Christmas Storage

I can't believe it's been three full months since my last cake... I'm so excited to be using my new kitchen with actual countertops of space I can use to decorate! I don't have all of my cake supplies in their proper home yet (still working on unpacking and building storage). I cheated a little bit and bought wilton colored fondant because my right arm and elbow have been hurting, likely due to the many house projects of late... I just couldn't think about how my arm would feel after kneading four different colors of fondant. I found this cake idea on cakecentral.com. It took about a day and a half to make from start to finish. The bottom layer is a chocolate, chocolate chip cake. The christmas balls are french vanilla made in a Wilton mini-ball pan. The "box" is brown colored gum paste that I rolled thinly with the help of the pasta machine, the best invention ever...

For those of you that know me well, are you surprised I lined up the colored balls? I swear I did try to arrange them in a random way but they just didn't look right... :)

Here are some assembly pictures:

Prior to Box assembly- the gum paste drying

Ornament toppers, molded on top of a corn cob holder and added slash lines with a knife.

Fondant covered mini-balls...

I really liked the way the tree came out... as well as the Shellaway, although the name is so long I barely could fit it! My cousin Jason asked "can we shellac the shellaway ball and hang it on the tree?"

This is the cake ready for transport. I added the "box" sides when I got to my aunts house. I don't think it would have survived my driving ;)

One side of my awesome family.... We are missing one set of cousins & 2nd cousins... which would add 10 more...

Jeff's B-Day

I came out of hiding to make a special cake for my co-worker Jeff. Jeff is awesome and deserved an awesome cake... The only problem is I still don't really have a functioning kitchen, so I did the next best thing. Bought a cake and added a decoration.

Jeff has a saying at work "it's all about the blood" which motivates us to do our best to make changes to the environment for our kids in the study... Jeff probably didn't realize it a year ago when he said that saying that it would stick around to haunt him for his tenure on the study...

We surprised him today at work. Silly jeff, he thought we didn't know it was his birthday.... We have ways of knowing these things... The theme of his party was red foods- twizzlers, red (white) chocolate dipped pretzels, apples and of course cake!

CakeStarRecipes

I started another blog. I realized, as I'm packing up some of my recipe books and supplies, that I need a way to keep all of my recipes in one place.

Here they are... The Cake Star Recipe...

http://cakestarrecipes.blogspot.com/

A Cake Retreat

Hi everyone,
Just want to share some good and bad news.

Good News- I'm going to be a new home owner!
Bad News- (Besides the economy...) I'm suspending my cake decorating for a little while.

I'm packing up the kitchen aid and moving into my new house.
I will get back to cake decorating as soon as I can.

In the mean time, check out my links on the right hand side of the page.
I just added www.cakewrecks.blogspot.com. It's pretty neat, check it out. I hope to never see one of my cakes on this site.

Another site that makes me laugh is http://lovelylisting.blogspot.com/


I'm looking forward to holiday baking again this year... Be sure to check back to enjoy my holiday creations.

Fall Shower of Flowers

My cake making is connecting me to more and more people, which is exciting for me. It isn't social networking, it's cake networking! I made this cake at the request of my friend Leigh. She and her office are celebrating the pending marriage of one of their co-workers. I was excited to learn that some of Leigh's co-workers have checked out my blog... I hope the cake lived up to the expectations...

The top layer was chocolate, bottom was yellow. Covered the cake in buttercream and then smoothed with Viva papertowel method. Made mums and roses out of a 50/50 mix of gumpaste and fondant. The ribbon was regular fondant. I used my pasta maker for the first time with this cake. It make it a lot easier with less rolling with the rolling pin. Thanks Mom for finding me a pasta maker!

Here are some pics of the cake in progress:

Most people have pizza cutters to cut pizza- Not me... I use them to cut fondant!

I also don't use my ice cream scooper for Ice cream, mine fills cupcake's to the perfect height...

To give the cake some stability, I insert plastic straws to hold the top layer of cake, then cut to the desired height. It's a lot easier then wooden dowels. The top layer is sitting on a cardboard cake circle which then rests on the straws...

The start of the mums...

Flowers and Butterflies

Happy Birthday to Blake! I had to make this chocolate chip cake for Blake after hearing that she specially requested an "Amy Cake" for her birthday. I feel honored!

This was a chocolate cake (with added chocolate chips, yum!) with buttercream icing and royal icing accents. Used Tip 352 and the grass tip for the greenary, piped rosettes out of royal icing and piped the butterflies with tip 7. I spray painted them blue then realized they needed something else so I painted the outlined in red.

I got the idea from a monthly cake newsletter I get called "monthly slice" here is the .pdf in case you are interested... Here are some pictures of the cake in progress:

You may or may not have noticed the ClusterMap in the lower right hand portion of the top navigation bar. I started tracking visitors to my website in June. It also shows the visitors computer location, which is pretty neat. I've had some international visitors which is always cool to see... If you have met me, you might know that I have a "thing" for numbers. When I look at the clock it's usually (not on purpose, just randomly) 11:11, 10:10, 1:11... You get the idea. Anyway, I checked my blog on 9/16 and I have 666 visitors and the previous day I had 6 visitors. Sort of wierd... At least it's an even number... I prefer those...

A slightly cross eyed mickey...

Made this cake for a co-workers daughter who is turning 2 years old. My co-worker was so excited when I showed her the cake, it really made my day! Of course there are things I would want to do better, but overall, I was happy since she was happy....

It's an 8x3 and 2- 6x3 vanilla cakes with buttercream icing. I drew an outline on the cake free hand with a toothpick and then filled in with tip 16. I used an image of Mickey I found from a fellow cakemaker on cakecentral.com as a guide. If I were to do it again I would have printed out a template for the eyes and traced it onto the cake in a more accurate manner... Lessons learned, I think he's cute, but he doesn't look as exact as I wanted... (I know I need to relax, one day I will... )

Here are some pictures as I filled everything in....

Mickey ready for transport... Lifesaving cake transporting tips- 1. Use a non-skid mat under the cake board to prevent cake from shifting in the box. 2. If you don't have a flat surface in your car, bring pillows or other props to create the flat surface- It's important if you want your cake to arrive unharmed...


Here is the birthday girl!!! Isn't she sweet! I LOVE the pink party hat!

In other cake news...

I was at the Crayola Factory in Easton today with my Nieces. We had a great time which was only made more exciting by the discover of an "ACE OF CAKES, CAKE!!!" on display... I watch the show every week, but I've never actually seen one of his display cakes. It was Made in April, 6 months ago, Some of the fondant fell off a few crayons, but overall it's holding up well. The detail is unbelievable. It's really impressive in person. Just one of the many highlights to a great day...


My Nieces looking soooooo cute in the hats we crafted!!!

40 years of Marital Bliss

My parents have been married for 40 years... and to celebrate they are going to Aruba... Sounds like fun times, doesn't it? I mean Aruba, not marriage :)


How cute are they cutting the cake?

Cake is vanilla with buttercream icing. Used tip 3 to write and added piping gel to the icing to make it thinner, Roses are tip 104 and leaves are 68. Top shell boarder is tip 16, bottom border is Tip 21 with Tip 104 sweet pea's between every thirds shell. Added smalled dots with tip 2 to finish it off the top of the cake.

Sara's Birthday

It was Sara's Birthday on Friday. She took her name off the work calendar so we wouldn't have a party for her in the office, but that couldn't stop me from making her a cake (in this case, cupcakes...)

My sister Michelle helped me with the covering and smoothing of the buttercream icing for the cupcakes. Michelle did an excellent job!

I didn't get a picture of Sara eating her cupcakes but I know she enjoyed them.

They were Red Velvet cupcakes covered with buttercream with buttercream flowers made with tips 103 , 3 and 67.

On another note... My friend Jacquie got me this cool t-shirt for my birthday. It's from the website http://www.threadless.com/. It was designed by Matt "the Cake Comrade" Palmer. I love it!

Here is a picture of Sara (the birthday girl) and Jacqui (t-shirt giver) together... Two Peas in a pod...