What Happens in Vegas...

Sarah and Steve contacted me in February about doing their wedding cake in June. It was nice to have a head's up on the cake and planning because this one required a LOT of communication and planning. Both Sarah and Steve were a dream couple. Seriously. Full of ideas, flexible with others and just easy-going, with a very CLEAR picture of what they wanted. :)

The correspondence started with an email that included this picture of a cake.

The colors of their wedding were this pretty sky-aqua blue, black and damask print. So this cake was really great for them. Sarah, however, preferred a square cake to a round cake, and wanted three tiers instead of two. The more research I did on this cake, the more cake experts I spoke with about it, the more I realized I wouldn't be able to do this for them. The damask print on the cake is actually done with royal icing which I feared would run all over the place if condensation would become an issue (and in June, you never know). I could drop off the cake and it would look great, but as the night went on, it could become a big mess = a nightmare for me. So Sarah looked on...

...and came across this one.

The colors weren't right, too many layers, and she preferred the stacks to be centered, but this incorporated damask ribbon (I won't even go in to how hard it was to track down the right size and style...ugh...Sarah was a trooper!). Sarah requested that behind the ribbon, I place some black fondant down and put the ribbon on top of the black fondant around the cake.

So after about 20 hours of baking, making fondant, filling, frosting, and decorating the cakes, I finally got to drop it off at its final destination. I walked into the room and knew I was in the right one! (Isn't it gorgeous?!)

Here I am being anal about EVERYTHING.

The top layer was a 6-inch, 3-layer red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting. The bottom two layers, an 8-inch, 3-layer and a 12-inch, 3-layer, were both white cakes with chocolate fudge filling.

Sarah and Steve had the glass topper specially made which includes their names, the date of their marriage and the Las Vegas logo (they got married there less than a month ago and are celebrating with family and friends tonight).

Sarah and Steve, I wish you both a happy and joyful marriage! Thanks for asking me to be a part of it!

(P.S. A special thank you to my Mom - I couldn't have done it without you!)

Happy Father's Day!

My husband is an absolutely INCREDIBLE father to our daughter, Josie. Their relationship is just one of the cutest things I've ever seen. They're super silly together and the way Josie admires her daddy is super special. That's why when Father's Day came around, I needed to do something special for Danny.

One of his all-time favorite desserts is a double-decker chocolate chip cookie cake. After buying one for so many years, I decided a few years ago to take a stab at it myself. Finding the right pan was the challenge until I started using my baking stone from Pampered Chef. That thing worked like magic! It baked the cookie completely through in about 15 minutes flat. Since this experiment, I only make them from scratch.

So on Danny's special day, after we went out for lunch, Josie and I started making this special treat for Daddy. She added the sugar and the rest of the dry ingredients like SUCH a good helper-girl. I baked each of the cookies and then decorated the cake. The two cakes are held together by a thick Oreo buttercream frosting layer. The top is decorated with vanilla buttercream and a few royal icing flowers.

And here's the proud girl and very entertained Daddy posing for a quick picture.

Happy Father's Day, Danny! Josie (and Lincoln) are SO lucky to have you!

Bee Bop

Nancy contacted me about a fundraising event for the First Stage Children's Theater in Milwaukee. They were wrapping up the end of their season-long FUNdraiser, Adopt a Bee, and were hosting a BEE BOP for all of the donors of this campaign. (For more info - http://www.firststage.org/supportus/) The event was held on Friday, June 17th and featured all things BEE! They had a raffle drawing, games, activities, a storytime, music and dancing, and some munchies, and of course, some Cake Mama cupcakes. :)

I made all chocolate cupcakes but half of them I frosted with vanilla frosting and the other half was chocolate frosting. I also added a little fondant bee on the top of each cupcake to coordinate with their fun theme for the event.

Getting the striped fondant was more of an experiment for me. I made skinny ropes of yellow and black fondant and placed them really close together on my baking surface. Then I rolled and got a solid piece of striped fondant, perfect for my little bees. The cut-out I used was a heart and I cut the heart in half to get a bee. I think they turned out pretty cute.

I hope the event was spectacular. Thanks, Nancy, for asking me to be a part of it!

A Little Recognition

Danny commissioned me to make two cakes for two of the women who work for him on his team. Both of the ladies are outstanding employees who have also worked for the company for over 10 years. Danny recognized them through the normal channel at work, but also rewarded them with a Cake Mama cake. (I got that awesome hydrangea wreath I've had my eye on...because I love to barter.)

So, this was an opportunity for me to use some of the new tools I've recently acquired. Wilton has come out with fondant/gum paste molds that have honestly made cake decorating super duper fun! (It was already super; I added the duper...because of these new tools.) Each one of these molds retails for $9.99, but if you use a Michael's 40% off coupon to buy them, it's a pretty sweet deal.

These molds work really well and I had a great time experimenting with pressing the fondant into them and seeing what came out. It brought me back to my Play Dough days of the fun factory and all was bliss.

Here's a picture the molds. I used two of them for the cakes below.

This first cake used the pink mold. Very fun and cute buttons. The cake is a chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream. Pretty simple but delicious!

I used the orange mold for this one. Another chocolate cake with strawberry buttercream.

It's fun to know that these cakes were given as gifts and to totally deserving recipients. I also had a lot of fun making them and experimenting with my new tools. I look forward to using them some more on future cakes. Keep these in mind when ordering!

Graduation Goodies

Brooke requested a Cake Mama dessert for a graduation party she was hosting. We threw around a couple of ideas and Brooke decided on cupcakes which I was SO excited to do. She wanted yellow cupcakes with chocolate ganache filling and chocolate buttercream frosting. MMMM!

She also wanted caps and diploma scrolls to be placed on top of each of the cupcakes. I made those out of gum paste. To make the scrolls, I rolled out some gum paste really thin (so thin that I could see through it), and then cut a square for each of the scrolls. I rolled each of those and let them dry for about a week. The hats were made the day I assembled the cupcakes. Those were just diamond and circle-shaped pieces of gum paste glued together with gum glue, a mixture of gum paste and water. I added the black buttercream detailing with a #2 tip and the rest is history. I totally LOVE the way they turned out!!

Here's the lot of them. :)

Brooke seemed happy too! I hope the party was GREAT!