Curious Will...I mean George!

My friend Kate requested a cake for her son's 2nd birthday. She was going with a Curious George theme for him and his birthday party. I hadn't done a Curious George cake before and I couldn't wait to get started!

We decided on a 10-inch chocolate cake with a Curious George face on top. She also wanted some cupcakes to accomodate the many guests she was hosting. So, I suggested banana cupcakes with chocolate frosting. You know, because monkeys like bananas. I would top each cupcake with a little yellow hat.

Here's how the cake turned out. I made George out of a gum paste/fondant blend.

Here are the cupcakes with the yellow hats which are made out of gum paste and colored with edible black food marker.

Here's the cake and cupcakes at their final destination.

I know it's not cake-related, but these are the party favors for the kids. Too cute not to share!

And here's the birthday boy! What a cutie!

Happy Birthday, Will! I hope you had a fantastic day! Thanks for having me be a part of it!

Captain America

My wonderful husband is a real fan of Captain America. Always has been. His favorite super hero indeed. So, when he requested a Captain America cake for his birthday, I was ready to roll. That is, until he came across a picture of Captain America cake pops that he wanted instead. I was all for it!

Cake pops are not hard to make, but they ARE time consuming. There are a lot of steps involved in making them and in making them well. I always forget about this. But when the finished product is in front of me, I'm always pleased - and they are a fan favorite!

I took some chocolate and vanilla cakes and mixed them together with a smidge of frosting until they were able to stick together for me to form them into balls. I refrigerated them for a few minutes and began to melt the red melting candy. When that was ready to roll, I dipped each of the sticks into a little bit of the melted candy and inserted them into the cake balls. Back into the refrigerator until I was ready for dipping.

Later, I let the cake pops sit out at room temperature while I got the candy melted again. I found that when I dip the pops cold, the candy tends to crack. They need to be chilled, not cold. So, I dipped each one into the melted candy and let them set up for a few minutes.

Later in the day, I began decorating. I used a gum paste/fondant mix for the white and blue decor and I attached everything using some more of the melted candy.

Then, I wrapped each one in a cellophane bag and tied them with some ribbon.

This was the box of goodies that Danny brought in to share with his team at work.

And these were what we had for his birthday celebration after work.

Happy Birthday, Sweetie! I hope you had a great day!

Easter Bunny!

For Easter, we had a simple celebration with my family after dinner. My nephew, Connor, and his parents (my brother and sister-in-law), along with my parents, came over for some egg hunting fun and cake.

Sometimes, it's nice to take a break from baking cakes, and I decided to make a cookie cake instead. My daughter was most helpful in helping me bake the cake and also in decorating the cake. She doesn't have the hand strength to hold and squeeze the pastry bag of frosting yet, but was able to guide my hand while I squeezed the frosting out to create this fantastic Easter bunny.

She's so proud of her creation and it was a delicious addition to our already abundant Easter celebration. Happy Easter, Everyone!

Zombie...Monkey?!

Caution. You've been warned.

Eric contacted me to do his wife's 30th birthday cake. I never know what order will come next or what a client will request, but this one was...unique. Dalia loves monkeys and zombies. So Eric thought it would be awesome to make a Zombie Monkey cake. If you've ever done a Google Image search for "zombie cakes" you would be blown away by the gruesome things you will find. So I was ecstatic that Eric wanted a more "cute" zombie monkey to top Dalia's cake. Here's the inspiration:

Eric also thought it would be cool to have blood spatters and intestines on the sides of the cake. After doing my research, however, I found all of the pictures of intestines to be...well...unappetizing. So instead, I recommended making little brains (zombies eat brains afterall) for the cake border. Here's the picture I sent to Eric and we thought it to be a good compromise.

So here's the final cake. A gum paste Zombie Monkey front and center. Gum paste brains on the four corners. Strawberry preserves dripping down the sides. The cake itself was a chocolate cake with chocolate Kahlua filling and buttercream frosting.

Dalia - I hope you have a VERY wonderful birthday! Eric - thanks for the challenge (and the giggles).

Milwaukee Fire Department

My friend Jessica requested a Cake Mama cake for her husband's 20th anniversary party with his colleagues at the Milwaukee Fire Department. What an honor! She sent over some inspirational ideas and one picture had the Maltese Cross and the other was a cake filled with flames. I thought it fun to incorporate both for this cake. It needed to feed 60 people, so a sheet cake seemed the best solution.

The Maltese Cross and flames are made out of a gum paste/fondant mix and the rest of the cake is covered in buttercream. The left side of the cake is chocolate with chocolate ganache and caramel filling and the right side of the cake is a yellow cake with raspberry buttercream filling. I honestly don't know which side I would go for first!!

This cake was a huge honor for me to make and I appreciate ALL of the work the firefighters do for our community.

Thank You For Helping Us Grow!

My friend Beth placed an order for her son's teacher's birthday celebration. She wanted a cake for the teacher to take home and cupcakes to share with her class. As inspiration, she sent me this picture of a platter that they were going to give to the teacher as a thank you for her hard work.

I love it when clients do this, by the way. It's fun for me to personalize a cake in this way.

So, when I looked at the inspiration, I really wanted to incorporate the flower for obvious reasons and I thought that green would be the best accent color. So here's what I came up with.

It's not pictured, but I added writing on the side of the cake that said, "Thank you for helping us grow." I felt that the side was a little naked and needed something more.

Here's the top of the cake. I was able to imprint each of the petals and when complete, I used some purple luster dust to give it some sheen and accentuate the imprints.

These are the matching cupcakes for the class.

The cake is a yellow cake with chocolate buttercream and half of the cupcakes are yellow and the other half are chocolate. The flowers are made out of fondant.

I hope JP's teacher has a great birthday celebration!

Chocolate Kahlua Cake

Erin requested a birthday cake for her husband, Steve's, birthday. Steve is a HUGE chocolate fan and I'm told he's also a fan of Kahlua. Erin requested a chocolate cake with some sort of Kahlua twist to it, to incorporate two of Steve's favorite flavors. I was game!

The best part of this cake was that the decorating was minimal. I really do enjoy a simply decorated cake from time to time. No fondant. No words. Just buttercream. Chocolate Kahlua buttercream on this one! I also added some shredded chocolate bits on top, just for fun.

Steve, I hope your birthday was a great one! I also hope that all of your wishes came true! ;)

Also, thanks to Erin for taking the pictures and sending them my way. This was one cake that slipped out before I got the chance to photograph it. I'm forever grateful!