Cookie Monster Cake

Cookie anyone?  Well, there are actually no cookies - only cake for this 2nd birthday celebration!

Cookie monster, including his head is vanilla butter cake and the cookie jar is chocolate sour cream cake.

 

Fabergé Egg Cake

I am not a collector, but if I was... the two things that I would collect would be those cute Russian Matryoshka dolls and these lovely Fabergé Eggs.  I was very excited when I received an order for a Faberge Egg for a 70th birthday.

I also added in 2 handmade sugarpaste dogs for the birthday girl.  The cake was chocolate pound cake with chocolate swiss meringue buttercream.

Here is a cool view from the top.  Now, I sure hope someone orders a Matryoshka doll cake soon!  :-)

Painter's Cake

A quick post to kick off the weekend!  This cake was made for someone who loves her kids and loves to paint.  The cake was Neopolitan with layers of vanilla, chocolate and strawberry cake.

Enjoy your weekend, make sure you spend time with someone you love and take some time out for yourself and do something you love!

Can I put wires in a cake?

I have learned so many new techniques over the years, so I thought I'd pass along this tip that I learned early in my cake decorating career and I still stick by it.  I was told by one of my instructors that you should never put a wire directly in a cake.

Why?  Well, in rare cases, it may break and someone could ingest it.  No, I have never heard of it happening, but better to be safe even if you provide good instructions on how to disassemble a cake before serving.

What are the options?

#1 - Use a coffee stir stick to house all the wires.  This bowling cake has a starburst of many wires.  This monkey cake also shows the stir stick which makes it easy to disassemble before serving.

#2 - Wrap your wires with floral tape.  However, most floral tape have latex in it and you have to watch for latex allergies.  Have I ever heard of any allergic reactions?  No, but its better to be careful and inform the client.

#3 - Use Floral Spikes.  These are usually used for fresh flowers, but I use this for sugarpaste flowers.  They are expensive, but worth it.   For this cake, they were easier to remove and preserve as the sugarpaste petals didn't touch the cake.

#4 - Dip in white chocolate or white candy melts.   If none of the above options works for your design, you can also dip the wire ends with white chocolate or white candy melts.

I hope you find these options helpful.  Again, it is rare that there are any issues, but I do this to be on the safe side.  Anybody do anything different?

5th Birthday: Cars 2 Cupcakes

Happy Friday everyone!  Hope you have a wonderful weekend.  I'll leave you with these fun Cars 2 themed cupcakes for a 5th birthday.

5 Years Ago: My First Wedding Cake

I was just reminded that it has been 5 years since I made my first wedding cake!  I had made practice wedding cakes with styrofoam and special occasion cakes, but this was my first "real" wedding cake!

I felt so honored that my friend, Denise, would trust me to make her wedding cake.  It was her famous flourless chocolate cake recipe and the design required a freehand embossing technique.   I also remember offereing to give her the cake as her wedding gift.  She thought it was too generous so she had to give me something for the down payment.  She ended up giving me her triathlon wetsuit as I doing a lot of races that year.

Here are some photos of me setting up that wedding cake 5 years ago.  I was so nervous throughout the process but excited.  I dreamed that it would one day be my career, not just a hobby.

Fast forward 5 years.... hundreds of cakes later... Thank you so much for stopping by, reading my blog, leaving comments along the way and your continued business.

Happy 5 year Wedding Anniversary to Denise and Roland!  You'll never know how much it meant that your trusted me with your wedding cake and how it really kicked off my career!

1st Birthday Cake

My cake designs are usually one-of-a-kind for my clients.  I try not to duplicate any previous cakes so everyone has their own custom details.  In this case, the client wanted the same cake as I previously made, except a bit smaller.

I still made a few slight modifications to the nose and the tail.  Isn't that a cute face?  :-)

 The cake was chocolate sour cream cake with chocolate swiss meringue buttercream.

40th Birthday Cake: Disco Cake

What a fun fun fun cake!  I was asked to make a colorful disco-themed cake to celebrate a 40th birthday.  I have made a disco ball before for a dessert table, so I was excited to re-create it.  So I added in lots of color like disco lights and a disco floor with a sprinkle of edible disco dust.

The dancers were free-hand cut and after I took these photos, I added in a few more dancers.

A view from the top - isn't this super fun?

1st Birthday Cake: Topsy Turvy Cake

I was given a lovely color palette to create this 1st birthday cake.  I just love how this topsy turvy cake turned out.  Both tiers were chocolate sour cream cake with chocolate swiss meringue buttercream.

Winnie the Pooh Cake

Many of you might know that I just adore Classic Pooh cake designs and my daughter loves her Pooh Bear.  I was excited to do a 1st birthday cake with the modern and more colorful Winnie the Pooh characters.

There is Tigger hiding in the back of the cake.  You can also see how I put my wires in the cake, I've been meaning to put together a blog post about "Should I put wires directly in my cake?"  Let me know what your thoughts are on that.