Surprise Goodbye

I'm still smiling and probably will every time I think about my last day at Temple University. My awesome co-workers threw me a surprise "dessert competition" going away party today.  Everyone made a special dessert/treat and I got to be the Judge! There was much creativity on the table.  It meant a lot to me that they would go through so much planning and take the time to makes these great treats. Thanks guys! You are the best!!!

Here are the final products:

I got to make my own categories...

Judge's Favorite went to Naomi's Temple "T" made out of mini cupcakes...

Best Use of Judge's Name went to Alexis: (see my name in the middle row- awesome!)

Looks Delicious went to Alicia's wonderful chocolate bird nests:

Best Effort went to our student Amy:

and last but certainly not least-  Best Try went to Toni and Kim:

Wipeout Birthday

For my niece's 7th birthday she wanted a Wipeout birthday... She loves the show and specifically asked for the cake to have the three big red balls in blue, not muddy, water with happy birthday avah written on the balls... No small order.  She also wanted the cake to be half chocolate and half vanilla but I couldn't figure out how to do that without making it marble so I made the base chocolate and the water and the balls were vanilla. The bridge was graham crackers dipped in blue colored white chocolate.
Here are some pics of the cake coming together..

Used a special pan to make the 1/2 ball shapes and then just icing them and put them together to make the big red balls for the cake...

 Used a stray to keep the balls in place on the cake.

 My messy work space and the covering of the graham crackers:

  

 

 Tried to recreate the logo freehand using buttercream icing... Not that easy but I attempted...

Birthday Celebrations

Here are a few birthday cakes I've made in the past few weeks for some special people in my life.  The inspiration for the purple and black cake came cake central.  The swirly cake came from "I am Baker" which is something that I am not...  I don't claim to bake- I just like to decorate...


Pictures of the Black and Purple cake coming together:

I really don't drink that much, but you can't really tell by this picture, now can you???

My work space:

I went to the Philadelphia Flower Shower and much to my surprise there was a cake made by Buddy from Carlo's Bakery in Hoboken, better known at the Cake Boss.  It was really pretty- had many gum paste flowers on it.  It was a little overdone for my taste but as my sister said- Well- it is for the flower show....  True, very true...