Fall is in the air!

Fall is finally here after a crazy hot summer, and there was no better way to start it off than by making a beautiful wedding cake!!  A friend of mine from high school, who I randomly run into from time to time, has been keeping up with my cakes on Facebook, and wrote me an email a few weeks ago asking me to make his wedding cake! We met to have a consultation about what ideas he had in mind, and with his crazy sense of humor he decided he wanted a cake that was staged to look as if it had fallen over.  As a cake designer, I could have just imaged myself in tears as I destroyed a beautiful cake after days of hard work!  But, with a little bit more discussion, and with some help from his fiance (thanks Lauren!), we decided to go a different route and use their fall color scheme to come up with a beautiful, but still non-traditional, wedding cake.  

We went with alternating tiers of Devils Food cake filled with Raspberry Mouse with a layer of Chocolate Ganache, and Red Velvet cake with Chocolate Cream Cheese filling.

This was my first attempt at a four-tier cake, and boy was it heavy!!  Unfortunately, I had to work the day of delivery, which put a great deal of stress on me as to who I could count on to deliver this cake in one piece!  My mom is awesome at helping me during the baking process, but she is a nervous wreck when it comes to delivery.  Thank the cake gods that my cousin and his wife were off work and willing to help out my mom!!  With their help, the delivery went smooth and the cake made it there in perfect condition!  I couldn't have done it without my mom, Joe, and Traci!!  Thank you guys!  

Sweet!

If I was given the chance to have another Sweet 16 birthday party, this is the exact cake I would want to have!!!  I'm so happy I got the chance to make a fun, exciting cake for one of the most special birthdays a girl could have!!  

Thank you Anne, for letting me make your daughters cake on her very special day!  

R & R

Yesterday was a very special day for my good friend Rachel...she became Mrs. Rob Parish!  They are an amazing couple, and I'm so glad I got to be a part of their beautiful wedding day!  Congrats to you both!

This was my first official wedding cake, and I'm so thankful that Rachel and Rob had the faith in me that I could make them a beautiful cake.  The bride and groom decided on my classic Red Velvet cake, but with a chocolate cream cheese filling rather than traditional vanilla, and I must say, it might be my new favorite combo!  

Rachel decided that she wanted to have chocolate fondant, with red and white as her colors, and said she wanted "swirls and dots!"  I've known Rachel for many years, so I had no doubt that I could make a cake that would be "her."  

This was also a bit of a nerve-wracking experience due to the fact that I was attending the wedding, and was there to see everyone's reaction when they took their first bite of the cake.  Turns out I had absolutely nothing to worry about at all!  The cake was a success, and I received many praises from all the wedding guests!  

Again, I thank Rachel and Rob for letting me be a part of their special day! 

Show Some Pride!

A new friend of mine was throwing a surprise birthday party for his roommate Mario.  He had only 2 specifications for me: 1. Red Velvet cake 2. A rainbow somewhere on the cake.  I wanted to do something creative, and I've been wanting to try out the spray colors for awhile now, so I thought this would be the perfect cake to try it on!  

Stormy Sunday...

It's definitely storm season here in Florida!  When its rainy out, I usually like to relax and read a book, or of course, bake!  I decided to try something a little different with some flavors, and here is the result:

I call this cupcake The MCPC.  Marshmallow, caramel, pretzel, and chocolate.  I absolutely LOVE the salty/sweet combination, and this had the perfect amount of each!  An instant favorite!!  

Strike!

(Cookies 'n Cream cake, and cereal treat pins!)

Another birthday down for one of my best friends' oldest daughter, Delaney.  Since she was having her 8th birthday party at the bowling alley with all of her close friends, she decided to give me a challenge and have the cake go with the theme of bowling!  It took quite a bit of brainstorming to see how cool I could possibly make this cake for her, and I think I nailed it! :)  Although this cake was a challenge, I had SO much fun making it!  Can't wait to see what she comes up with for birthday year 9! :)

Team Edward or Team Jacob?

Being that I am a HUGE Twilight fan, as well as my mother, I just had to make some cupcakes for the premier of the movie Eclipse.  We had a decent amount of people going to the midnight show, including my sister-in-law who was in town from Chicago, so some cupcakes were in order!  I made some "Blood" Red Velvet cupcakes and decorated them with some toppers that I ordered from Etsy.com.  Each topper had a different quote from the book series, and whether they chose team Vamp or Wolf, everyone loved their treats, as well as the movie!!!  

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

Last month I had the pleasure of making some treats for a friends birthday.  Williams-Sonoma just released these awesome Star Wars cookie cutters, and being that my friend Brian is a HUGE Star Wars nerd, I decided to make these cookies for him as a surprise! I thought they were going to be insanely difficult to decorate, and while it did take many hours, they weren't as hard as I thought  they would be.  

I must say, Williams-Sonoma has to release a second collection of these cookie cutters...Yoda being the only Jedi in a collection just won't suffice.  We could definitely use some C3P0 and R2D2, and maybe even throw a little Chewbacca in the mix.  Needless to say, these cookies were a hit!  Brian's face when he saw these was priceless!    It was definitely worth the hours of work!  

May the force be with you...always.  

Pinkalicious & Tinkerbell

Memorial Day weekend was quite busy for me!  I had two cupcake orders for themed birthday parties:  one was Pinkalicious and the other was Tinkerbell.  I got very excited when I heard about the Tinkerbell order and thought how fun those would be to make!  But, I had never heard of Pinkalicious before.  Thankfully, a good friend of mine has two daughters who love Pinkalicious, and I was informed it's a book about a little girl who turns pink after eating too many pink cupcakes! Very cute, and very fun themes for both parties!

Here is the Pinkalicious cupcake tower, with a giant cupcake on top with the birthday girl's name substituted in: Camrynlicious! 

And here are the Tinkerbell cupcakes used on a cupcake stand:

These were a mix of Vanilla Bean cupcakes and Chocolate.

I also made some delicious Toasted Coconut cupcakes for the adults, which you can see in the background.

Eiffel Tower Cake

 

This was my first big cake order since my return from cake decorating school in Chicago!  The cake was for a 50th birthday party with a theme of "April in Paris."  The cake is red velvet with a cream cheese filling, and vanilla buttercream frosting. 

The Swell Season

In honor of my favorite band, The Swell Season, I decided to make a cake to celebrate their first show in Orlando.  They recently announced a second leg of a U.S. tour, and for the first time, they booked some shows in Florida!  I'm so excited to finally get to see them live in May, I just couldn't pass up an opportunity to show my excitement and love for the band...and what better way then to make them a cake?!?  I used their owl logo as my inspiration, and added a piano key border along with some music notes.  

I love this band so much I have also named one of my most popular cupcakes after my favorite Irishman, Glen Hansard who is the singer for The Swell Season.  'Glen's Cup' cupcakes are based on the popular drink, the Irish car bomb.  It's a chocolate cake made with Irish stout, a chocolate ganache filling infused with Irish whiskey, all topped off with sweet Irish cream frosting.  Although today is St. Patrick's Day, these cupcakes are delicious on any occasion!!  

Tate's 3rd Birthday!!

A good friend of mine has a daughter named Tate who just turned the big 3!!  They were kind enough to have me make some special cupcakes for the birthday girl!  The theme of the party was 'music' and Tate had a special request for some pretty flowers on the cakes as well.  The featured flavors included:  vanilla bean cake with a sweet vanilla frosting, chocolate cakes with Nutella buttercream, fresh strawberry cheesecake, Boston cream, peanut butter fudge, and red velvet.  I'm so glad I got to do these cupcakes on Tate's special day!!  

 Chocolate cakes with Nutella Buttercream 

 

Vanilla Bean cakes with sweet Vanilla frosting

 

Mixed dozen of: Peanut Butter cake with Fudge filling and Chocolate Fudge frosting & Boston Cream cupcakes with Chocolate Ganache 

  

fresh Strawberry Cheesecake with Cream Cheese frosting

(silly me forgot to take pictures of the pretty red velvets!) 

Wilton School of Cake Decorating & Confectionary Art

At some point last year, I decided to take some classes in cake decorating to improve my untrained skills.  So, I enrolled in the Master Course at the Wilton School of Cake Decorating & Confectionary Art, which is located in Darien, Illinois.  Wilton has been around for over 80 years, and have been teaching students the skills needed to excel in the art of cake decorating.  The Master course is a 2 week, Mon-Fri course in which we learn everything from the basics of creating a party cake, to the assembly and decor of a 3-tiered wedding cake.

I'm so very happy that I made the decision to take these courses.  I learned so much while I was up there, and I will continue to take my newly acquired skills to the next level.  Thank you so much to all the people to made this possible for me, you know who you are!  I will do my very best to make you proud and continue to make you some sweet treats! :)  

Here are some amazing photos that my sister-in-law Kristen took with her awesome camera...lets face it, my iPhone pictures just don't do the cakes justice!

Here is my first project, the "birthday" cake.  The purpose of this cakes isn't necessarily to be the prettiest cake ever.  It was for us to practice on a cake instead of boards, and also for us to show that we can accomplish everything that we were taught to do.  All through the first week as we were learning how to make flowers, we saved a few of each kind.  We divided up the cake into sections, and did different boarders and piping work for each section.  After all the sections were done, we took our saved flowers and made a bouquet on top.    Here is my finished project:

Our final project was to create a wedding cake of our own design.  I can't even tell you how many times I changed the design of my cake, but I knew I wanted something simple, and elegant.  I chose to do a white and moss green color scheme, with lots and lots of roses (over 100)!  The roses are white and 3 different shades of moss green.  I'm very happy with the way it turned out....