Time to play catch up!

It has been a crazy busy month. Between my birthday, holiday parties and cakes I have been super busy.

My birthday was the 4th. After a great day spent with my mom and best buddy Bobbie, we joined my twin sister for our traditional family dinner. I did not make my own cake, it came from the only place I will eat store bought cakes Publix.

Goofy hats

Publix cake

I was also honored to make the 1st birthday cake from Nate's birthday. Nate was born very premature and is doing wonderful. His mom Leanne only asked that the cake be royal blue and green. She mentioned frogs and I ran with it. I have to say this was by far my favorite cake of all time. This was so much fun. Had fondant frog, Lilly pad and rocks. Everyone wanted to celebrate the miracle of Nate so the guest list keep growing. We added cupcakes at the last moment and I made mini Lilly pads.

I was also asked by very good friends Jimmy and Nichole to make a 2nd birthday cake for their son Dillon. He wanted a safari theme. I made out of fondant a lion, giraffe, elephant, zebra, monkey and hippo. I love making kids cakes, they are so much fun!

The holidays baking kept me very busy. I am known at work as the baker so it seemed fitting that I make something for my co-workers. My online friend Shawna gave me a recipe for pumpkin chocolate chip bread. I found these cute little ceramic loaf pans at Michael's and the mini ornaments at Joanne's. I made 22 batches of these and I figured the total cost was less that $2.00 each. My co-workers loved and enjoyed them.

I was asked by Ruby to make her a cake for her annual Christmas get-together. She asked for red velvet with cream cheese icing. I made her cake in the shape of a gift and added the bow and tag. She sent me a message and said she loved it.

And finally, my darling sister asked for a cake for the centerpiece of the dinning table. I found the cutest candle cake on cakecentral.com. This cake was white almond sour cream (my favorite) and I added peppermint schnapps as the liquid in the icing and crushed up candy canes in between the layers. It was delish!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas ( I did) and an even more amazing 2010.

I want to thanks my amazing husband Jeff, without his support and muscular hands (for mixing fondant) I would not be able to pursue my passion. My kids Elizabeth ( my #1 fan), Alex, my stepdaughters Ashley and Amber for being such great kids. I am truly blessed everyday by the amazing support system I have around me. I LOVE YOU ALL!

My baby's 9th birthday cake

Elizabeth and I searched for a month for a cake design she wanted. She decided she wanted a hot pink zebra purse with high heels, lipstick and other accesories. The high heels, lipstick, pearls and cell phone are homemade marshmellow fondant. I am very happy with how this one turned out and best of all my daughter loved it.

Matthew wrestling cake!

My nephew Matthew turned 10 and asked Aunt Mindy to make his cake. He requested a wrestling cake. The WW plaque is a royal icing transfer and the ropes are red licorice.

Busy cake weekend!

This cake was made for Ava's first birthday. She loves Yo Gabba Gabba. It was a fun one to make- cake is Chocolate with peanut butter filling. I also made a smash cake and her parent had professional photos done with it, they turned out so cute.

smash cake was white cake

Also this weekend I made a cake for my co-worker Tina. It was her 50th birthday. I often joke with her and call her the cat lady, she has never meet a stray she doesn't take in so I made her a cat cake. She loved it and I really enjoyed this one. Jeff says it is his favorite of all I have made. It was also Chocolate with peanut butter filling.

Chocolate peppermint trifle!

Made for a Christmas party..

Ingreds..

1 box of chocolate cake mix- made per directions
1 box candy canes crush-save 2 for decoration
2 box's vanilla pudding- made per directions
1 large and one small container of cool whip softened
peppermint schnapps

Slice chocolate cake into 1/2 inch thick rounds- my trifle bowl holds a 8 inch round cake perfectly. Place one cake round in bottom moisten with schnapps; layer vanilla pudding, cool whip and peppermint candy crumbs. Repeat until bowl is full. DO NOT put top layer of peppermint candies. Cover and refrigerate. Just before serving sprinkle with peppermint crumbs.


Note melted peppermint candies lesson learned place last layer on at just before serving.

Bored on a Tuesday night!!

Sitting at home with nothing to do so I decided to play with cakes. I was going to make a cake for a bridal shower on Sunday but the plans for the party changed. I found a design in red, white and black that I loved that I planned on making. I decided to give it a try. If I was to make this cake for a customer I would of made the ribbon wavy instead of straight I think it adds an additional femine touch.

The leaves, ribbon and roses are all fondant.

Chinese cake...

I was asked by my cousin-in-law to make a free cakes for kids cake. This was for her sister who was recently laid off, her husband is also out of work and she was worried their son wouldnt have a cake. It was an honor to make this cake.

She told me his room is all in chinese themed and I decided to make a cake with that theme. The chinese symbols are make of royal icing and are therefore very fragile. I broke more than one it was the challenge of this cake. The wording on the top is Happy Birthday Tyler and then around the cake are the words strength, love, heart and peace.

It is chocolate with peanut butter filling, when calling his mother to ask about the filling, she informed me that he does not like chocolate cake.... UMMM when the cake was ordered by his Aunt she said chocolate... well chocolate is what he is getting but I will stop and get a vanilla cuppie for the birthday boy!!

Halloween is comin!!

Halloween is just around the corner. I had a request to make a cake for my co-workers birthday last week. She loves Halloween and every year dresses up at the office as a witch, so I had to incorporate that somehow. Her cake was almond sour cream with chocolate buttercream filling and almond buttercream icing. She loved her cake as did my other co-workers. It was my first attempt at a spiderweb and I am really proud of how it turned out. All halloween goodies are fondant.

Another Crazy busy weekend..

This was a crazy weekend. 2 birthday cakes, one babyshower cake, 12 cupcakes. A birthday party, and camping with the girlscouts. My life is CRAZY!! But wouldnt trade it for anything.


Lime green zebra cake. This was for my step-daughter Ambers's 19th birthday. It was Chocolate with peanut butter filling

Chocolate cuppies for the girlscout campout. Jeff decorated these for me, I was running so late. He did a great job!! These are chocolate with peppermint sprinkles.

Baby Shower cake. White almond cake with Chocolate buttercream filling and almond flavored buttercream. Decorations are fondant and it is my first attempt at booties.

Birthday cake for Heather's 18th birthday. The was marble cake with butter cream.

Fondant and Gumpaste Decorations

Some fondant decorations I have made. I do have these for sale if you are interested please let me know.

Fondant and Gumpaste Decorations

And Ryless 4th birthday cake

Well I couldn't show off our handsome grandson without showing off my beautiful granddaughter and the cake I made for her 4th birthday. This cake was Dora and was vanilla and strawberry. We were out of town for her official party so we had one of our own. We bought her a bike and she loved it.

Our beautiful granddaughter Rylee!

Matthews birthday cake... 1st Birthday

It was my honor to make the cake for my grandsons 1st birthday. His mother asked for sports theme. The cake is vanilla flavor with strawberry filling. The balls and bat are all handmade out of fondant and hand painted. All other decorations are also fondant.

Matthew has many food allergies so I left it up to his mom to make the smash cake.

Our handsome Grandson Matthew!!

First Ever free cake for kids pinellas chapter cake!

I was contacted by the Alpa house a teen pregnancy center to make a cake for their monthly birthday celebration. For the month of Sept there was 3 girls. The cake is Orange cake with Vanilla Buttercream. Bow and roses are done in fondant. Elizabeth made all the leaves by herself. She is going to be a future cake decorator for sure!

3rd cake for the week... Gator cake

One of my best friends; Bobbie's grandfather passed away. Bobbie asked me to make a vanilla cake with lemon filling. Lemon was Mr. Emmert's favorite cake flavor and I found out he was a huge Gator fan.

I decided to make the flowers orange and blue and to try my hand a royal icing transfer. I found a picture of the Gator logo and used the icing to trace it. I am very pleased with how it turned out.

Bobbie and her family had such a wonderful funeral for Mr. Emmert, it was such a touching tribute to a wonderful loved man.

Sugarfree Softball cake..

My second cake of the week! This was a request from Ruby who plays softball at Whitecell with Jeff and many of our friends. She has started her own team this year and wanted something to kick off the season.

Ruby asked for a sugar free cake. I found a recipe on cake central. I have to say this was a tough cake for me. I had to make 5 batches of the recipe to get enough cake for the bowl. I am worried that because the cake was baked in a deep bowl and had to bake for over an hour to get the middle done the cake will be dry. I will be searching for other sugar free recipes.

The cake was vanilla with buttercream and raspberry filling. The laces are red fondant made with my new clay extruder :) and red fondant letters. Fiddlestix and D&R crane are the teams sponsors.

Free Cakes for Kids Pinellas donation.

I walked into work on Monday and found a bag sitting on my desk. Inside was about 8 Barbie, 1 Scooby Doo and 4 packages of candy roses. These were give to me by Lee to use for the kids.

Last week another co-worker donated cake mix. I work with the most caring co-workers a person could ask for.

Cakes, Cakes and more Cakes!

I have 3 cakes due this week. Here is the first.

This one was made for our monthly birthday celebration at work, I enjoy making these and it gives me a chance to practice different techniques and recipes. This cake I wanted to make a bow. It is rather large but it turned out just as I had planned. I also added embroidered fondant ribbon and HAPPY BIRTHDAY. I got to use my new Tappits, which is a fancy word for letter cutters.

This cake was White Chocolate Raspberry with White chocolate raspberry filling and White Chocolate icing. I must admit this was the best tasting icing I ever made. Mild chocolate flavor but so creamy. I will be out of the office when the cake is cut but my co-workers will let me know how it tastes.

Daisy cake!

I feel I need more practice on wedding cakes. I love simple classic wedding cakes. It doesn't get more simple and classic than a daisy.

The daisy's are made out of gumpaste and I choose to use real ribbon. If I was making this for an actual wedding I would prefer to use fondant ribbon. The cake was a little bumpy, my cake dummies are not completely smooth.

Free Cakes for Kids Pinellas

A few weeks ago I started a local chapter of an organization called Free Cakes for Kids. Our goal is to provide cakes for kids who would otherwise not have one. I have a list of volunteers lined up and our first cake will be done at the end of the month for a teen pregnancy house. Our cake for October Chelsea is going to do.





One thing I was struggling to find was cake servers. Seems like a silly thing, but if you think about it some of these kids will be homeless or living in a homeless shelter their families will not have cake servers. I looked at Dollar Tree but they didn't carry them. I figured why not ask someone to donate them. I work next door to SweetBay in Tyrone, so I asked them. They said sure but would have to order some for me. I expected a hand full or so but instead they gave me a entire box. 144 of them!!





Please visit our website www.freecakesforkidspinellas.vpweb.com or the national website www.freecakesforkids.com

And after a bite!!

Cheesecake Truffels.. YUMMY!!

I was looking for a new goodie for a picnic we are having on Labor day. I found on Bakerellas blog cheesecake pops. I do not have any pop sticks so they will be truffles.

I am also a lazy cook so I bought Pillsbury Cheesecake ready to use. You will also need graham cracker crumbs, and chocolate, I bought bakers semi sweet but that is only because they did not have dark chocolate.

I realized quickly that the cheesecake mix is too soft to dip so I added some graham cracker crumbs to stiffen us the mix a little bit.

After mixing in the crumbs you will need to put the bowl in the freezer for 5 or 10 minutes to let it harden a little. While it is in the freezer get a bowl of graham cracker crumbs ready and set aside.

Once mix is cold spoon balls of cheesecake mixture and roll it in the crumbs.

Put the balls back into the freezer to harden again. While they are in the freezer melt the chocolate. You can do this on the stove or in the microwave.

Cover balls in chocolate and place on parchment paper. I added sprinkles, chopped almonds, grated chocolate, graham cracker crumbs and coconut on top.

Wilton course 3 final cake!

On Tuesday I completed course 3 of the Wilton decorating class at Michaels. In this class we were to make a tiered cake. The design was our choice. I choose to make a wedding cake and because I do not need any more calories in my house I used dummies.

My wedding design was simple and classic. White fondant with hand rolled fondant pearls. Let me tell you those pearls took hours and hours to roll. Once rolled and dried I dusted them with silver luster dust. At the bottom of each tier I had fondant ribbon, you cant tell in the photo but the fondant ribbon was rolled with a embossed rolling pin that had flowers on it. As the topper I hand made fondant roses, these were light pink and white. I love how my cake turned out but I need more work on my roses to make them more realistic.

I also am attaching a picture of 2 fellow classmates, Chelsea and her cherry blossom cake, love it!! And Aylis with her cake, her cake had a dragon, wizard and mermaid. I really enjoyed all my classes and learned so much!

Busy weekend.. cakes, cupcakes and back to school.

What a busy weekend I had. Made a cake, 12 cuppies, went out with the girls, to see Grease and then shopping for back to school. WOW where does all my free time go? It is 3:30 on Sunday and I am finally able to sit down for a few minutes.

I had a cake for Kristina that I delivered on Friday. Kristina is an on-line friend from The Nest. Friday was the first time I meet her, her husband Bobby and their adorable baby Ava (well she was sleeping but I did peek in at her and she is beautiful).

The cake Kristina choose was chocolate cake with Peanut butter filling. She wanted a pink simple designed cake. She choose pink and brown. She was sharing her birthday celebration with Kim and Steven ( who is in Bosnia). Kristina loved the cake and it was a joy and pleasure to make it for her.

I had some left over cake mix so I made some cupcakes. Elizabeth was going to Brooke's birthday party so I offered to make them for the party. I was practicing fondant roses for class so I added them to the cuppies. I really love how they turned out.

Hope everyone had a great weekend and a great back to school week. We have kids all over the place, Elizabeth is going into 3rd grade, Alex 10th grade and Amber is starting college.