All Good things come to an end...

As off this last batch of goodies, the cake fundraiser is over!

I guess it just stopped being fun with this cake. I was all excited to make the coolest sweet 16 cake I could for a dear friend's daughter. She designed it and everything. I was ready to make her cake dreams come to life...and my personal nightmare to begin. I was trying to make a topsy turvy cake (my first ever!) and it was a disaster. I ended up having the top layer split in two and I proceeded to have a messy, tantrum like melt down! Needless to say, I threw cake all over my kitchen floor and sat down on the floor, covered with chocolate cake, and began to cry (very loudly, in the hopes that Roger, my husband, would wake up to save me from my mess). Roger did not come, but an epiphany did: I was no longer enjoying baking cakes. I would end up eating the left over scraps and before I knew it 20 of the 50 lbs. that I had lost, found their way back onto my butt! Needless to say, I finally snapped last Friday night at 1:00am. But I could not show up that this young ladies house empty handed.

Luckily, as usual, I had over baked. So I turned the chocolate cupcakes into music themed cupcakes. Add a little garnish onto the white fondant cupcakes and went to work on salvaging the bottom layer of the white cake... Here is what I was able to do... I was not at all pleased, but I was exhausted.

So figuring that this just needed to be a freebie...It had gained me my backbone and my courage to say NO TO CAKE!

This is officially the end of my cake baking fundraiser. I will probably still make a cake here or there, but I doubt it. I think I will give the glory and the fun to cake decorating back to my daughters. I will go back to scrapbooking and cardmaking...at least no extra calories are consumed there!!!

Surfs up! Wedding Cake

Every wedding cake should truly tell a story. It should tell the story of the married couple or of how they are connected. This cake tells the story of Rob and Anne, avid surfers and lovers of the beach and the ocean. I hope my cake pays tribute to their love and the long life that God is going to grant them together. Here is to you, Rob and Anne!!!

A special thanks to my dear husband who stayed up all night with me cutting dowel and making the shortboard and the longboard to use as props. And, of course, Thank You GOD! for helping me to transport the cake safely and to keep the whole thing from falling apart and just becoming a complete fiasco!!!

Snake cake

I guess you know you really like someone when you want to scare the snot out of that person for their birthday. Well, that is the case for my latest creation. My coral snake cake. I honestly wish it had turned out better, but I think it is a valiant effort for a first time project!
I hope my friend and her co-workers enjoy this sweet creation.

The snakes coils are chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and the head, tail and small rocks are white cake with white frosting.

The dirt is a combination of oreos, vanilla oreos, and chips-a-hoy cookies.

Treasure chest

I guess we moms are notorious for putting way too much pressure on ourselves. I was so very disappointed with this treasure chest cake. I wanted to prop up the lid of the box and have candy jewels flowing out of it...Unfortunately, I could only find ring pops and no cany necklaces or chocolate money. Then my grand idea of covering the top of the chest with chocolate fondant over white cake kind of fell apart...so I just had to make do.
Kevin surprised me this morning when he ran up to me and gave me a big hug saying, "Mom, that is the coolest pirate's treasure chest ever."

The hug was so genuine. He really loved his cake and his party. It is so easy to give your kids good things when they are so grateful. What a blessing to have a happy loving son! May God continue to open his heart to the love we have for Kevin (Nate, Em, and Kate).

Happy Birthday to my wonderful 8 year old treasure hunter!!!

Mini cakes and streams

In a perfect world, we make no mistakes. Well, my world is far from perfect. While making the baby shower cake last weekend, I "figured" my cake batter incorrectly and had a really really small 8" cake. I decided to hand it over to Emily to deal with and start over on the baby shower cake. This was what she did with her 4 year old little brother...

Too Cute!

To make some $$$ at the dance studio, I had a little cake display with mini cakes. These were WAY harder than I ever imagined. I tried it thinking it would be fun. As with all projects, the first few were fun, the rest were WORK!

When I try this again...and I will. I will freeze my cake, then cut it into mini cakes, then frost them frozen, let them come to room temperature, and finally add fondant...

Here is my display! Hope you have a great weekend! Near the end of the month keep your eyes on the blog for a snake cake and a fun penguin themed cake, as well as a treasure chest...Oh the fun creations we have in store for you!

Wild about Baby Showers

I am not sure if Emily and Katie are going to talk to me tomorrow after all the work I made them do tonight! My poor slave labor (I mean, dancers who are fundraising by making cakes!) helped me to make over 24 animal heads and 2 full fondant sculptures. I was very pleased with how they turned out and hope that my friend enjoys them as much as we like them!

Here is the 9" round three layered white cake with raspberry preserve filling:

Katie made the lion and Emily made the monkey. I think they turned out darling!

Here is another Katie creation, the giraffe on the side of the cake.

Monkey up close! I love his little banana!

Katie's little lion is darling too!

The only thing left is to get it to my customer in one piece!!!

ShamWow!

You always have to wonder what people think about when they work in an ER...One group of ER workers undoubtedly think about ShamWow! for whatever reason. One of the sweet ladies hired me to make her a ShamWow! cake and her is my tribute to said cake.
It is Chocolate cake with whipped chocolate frosting, covered in milk chocolate fondant. Hope it tastes good! The cake is based off of this ad...

Animal Prototypes

My dear friend, Denee, has challenged me to make a jungle themed cake with matching cupcakes. You know me (maybe you don't), but I am always up for a challenge, but I will loose many sleepless nights trying to figure out how to accomplish my task. Anyhoo (as Denee would say) here are my monkey...

and my giraffe...actually the giraffe is Katie's...many of the really good prototypes are my 11 year old daughter's. She is an excellent Sculpey polymer clay sculptor and since we have learned to add gum paste to our fondant...she like this medium as well...

I am really looking forward to making this project NEXT Weekend!!! So keep your watching my blog to see how it turns out!!!

Happy Birthday!!!

I love birthdays! I like them even better when they belong to someone else!
Today we are saying "Happy Birthday" to Marcy and Scott.
Marcy's cake is a traditional white cake with white whipped frosting and strawberry perserves covered with marshmallow fondant. I had more plans for the bow, but the extra loops decided NOT to cooperate. Given it takes 24 hours for them to dry...well...This smaller bow is what I had to use... I am happy to say, I have learned my lesson about writing on the tag.

Scott is an Auburn fan, so I did my best to pay tribute to his team. Scott's cake is red velvet with chocolate frosting covered with dark chocolate fondant. I must admit that I learned to make this chocolate fondant specifically for Scott and I am so happy I did. My family loves it...I like it a bit too much...Thanks, Scott!

His happy birthday message is supposed to be a banner...

A big "Thank You" to Michelle for supporting my girls' fundraising by letting us make her cakes!!! Enjoy!

Happy Birthday, Debbie

This is the last cake for the weekend...boy, am I bushed. I have not been sleeping so well. I think it is because I knew I had a BUTTLOAD of work to do on this little baby.

Here are a couples of tips I want to pass on to you!
1. If you are making a cake for someone else, ask them if they have a cake carrier that you can put their cake into. Wow! Safe travel for the cake and it is theirs to keep!
2. When you are told to let fondant dry for 24 hours...they really did mean it. I only had 4 hours for mine to dry. Glad I got up at 2am not able to sleep and began rolling curlicues and faking, I mean, making the ribbon!

3. When placing a tag onto a gift, write on the tag before placing it on the gift. It makes writing so much easier!

All in all, I think it turned out pretty darned cute! I hope my friend likes it! My new motto is "Made with love, not necessarily skill!"

Have a blessed day!

Thank you!

My whole cake baking hobby has added a new dimension as I am making cakes for hire, for a modest donation to my daughters' dance team. As you can tell, I am not a professional cake decorator, but I do have quite a love for this as an art form.

The girls and I decided to send letters to some of our friends and family to tell them about our cakes and various other fundraising activities. Some were nice enough to send a donation! One such person is my Aunt Anne. She is not really my aunt...no, family you can't pick. I am from the south. And, in the south, when you love someone "like family," you give them a title to fit that love. Thus is how it is with Aunt Anne! So here is our thank you cake to her for her contribution to our dance fund!

Groom's Guitar Cake

A dear friend's b-i-l is getting married tomorrow and I offered to make the wedding cake and groom's cake. The wedding cake is not assembled, but the grooms cake is ready to go! The groom loves his electric guitar and this cake is based off of his guitar. It is a lovely shade of teal!
I used the Wilton guitar cake and altered it by cutting the shape to be more like his guitar.

As you can see from this angle, I used the neck of the orginal guitar to support my long neck. The new neck is a cardboard base covered with fondant. The cake itself is chocolate with chocolate fondant (the brown fondant is chocolate--- the blue fondant is regular vanilla flavored.)

As usual, I pray that the cake will be delivered safe and sound and that the people who get to eat them...completely enjoy them!

Morning inspiration

Morning!
I have had a busy one already. One of my brides wanted to have her fiance taste one of my cakes, since I was baking this weekend, it was very easy to whip her up a tester cake. She wants her cake covered with fondant, so I decided to play.

Top view!!!

Emily was stuck babysitting yesterday and decided that she and Katie deserved cake...chocolate cupcakes to be exact. My personal fav! Anyway, I decided to make my bride something special...a fondant rose cupcake. I think it is pretty cute!

Side view.

Have a very blessed day!

Surprise Birthday Cake

I am really excited about this cake! First because it is for a very special friend. Mary has decided to devote her life to Christ as a NUN! Wow! This is her last birthday with family for quite a while. Tomorrow is going to be quite a shin-dig and I am so happy to be a part of it.

This cake has changed designs about a million times trying to find the best cake and ease of transport. So it is a tiered cake with 2 rectangles and a square. My daughters think it looks odd (they are all about Mathematical Symmetry, which I can appreciate as a Mathematician...but as an artist...I need FREEDOM...and I didn't have the pan I needed...so I made due!)

I loved the idea of the vines and had made many flowers to go onto the cake and decided on the roses. I was going to stop here, but something was off. My sides are not perfect...I am just not so good at smooth sides. So... I decided to add white scrolling vines with piped icing...

I hope this special lady likes her cake!!!

First Wedding Cake EVER!

It always starts somewhere...You know what I am talking about, that spark of something that makes you take a road that you never that you would ever go down. Well, that is how it was with me and cake baking. It started with wanting to help a sister-in-law and then it turned into needing practice for said sister-in-law's cake...and low and behold, I am making a wedding cake for a friend's son. Crazy...I know!

Roger, my dh, made the cake board. Boy, was that thing sturdy! Boy, was that thing HEAVY!

I have never prayed so hard as when we trasported that thing 30 miles from our house to the wedding reception! OH BOY!

shaped cakes

When a friend has a passion, honor them by making it come to life in CAKE!!!
Crazy, I know! But YUMMY!

Tiered Fun Cakes

Here are a few of the fun tiered cakes I have made for friends and family over the past 2 years.