Happy Birthday to Me...and My Mom, Aunt Stell, Katie, Nicole and Luke...

I don't usually like to make a big deal out of my birthday, but now that I'm making cakes I feel a little pressure to make a great cake for myself. I was my mom's birthday present back in the day... our birthday's are 4 days apart and I literally come home on her birthday, I always say- I'm the present that keeps on giving and I can't be returned :) I share my birthday with my cousin Katie, exact day but a few years apart... In addition to my mom and Katie- Luke and Nicole, the significant others to my siblings, also have a birthday in the same week of August, it's a great time to celebrate and in usual style we had a picnic at Mary and Joe's house. Here is a pic of Avah and Peyton getting their party on with their party hats...

Here are a few pictures of the cake in progress...I started making the sunflower with tip 103 but quickly realized that I didn't like the rigidness of the flower. I switched to tip 68 which is normally a leaf tip but I applied different pressure and I was happy with the way the sunflowers turned out.


My friend Rebecca made me a cake! It was a delicious yellow cake made from scratch with a raspberry filling in between the layers. It was seriously delicious. Rebecca will be guest blogging her cake experience soon... One of the the highlights of the cake for me were the "cakestar" candles. They rock! Reba- Thank you for making me feel special and crafting me a cake!




Flower Update: I have a Wax plant (Hoya carnosa) which has special meaning. After my grandmom passed away a few years ago, the local gardner, Mr. Ott, divide Grandmom's Hoya plant into about 30 small plants. My mom gave them to family, friends and caregivers at a picnic we had to celebrate her life. This plant was in my grandmom's windowsill for as long as I can remember. I was so happy last week when it flowered for the first time! Isn't it beautiful? For me, this is the best birthday present I could receive...

Abbe Reunion Cupcakes

This was a busy weekend. Today was the Abbe Society reunion, it was a honorary service society I was part of during my West Chester days... It's so much fun to get together at Megan's house each year. Thanks Megan for hosting us! You are the best!

I made some chocolate cupcakes for all to enjoy. I filled the inside with buttercream icing and used some gum paste flowers I had from a previous gum paste making flower day... I covered and smoothed the cupcakes in buttercream and then used various tip 103 techniques to make flowers.

I used tip number 67 to make the leaves. I still can't get the point of the leaf to come out as I want it to, it looks like the icing just rips away and doesn't come to a pointy point, if you know what I mean... I need to google some help to figure this technique out... Will do that next time.

Megan's children are so precious. Here they are enjoying their cupcakes...

Here are a few more pics of the day...

Debbie used my cupcakes to enhance the display of her cake... I think they did an excellent job :)

The Group... As always, it was so nice to see everyone... and to catch up on each other lives. We are all living life a little differently, but at our core we are a group that geniouly cares for each other and we wants only the best for each other...

Digestive Tract Optional Cake...

This is a very unique cake. It isn't everyday that you get asked to make a cake in the shape of the digestive tract... but Michelle, isn't your run of the mill customer... Michelle has faced some medical problems that have reshaped her digestive track. Despite many challenges she has faced along the way, she has an INCREDIBLE sense of humor and love of life. I met Michelle last night for the first time and feel honored to have been part of her celebration along with her fiance Paul, sister Ali, friend Steve and of course Rebecca! We ate at an AWESOME restaurant Estia. I highly recommend it if you want a great meal!

After a few e-mail exchanges with Paul I got a better sense of the cake he had envisioned and found a line drawing picture I could trace and then color in with buttercream icing. This technique is called a frozen buttercream transfer. It's essentially like coloring, but with icing.

I was also excited about the cupcake idea... When Michelle was in the hospital, Paul would write on the white board on Michelle's wall, One of the things he wrote was a colon with a line through. I took that idea and made cupcakes out of it...

The cake itself was chocolate. I used a new recipe that added sour cream, chocolate pudding mix, an additional egg white and chocolate chips. It was very dense but really good... I might have to make that again for another cake...

Here is a little tutorial on how I made the icing image: (note to self- invert the image next time...)

A close up of the cupcakes:Cupcakes in transport...

Iphone Fun!!

Earlier this day Rebecca and I went to the Apple Store to learn about our new Iphones... We are such dorks but our phones are seriously cool... Read her blog to learn more and to see some pictures we were really excited about...

Pagoda Cake

Made this cake for another work function... It's always someone's birthday or someone is leaving... In this case one of our work study students is moving to China, hence the pagoda themed cake.

Found this line drawing on-line and used piping gel to trace the picture on a piece of wax paper. I put the wax paper on the cake and transfered the design. I then outlined the cake in black icing and filled in with various different buttercream colored icings and tips. I would love to figure out how to get the picture to look smoother. I might post this question to cake central to see what I can find out... I'll keep you posted...

Surf and Turf

This is the second cake for Rebecca's Party this weekend. Her idea was Surf and Turf- Golf on top, scuba on the bottom (that statements reminds me of: Business in the front, party in the back)...

It was nice to have help in completing these master pieces... Not only did Rebecca do a great job making the grass for the turf cake she is also a master chocolate swirler and made the fun sea shell accents.

She also did an exceptional job of not eating too much icing along the way which is hard to do... Trust me, I struggle each time I make a fresh batch of icing... It just tastes so darn good....

The "turf" cake is a strawberry white cake with buttercream filling, decorated with buttercream icing and a fondant golf ball. The "Surf" cake is a marble cake filled with buttercream, decorated with buttercream and buttercream Accents along with white chocolate molded accents.

The ship has sailed...

My friend Rebecca commissioned me to make two cakes for her family's party this weekend... It's very exciting.
She sent me the following design, which she made herself (very cool!)I think I did pretty good... Of course I hate my writing on the cake but I tried...

The beauty of these cakes is Rebecca took them tonight and I can't obsess about them anymore. If this cake were still in my house right now I would have added the water- I can't believe I forgot that part!

Rebecca made a really cute paper flag pole that she is going to insert tomorrow. I'll post the final pictures once she sends them...

The ship sails were marble cake made from a 13x9 pan cake cut into the appropriate shape (what happened to the extra cake you ask... I will never tell...) The hull was vanilla cake from a 9" cake pan cut in half. It was covered in buttercream. I didn't fill this cake because it was thinner then normal cake and too difficult to cut in half. It would have crumbled to nothing...

P.S. Have you noticed the map counter in the lower right hand corner. I've had some international visitors recently which is super cool!

Teddies in the Pool

The Birthday girls... Tori and Tracy

It's Tori's birthday today and Tracy's is next week... We sang happy birthday twice! This cake was inspired by Tori's love of the pool. The Teddy idea could have been inspired by Teddy Ruxpin or not... ;) The highlight of the cake for me were the bikini top's on the teddy grahams...

The cake was white cake (with strawberry puree and applesauce )with butter cream icing, peach gummy circles dipped in white and blue chocolate with Teddy grahams dressed in pink buttercream bikini tops... They were a hit....

Core at the Shore

Pre-delivery...

Post delivery... Notice the blob on the top of the cake... The coral melted on the way to the shore... :(

The second annual CORE AT THE SHORE trip to Margate, NJ happened this weekend. My co-workers( and dare I say... friend :-) parent's graciously opened their house to us for some R& R. We were so appreciative of their incredible hospitality and look forward to next year when will spend two nights... we promise! Jen's mom made a fabulous Shabbat dinner which included a delicious acorn squash which Sara is blogging about on her new blog Vegcrazy. There are many highlights to the shore trip including spending some quality time with a fabulous group that is funny, creative and wildly entertaining.

I made a special shore cake to contribute to the festival of eating...

Top layer was chocolate (which I forgot to cut in half and put icing in the middle, I also forgot to add one of the three eggs required in the recipes... oops) and the bottom was vanilla with strawberry rhubarb jam in the middle. Covered with buttercream and then added accents made out of molded white chocolate (I mixed purple and white for some color effects). The leaves were fondant brushed with powdered food coloring. The coral suffered a small tragedy on the way down in the car... It melted. I used a technique where you crush ice in the food processor then pour the chocolate in the crushed ice. It hardens quickly and forms divots and other attributes of coral. I was really happy with it but unfortunately it melted in the sun in my air conditioned car on the ride down... I couldn't fit the coral in the cake transporter so I put them separately in a zip lock bag and placed it directly in the sun. Apparently this wasn't such a good idea... I took pictures of the cake before I left so at least I know I can do it... I just need to work on my transportation/delivery issues.

I added brown sugar for a sand effect to finish off the cake.

Next year's cake... What will it be? I'll take suggestions close to the date...

I know this is a cake blog but I wanted to share some pictures from the weekend. Here is the dinner crew...

Jen and her dad looking SO cute together...

Jen's really excited about the cake and Jacquie is holding her back...

Eating the world famous Mack and Manco's pizza... One of the many highlights...