Easter Chicks

Hope every is enjoying their long Easter weekend with their friends and family.  I'm sure everyone is also savouring some sweets.

For my sweets this weekend, the theme was Easter Chicks (inspired by a blog post by my blog friend, Kathia, at Pink Little Cake.)  Firstly, we have a vanilla butter cake with vanilla swiss meringue buttercream

Chocolate sour cream and strawberry vanilla cupcakes.

Lastly, an easy to make treat of rice krispie squares dressed up with some Easter Chicks.  Happy Easter and have a great week everyone!

Sports Themed Cakes

In the past, I've done some sporty cakes related to working out, hockey and wrestling.  Here's a collection of some more cakes and cupcakes with a sports theme:

For the football fan, Raiders or Vikings....

This football field cake was a surprise groom's cake for a groom who played for the Toronto Argonauts and the bride who was an Argos cheerleader.

 

Cupcakes for the Nike basketball shoe lover.... (yes, these fondant toppers took me forever...)

 

 Cupcakes to enjoy after the gym...

 And finally, cupcakes for those who love curling.

Pink Fashionista Cakes

This past weekend, I participated in a wonderful fundraiser called Toronto Bakes for Japan.  It was a volunteer-organized, Toronto-wide bakesale held at 6 locations over 2 days.  So far, we have raised over $20,000 with 100% of funds going to the Japanese Red Cross Society.

My contribution to the event was inspired from this wonderfully pink bridal shower cake that I made this past weekend.

 

I decided to make mini vanilla butter purse cakes.  They were all one-of-a-kind in a pink and brown palette.

I also made some chocolate sour cream cupcakes with fondant purse toppers.

 

Look how cute the purses were all boxed up and ready for the bakesale!  I had so much fun making these sweet things and met such wonderful people the fundraiser.  I hope we continue to raise additional funds to support Japan's relief efforts.

Toronto Bakes for Japan

It all starts today, Saturday, April 9th:  Over 150 bakers, both amateur and professional have joined together for Toronto Bakes for Japan.  6 locations across Toronto and 100% of process are going directly to the Japanese Red Cross Society and their relief fund for victims of the earthquake.

Here's what you can do Toronto!

1)  Join us on Saturday, April 9th and purchase some goodies!  Here is where you can find us:

• Farmer's Market at Evergreen Brick Works, 550 Bayview Ave:  9am-1pm

2)  Join us on Sunday and purchase some goodies!  Here's where you can find us:

• For the WestEnders:  Liberty Noodle, 171 East Liberty St:  11am-3pm
• For those downtown:  The Rivoli, 334 Queen St W:  11am-3pm
• For those close to Little Italy:  Cafe Diplimatico, 94 College Street:  11am-3pm
• For those near Wychwood Park area:  Amaranto Cafe, 809 St. Clair Ave West:  11am-3pm
• For the Beachers and EastEnders:  Yoshi Sweets, 2359 Queen Street East 10am-5pm

3)  If you can't make it out and would like to participate, you can make an online donation here.

I will be volunteering, with my friend Sam, at the Liberty Noodle location on Sunday.  Hope to see you there!  I will be making mini-purse cakes and also some fashionista cupcakes.  Here's a sneak peak....

 My friend Sam has made some cute Hello Kitty Sugar cookies.  Have a look!

A Spring Wedding

It is spring here in Toronto, although you wouldn't know it.... our weather is sunny, rainy, snowy, warm and cold all in one day.  But it always makes it interesting!

I had the pleasure of creating a wedding cake for a wonderful spring wedding which took place at the beautiful Toronto Hunt Club.   What a gorgeous setting overlooking the water for this sweet couple.

Their 3-tier cake design was simple and elegant:  Small flowers dusted with pearl lustre dust and pale pink lustre dust.  The top tier was Zesty Lemon Butter cake with lemon buttercream, middle tier was Orange Dream with chocolate buttercream and bottom tier was Chocolate Sour Cream cake with vanilla swis meringue buttercream.

Here is a view from the top.  I actually underestimated the number of sugarpaste flowers I needed for the cake needed - Any guesses?

The couple also had matching cupcake takeaways for their guests.  Chocolate Sour Cream cupcakes with Vanilla Swiss Meringue Buttercream.

Dim Sum Anyone? I mean, Dim Sum Cake!

Dim Sum is a traditional chinese dish or a meal that involves small plates or bamboo steamers with small portions of food and drinking lots of tea.   I often crave the dumplings and just the atmosphere of dim sum where the servers will roll around carts stacked with bamboo steamers and you try to get their attention to get the specialty item you are looking for.

Now, this isn't traditional Dim Sum.... it's a CAKE!  Banana Sour Cream cake with vanilla swiss meringue buttercream and the steamer is made out of sugarpaste.

These dumplings are actually strawberry cake bites - yum!  I just loving making cakes that are meant to be other foods.

3rd Birthday: Crane Cake

When my nephew, Maseo, was born 3 years ago, I told my sister that he would always have the best birthday cakes.  On his 1st birthday: it was a Heffalump cake and on his 2nd birthday: it was a Tractor cake.

This year, I thought that I might make him a Thomas the Train cake.  But when I asked what his favorite toy was, he said it was a Crane.  He already knows how to challenge me.  I wonder what next year will bring :-)

The cake was Orange Dream cake with Vanilla Swiss Meringue Buttercream.  And thank you to my husband who built the wooden structure for this cake.  My nephew now plays with the wood stand and has hooked up strings to it like a real crane.

Cakelava Cake Designs

Last week, I had the pleasure of attending a 3-day "Discover your Inner Artist" class with the amazing and uber-talented cake designer Rick Reichart of cakelava.  Rick and his wife Sasha traveled all the way from Hawaii to the amazing cake studio and classroom of Icing Inspirations in Waterloo, Ontario.

Rick was a fabulous teacher as he guided us through two of his amazing designs;  the very popular 3-tier tall hibiscus cake and a Clownfish sculpted cake.  He generously shared with us his design style, techniques, thoughts and created this wonderful atmosphere for all of us to get lost in our cakes.

Here is the wonderful line-up of hibiscus cake designs.  Each one has its little personalization to the floral pattern as they are freehand cut (no cutters).  My cake sits on the far right and the photo below.

 Here I am with the amazing and so genuinely nice cakelava duo Rick and Sasha Reichart.

 

I must also mention all other the wonderful people that I met.  The owners, Chrissie and Justin, of Icing Inspirations and Too Nice to Slice who held these classes - very kind and accomodating to us.  I also met my longtime blog-friends, Brandy, of Cakes-a-nonymous and Angela from The Sugar Cove.

I met so many new cake friends - it was such a wonderful experience to be in a room with so many people with the same passion.  One minute we are all laughing and chatting it up - the next minute, there is complete silence as we are all concentrating on painting the fine details of our cakes.  I loved that - I was in my element!

Here's a photo of Brandy (who kept me laughing all 3 days) and I with our finished clownfish cakes.  Also a top-view of all the sugar details we made during class.

I took so many photos, here are some of my additional favorite ones.  Imagine 17 people airbrushing 2.5 feet tall cakes.... that was a funny moment.

I had the pleasure of meeting the sweet Carrie Biggers of the famous Carrie's Cakes in Utah.  I have been following her beautiful work for many years.

Rick with the clownfish cake all iced with buttercream and ready for fondant - yes, it is cake!

7th Birthday Cake: Puppy Cake

Last year, I made a 6th birthday cake for a girl who loves dogs.  For her 7th birthday, it was the same theme and I could do any design I wanted to.

I have to admit, I do have this thing where I refuse/avoid making carved cakes that look like realistic animals, babies and also baby bumps - I know its just cake, but I still can't stand the thought of a knife cutting into it.  However, for animal cakes, as long as I can make them stuffed animal looking and cartoony, then its okay by me.  Here's some other views of the puppy cake.

 

Any other cakers feel the same or is it just me?

Camaro Z28 Cake

It's been a while since I posted a car cake... and this one sure is slick!  It's a vanilla butter Camaro Z28 cake for a 60th birthday.

 And of course, the final touch, the birthday boy with his favorite car and dog.