Boop-Boop-A-Doop!

My wonderful friend Erin's mom was retiring from her role that she's had for 35 years.  Erin wanted to celebrate this wonderful occasion with a cake and asked me to make one for her. 

The flavor of the cake changed a few times before she settled on red velvet.  Seriously...it's SO good!  The cream cheese frosting is the creamiest, melt-in-your-mouth sort of frosting.  I was really excited to bake this for her.

Then Erin said that she just wanted "Happy Retirement" or something written on it.  But after talking with her mom, she discovered that her mom wanted a Betty Boop cake.  This was a shock to Erin, as her mom has never mentioned Betty Boop...ever.  But nevertheless, that was what she wanted.   We've all had a pretty good laugh about this;  Erin's mom, Sheila, is a real hoot!

So, here's the cake I made to celebrate her retirement. 

This is a red velvet cake with the creamiest cream cheese frosting.   Betty Boop and the border are made from chocolate cream cheese frosting, and the lettering is a gum paste/fondant mix. 

And here's Sheila with her cake.  (LOVE the glasses!!!)

Sheila - I hope that you enjoy your retirement and all of the new experiences coming your way!

Yee-Haw! Cowboy Glenn!

Glenn is my mom's boss.  He's also my realtor (best one EVER!!).  He's also a cowboy. 

So to celebrate Glenn's 50th birthday, my mom wanted to do something special for her dear boss and commissioned yours truly to make a cake in the shape of a cowboy hat. 

The cake, and cupcakes that follow (my mom wanted to throw those in too...), were all gluten-free chocolate.  I filled the cakes with vanilla buttercream and topped the cake with fondant and used gum paste to make the brim of the cowboy hat.  

The cupcakes were topped with chocolate buttercream and fondant decoration. 

Glenn, I send you warm birthday wishes!  I hope this is the best one yet!

As an aside, if you're looking for a realtor in the Lake Country Area, give Glenn a call.  He'll take EXCELLENT care of you and your real estate needs! 

http://www.shorewest.com/vp/AgentServlet?SITE=SHOREW&ScreenID=AGENT_DETAIL_P&cd_Agent=5057

Animal-tastic Baby Shower Cake

So, after seeing some of my cakes on some of her friends' Facebook pages, Kari figured she MUST know me.  We have mutual friends afterall!  Turns out we went to high school together and it was a BLAST to see her again!  She requested a baby shower cake to go with the invitation that looked like this:

And here's the cake I made for the celebration.  It is my FAVORITE flavor combination.  Chocolate cake with buttercream, chocolate fudge and Oreo cookies in the middle.  Oh.My.Gosh.  It is divine!  

I hope the shower was super fun!  Thanks so much, Kari, for thinking of me!  It was wonderful to see you again!

Birthday Present Birthday Cake

Jessica and Brooke are sisters who were planning a joined birthday party for their kids.  Five in total would be celebrating their special days.  For Jess' kids' birthday last year, you may remember this trio?  Each kid got their own cake and cupcakes to match. 

This year, Jessica and Brooke thought it would be fun to have a cake for all of them, but one that looked like a bunch of birthday presents, so they requested a three-tiered cake.  

Neither Jessica nor Brooke were concerned about colors or design or even flavors.  Although, she did say that the biggest tier had to be Red Velvet cake.  Fans they are!

So I started baking and creating and this is what I came up with!

Because there were four boys, Jackson, Mason, Noah and Jake, I wanted to keep the colors a little more masculine.  I chose blues, greens, yellow and orange for the entire cake color scheme. 

For Lauryn's cake (the top tier), I made it green (however there was a pink surprise underneath - I'll get to flavors in a second), but I added little white flowers on hers with purple centers;  a shout out to her cake last year. 

The top tier was yellow cake with raspberry buttercream and raspberry preserve filling.   The middle tier was a chocolate cake with Oreos and buttercream/fudge filling.  And, as requested, the largest, bottom tier was red velvet cake with creamy, cream cheese frosting.   They are all topped with a bow that brings together all of the colors in a festive way. 

I hope that Lauryn, Jackson, Noah, Mason and Jake all had a fabulous birthday celebration!!!  This was a super fun cake to do!  Thanks!

Kalli's Cake Pops

Baby Kalliope turned 1 this weekend.  Her mom, a friend of mine from high school, Angie, requested some cake pops to celebrate this great occasion.  They were planning to visit the hospital and the nursing staff and wanted to bring them something to celebrate.  Cake pops are a truly ideal option, don't you think?  They're nicely packaged, and bite-sized, but delicious. 

Angie wanted chocolate and yellow cake pops and she wanted half to be green, with green sprinkles and half of them to be pink with pink sprinkles.  I added the little "k" on them for added flair and I really think they turned out cute. 

Forgive my photography here.  Note to self:  take pictures of cake pops before wrapping them.  I apologize...but lesson learned.  I've got some cake pops coming up in October which will be photographed a little better.  

Happy Birthday, Kalli - you amazing little girl!  And congrats to Kalli's parents!

Andrew's Pirate Party

Andrew celebrated his 4th birthday this weekend.  And what a better way than to celebrate in pirate style!

I asked his mom what his favorite flavors were and she told me that Andrew absolutely loves chocolate and raspberries.  Well.  There you go!  That's what he was going to get!

The cake is a chocolate cake with raspberry preserve filling and chooclate cream cheese frosting.  I decorated the top with the fancy skull Jolly Roger and gum paste polka dots and letters.  Getting black frosting is really not that hard if you start with chocolate frosting.  In this case, Andrew would be pleased that decision.  :)

The cupcakes were raspberry cupcakes filled and topped with chocolate cream cheese frosting. 

I found these fantastic cupcake toppers at Amazon.com.  I loved the variety and colors!  

We had a great time at your party, Andrew!  I wish you the best for the coming year!

Christian's Christening Cake

Oooh...nice alliteration with my title, eh? 

This weekend, Christian was baptized and his mom, my wonderful friend Kristie, ordered a cake to celebrate!  This is a chocolate cake with blue buttercream filling and chocolate cream cheese frosting.  I topped the cake with gum paste letters, blue buttercream and blue [white] chocolate crosses. 

Congratulations to you, Christian, and to your family!

The School's Birthday Party

My daugther's school is celebrating its 85th year this year.  To celebrate appropriately, they decided to host a cupcake party after mass this weekend.  I volunteered to bring in some cupcakes and tried something new this time. 

I've made the Ho-Ho cupcakes before and explained these with step-by-step instructions.  And the cupcake at the 12:00 position below in my sample plate looks like most other cupcakes I've done.  But the green one was SUPER fun to do!  I'll be teaching my students this technique in classes this year for SURE!  I used tip 104 to make these ruffles.  I LOVE how it turned out!

Happy Birthday school!  Eighty-five years is something to celebrate for sure!

Vanny and Danny

I was invited to Vanessa's bridal shower and insisted on making cupcakes for the event.  Vanessa is my daughter, Maren's, godmother.  We are so excited for her to marry our great friend Dan (Maren's godfather) that we can hardly stand it over here!

Lisa, Dan's sister (who was co-hosting the shower) requested lemon cupcakes and mint chocolate chip cupcakes.  I filled the lemon cupcakes with some homemade lemon curd and filled the mint chocolate chip cupcakes with some mint chocolate filling.  I topped the lemon cupcakes with some lemon frosting and topped the minty ones with some minty flavored buttercream. 

Lisa requested that they had their wedding colors incorporated in the cupcakes and I did that by making little fondant hearts with Dan and Vanessa's initials. 

V & D = Perfection

I can't wait to celebrate with you two next month!  What a celebration it will be!

Clare's Strawberry Shortcake Cake

Making Clare's birthday cakes are so much fun for me!  Her mom, my good friend Kristie, always comes up with fun themes for the celebration.  The first cake I made for Clare was the My Little Pony Cake.  (By the way, this is my most popular cake...it gets like 200+ hits a day!)

Last year, Kristie requested a My Little Mermaid cake...  I had a lot of fun with this topsy-turvy cake. 

So this year, when she requested a Strawberry Shortcake cake, I was super excited!  This is a strawberry cake with strawberry cream cheese filling.  I topped it with fondant and a cute little Strawberry Shortcake doll set that I thought was absoutely perfect for the occasion. 

I hope Clare has a fabulous birthday celebration!  (And I hope she loves strawberries!!!)



Cake Pops for "Auntie" Stephanie

My parents were heading out to visit some lifelong friends of theirs, George and Stephanie.  My Dad and George served in the Air Force together and have remained friends all these years.  George and my Dad honestly look as though they could be brothers, so my brother and I have always referred to George and Stephanie as "Uncle" George and "Aunt" Stephanie.  I guess you had to be there.  :)

Anyway, during my parents' visit with their friends, Stephanie was celebrating her birthday, so my mom asked me to make some (8) cake pops for their dear friend so they could celebrate with her.  Her favorite flavor was chocolate, so that's what I made.

For the first time in ages, I didn't have any cake scraps so I had to make a cake and then smash it all up for this.  I never think it will, but it always hurts to see a cake go that way.  I guess better in cake pops than on the floor, but I digress.

My mom bought two shades of chocolate; dark and light.  I made four of each and then rolled them in some chocolate jimmy's.  When they were set, I stuck on little pink disks with s's on them (for Stephanie) and wrapped them up nice and tight.  Here's what they looked like:

My mom took this fancy photo.  I like how she put them in a vase...Nice touch, Mom!

I hope "Auntie" Stephanie enjoyed them!  Happy Birthday to you!

*******  My mom sent me this picture from their vacation.  Here's "Auntie" Stephanie with her cake pops.  Yep.  She liked them!

World Traveler Desmond

My nephew, Desmond, will be turning one in a few days and his parents hosted a fabulous birthday party for him this weekend.  The theme of Des' party was "World Traveler".  Has he traveled the world?  No.  But his parents lived in Scotland for several years and they traveled all over Europe in their time there.  Desmond will become very familiar with their travels, so how could he not become a world traveler himself?!  I wonder where he'll venture to first?  Hmmm....

Anyway, for his cake, his mom (my sister-in-law, Lisa) decided on a chocolate cake with chocolate ganache filling.  I swirled in some homemade caramel for good measure (this combination is one of my favorites!) and stacked another chocolate cake on top. 

The mini-cake on top was Des' smash cake.  It's a yellow cake with buttercream filling.   I drew an arrow and wrote "N" on the top of the cake.  This was to be his compass. 

I drew a map of the world on top of the cake.  The color scheme, light chocolate, was chosen so that it looked antique-like.  I added a little more cocoa to the mix and made the borders.

Lisa really wanted a suitcase on his cake, so I made a small little suitcase out of rice krispie treats and covered it in buttercream and blue fondant.  I added some additional fondant "stickers" and "leather" straps and marked it with a "D" for Desmond. 

I also made some yellow cupcakes with vanilla buttercream filling and some "light" chocolate frosting on top.  These cupcakes were topped with "D's" and "1's" to signify Des' first name inital and his age.  But if you go one step further (and I'm stretching it here...), we could call that his airplane seat number.  You with me?   First class for Des!

Here's the cake at its location.  There was a little sign next to the cake that said, "Cake Mama - USA." 

I think I got the colors right - look at how closely they match the goodie bag suitcase!  I love it when things work out like that!

And here's my adorable nephew getting his face full of cake!  You go Des!

I'm so happy that I got to be a part of your special day, Desmond!  Happy Birthday to you and best wishes for the coming year!  I can't wait to be a part of your many adventures!