fronts over the 150 years of A&P markets. I uploaded my 1st birthday party picture with chocolate cake all over my face. Very cute picture I must say, which is why I think they picked my application... Here is my baby picture on the monitor

Duff Talking with my baby picture on the monitor in the back ground

Moving the cake back to the kitchen to cut

My piece of cake. It was surprisingly moist. I thought since it was a stacked cake that it would need to be more of a pound cake consistency but it was really light and moist. It was marble flavored. The buttercream wasn't as sweet as the kind I make so I was looking for a little more sweetness. Overall, I would rate the cake very tasty. The ice cream was really good. The two together tasted awesome!

This link will be updated with the grandprize winner's information as well as pictures from the event

http://www.chefduffpromotion.com/

Here is a recap of the event from a Blue Bunny employee's perspective. She has a blog called the Sweet Life

Overall, a caketastic day!!! Thanks to A&P and Blue Bunny for making it possible!!!

August Babies

2009-08-28T23:25:00.004-04:00

There are 5 family birthdays this week including my own. I've been wanting to make this blue flower cake for a while and decided to attempt it for my birthday. I found the idea on cakecentral, there are so many talented decorators out there. I'm glad to borrow their creative cake ideas.
This a chocolate cake covered in buttercream. I made the flowers on a flower nail and then froze them to make them easier to get on the cake. I had a few placement issues but covered them up with extra icing.
I made a second cake for a party on Sunday. I used the leftover pansies and chocolate butterflies I made earlier in the week with Michelle's help. Overall, another cute cake...

Happy birthday to Mom, Katie, Nicole, Luke & Me!!

Roses ready to go into the freezer

Pansies awaiting the freezer as well

Start of the assembly. I moved the roses around a little and covered the mistakes with extra icing.

Adding the pansies

Threadcakes contest

2009-08-22T14:17:00.004-04:00

Check out the winners of this contest.

The Cakes are based on Threadless T-shirt designs.

There are so many talented cake decorators out there it is unbelievable...

I had to share this:
http://www.threadcakes.com/home/winners

Cupcakes with Lauren

2009-08-16T09:22:00.006-04:00

My cousin came to hang out with me for the weekend. After an eventful day of walking around the city we decided to make yellow cupcakes for a family picnic the next day. We made fondant flowers and leaves and used leftover buttercream icing I had in the fridge. All of the icing was different colors since it was leftover from different cakes so we tried to change the colors to match. Lauren did a great job pipping the base icing and making the flowers.

Lauren molding the flowers

Drying Flowers and Leaves

Lauren Pipping the base of the cupcakes

Cupcakes waiting for their flowers

Red Velvet Baby Cake

2009-08-12T14:47:00.006-04:00

Was asked to make a red velvet cake for a friend of a friend's baby shower. The special order of this cake was that it had to be red velvet in memory of the expectant mom's grandmother. Easy enough, I thought... I used my largest pan 12x 18 x2 and mixed the first three boxes of red velvet mix as I normally do. caked cooled, flipped it out of the pan. No problem. I then mixed the next three boxes for the second layer except this time I ran out of regular eggs so I used all egg whites. Apparently when you are making a large cake you need the eggs to make the cake less crumbly... When I flipped the second layer onto the already crumb coated bottom layer it broke apart. It was 10:30pm. I was sad... What to do. The next day I went to the store to buy more mix. Guess what- Not everyone sells it anymore. I went to 6 grocery stores including my favorite Giant until I found it at the shoprite down the street... Yikes! This time I didn't have any problems when I flipped the cake over.
The rest of the cake went smoothly. I made three batches of icing- it took 9 cups of icing to cover this large cake. I smoothed the butter cream, added fondant circle accents, did a transfer pattern using white chocolate for the baby carriage.

The cake tragedy- a crumbled mess

The mess- cleaned up. I think I'm going to try cake pops with the crumbles...

The second cake-in one piece waiting to be flipped onto the bottom layer

The bottom layer crumb coated

The back of the chocolate transfer

Fondant circle cut outs

Circles drying

The carriage flipped onto the cake. In hind sight I should have made it bigger but you live and learn...

The carriage and circles- I thought it needed a little more so I added a circle of stars around the carriage, you can see on the final picture at the top of the blog