Phillies

My good friend Kelly's son asked if I could make his cake last year.  I would have loved to do it but since I live in VA and they live in NJ is was a little tricky.  We do go up to NJ a couple of times during the summer but it seems that the last few years we have either been there the week before or the week after Mason's bday.  This year the stars and planets aligned and I was going to be in NJ the week of his birthday.  So after a few different theme ideas Mason decided on baseball.  Knowing that the Phillies were his favorite I spent a little time perfecting the P to put on the cake.  Mason was great he knew exactly what he wanted.   One cake that was vanilla with chocolate filling and one that was chocolate with vanilla filling.  Easy peasy lemon squeezey.  The fun and interesting part was the fact that my mom's fridge does not in any way have room for a cake.  So it was back and forth to the firehouse to put the cake in the walk in.  I would love to have access to a fridge like that for all of my cakes.  I was really thrilled with how this turned out and I hope they were too.  

Kenzie cake

My baby, first born, only daughter is becoming a teen. Tomorrow MacKenzie Dianne will turn 13! It seems like just yesterday we brought her home. So for her special day I wanted to make her a special cake. Usually I don't do anything overly fancy for my own family. Cam Rob, and I aren't big on cake and Kenzie will usually only eat one slice. But since it was a special birthday and we were doing a special party I thought I would make her one. I had originally planned not to show her or tell her what I was making. She requested a tye dyed cake with buttercream. MacKenzie is not a big fan of fondant so I was trying to come up with something she would love. I have seen many different ruffle cakes and it felt like a good fit. I had gone over in my head a million times what I wanted it to look like and what kind of decorations I was going to add. I wanted to make a lily, then a rose, or maybe butterflies. With the weather both very hot and humid and rainy I wasn't sure if they would dry in time. So when I was at the store the other day I saw these pre-made gum paste flower. It is slightly cheating but I knew I was going to color them and make them special so I thought it was worth a try. As I got started decorating the cake I decided to let Kenzie in on the design that was I was certain she would like it. She loved the idea. And loved even more that I wanted to ombre the color. So we started out with a few layers of white then every few layers I added another drop or two of turquoise till I got to the top. They I used plum petal dust to color the petals and some food coloring to paint the center of the flower. Then I sprayed them with pearl spray . And since it was an ice skating party I put opal glitter on the whole cake so it would sparkle. MacKenzie was very happy with how it turned out and so am I.

More Angry Birds!!

Maya is Angry Bird crazy so there was no doubt what her party was going to be.  Because they were having so many people we decided to do a smaller cake and then cupcakes.  So I did a two layer 9" strawberry cake with strawberry crack filling.  The Angry Birds were rice crispies cover with buttercream and fondant.  I did 5 dozen cupcakes.  Vanilla with vanilla buttercream, vanilla with chocolate ganache, chocolate with vanilla buttercream, chocolate with chocolate ganache, strawberry with vanilla buttercream and strawberry  with chocolate ganache.  To add to the theme MacKenzie and I made all of the toppers for the cupcakes.

Harry Potter Castle

Cameron's best bud wanted a Harry Potter Lego castle cake for his 6th birthday.  And what Skyler wants he gets from me.  He was so cute and very specific.  When we found a castle idea he liked we ran with it.  He wanted water, no flowers, some Lego guys on it and if I could make some of them fly he would be happy.  The inside was his choice of yellow, orange, green, and blue tye dyed with vanilla butter cream.  I even was able to make Ron and Hermione fly on brooms around the cake!

Kristin Cake

 My friend Stephanie called and asked if I would be able to make her daughter Kristin's Sweet 16 cake.  Kristin is in love with kiwi birds and found a picture of a kiwi cake she wanted.  This is what I got.  It took me foooorrreevvvver to pipe all of the kiwi feathers/hair but it was so worth it.  After I made the cake and added some flowers I thought it needed a little something else so after talking to Steph I added a bow to make it a girl kiwi.  I think she turned out cute.

Cammie cake

I actually made a cake for one of my kids.  All the cakes I make and I don't usually make them for my own kids.  In my defense Cameron is not really into cake.  He like me loves Carvel ice cream cakes for his birthday.  But since we were having a big party I wanted to make him a big cool cake too.  This year we had his party where he takes Tae Kwon Do lessons.  He loves it there so it was the ideal location.  Everyone had a blast.  Since Cameron is currently a purple belt I used that as the color pallet.  

The bottom tier was the kids layer.  It was blue, green and purple tye dyed with vanilla buttercream.  The top layer was the adult layer vanilla cake with chocolate ganache filling.

My big 6 year old!

He even got to cut his cake with a real sword!

Bubble Guppy

Laurie and I had Ella's 6th birthday party and cake planned out since 5 minutes after Ella turned 6.  As the time approached Ella decided she wanted a Bubble Guppy party.  Even though that wasn't what we had been planning we switched gears and started all over to make it just the way she wanted it.  I have to admit I had never hear of the Bubble Guppies so Google became my friend.  The biggest problem I was coming up with was that Bubble Guppies are a bunch of characters and since they are new there isn't really any toys to use on the cake.  So after we decided on the cake design I had to figure out how to get the Bubble Guppies on there.  I ended up printing out the characters on photo paper and laminated them.  Wilton just came out with a ocean silicone mold so I was able to make lots of coral, shells, and sand dollars.  Ella was sad that the strawberry cake was not on the place of honor at the top so to make her happy I made one strawberry cupcake cake and decorated it especially for her and placed it on the top.  The #6 was special too.  That came off of  Ella's triplet siblings Sweet Sixteen cake.  

The top tier was vanilla with vanilla buttercream, middle tier was dark chocolate with dark chocolate ganache and the bottom was strawberry with strawberry cake.