Cupcake Cakes

Just recently we had planned to make a quick trip home to Ohio (which is a 6 1/2 hour drive).  My grandpa was going to be turning 85 while we were there.  Since the trip really wasn't planned much in advance I didn't have time to make an elaborate cake and not have to worry about transporting it.  So I decided to try a cupcake cake.  I had seen these pop up and thought they looked pretty easy to do.  So I decided to try it.  It didn't turn out too bad considering I did it all in one day. 

A month later we were returning to Ohio for Thanksgiving and this time it was my dad's birthday.  Again I was pretty tired from being pregnant and 2 kids that I just didn't feel like making a huge cake.  (I also was assigned cooking duties this year as well. :) ) So I whipped up a cupcake cake for my dad as well.  As you can tell he loves football and OSU.  So I thought this one was appropriate it.

Cupcake cakes are a fun twist to cupcakes.  May have to keep that in mind next time I need a cake in a hurry.

W's Firetruck Birthday

Since I mentioned my son's firetruck birthday in the previous post I thought I should also include a post with pictures from his birthday.  I get carried away with kid birthday parties.  My husband just told me the other day as I was planning for my son's next party, "you know they don't need a party every year".  This is true but I just love doing it and now my son has come to expect it. (which might not be a great thing after all)  What can I say I LOVE celebrating birthdays!

Frozen Birthday Party

Life has been pretty crazy since the last time I posted.  Unfortunately I haven't been able to do many cakes because of being busy and exhausted from watching after our 2 kids, a friend's little boy and being pregnant with our 3rd child due in about 5 weeks. Finding time to put them on my blog has even been more of a challenge but I'm hoping to catch up in the next couple of weeks. 

The first one that I want to share was from last summer for Billy's co-worker's daughter. I actually was able to do her daughter's birthday cake the year before and was happy to help out.  She wanted me to do a Frozen theme and asked me to make the cake and party favors.  This time she asked me to do cake pops which is something I don't do often so it was fun to be creative in a different way. This cake was a lot of fun to do.

Hopefully I will have time to post more cakes soon.  For now it's nap time so got to go.

Sunshine 1st Birthday Cake

I never thought I would say this but I am starting to fall in love with fondant!!! What?! I know.  I have been against it for so long because I love the taste of buttercream better.  But that is even starting to change for me.  When I cover a cake in fondant I use a fondant made out of marshmallows which many people who make cakes refer to it as MMF.  This fondant actually has a decent taste unlike the store-bought fondant that some others use.  The reason I enjoy using it is because as a cake decorator is really helps you to achieve that smooth finish you see in so many pictures.  If you know me I can be a little OCD about how smooth my cakes are and I can never get them completely smooth which drives me crazy.  This is where my love for fondant is growing.

With all that said I did a cake a couple weeks back for a little girl's first birthday.  Her theme was going to be a sunshine theme and they asked for a cake that would look something like the picture they sent me.  I really loved how this cake turned out.  It may even go up there with one of my favorites.

I will have to tell a funny story about this cake.  When the father and mother were emailing me they asked me to do a yellow pineapple cake.   So I made a pineapple cake and decorated it in yellow. The day before the party I was looking at the finished yellow cake a thought hit me which made me panic.  "Did they want a yellow pineapple FLAVORED cake or a cake decorated with a pineapple yellow?"  I was all in a panic and immediately searched for their email to see if I was going to have to completely redo the cake I just did.  But thankfully the email read a "a pineapple flavored yellow cake."  I am so glad they put in that extra word "flavored".  It reassured me that I had done what I was suppose to do.  Oh man!  Sometimes I can be such a stress bucket. ;)

Winter Onederland

Today I delivered a fairly big amount of baked goods to a former coworker's house. She had contacted me and said she had seen my cakes on Facebook and wanted to know if I could make a smash cake, 24 cookies, and 24 cupcakes for her son's first birthday.  (It is neat to think about how easily Facebook has made a way for us to get in contact with someone we haven't spoken to in a while. :)) Of course I told her I would love to.  She had picked out the theme Winter Onederland and did a winter theme which was very cute.  Our friends from church actually did the same theme for their son's first birthday as well or I would have thought about doing it for our daughter's first birthday. :)

The smash cake was a yellow cake and iced in buttercream.  I used MMF around the edges and for the number 1 on top.  I had made royal icing snowflakes to put on top but my son bumped the container that I kept the dried snowflakes in and broke my remaining ones and I didn't have time to make more. :/ So I improvised and piped on the snowflakes which was probably better for a smash cake anyways. :)

For the cookies she asked for mittens and a number 1.  Out of all the Christmas cookie cutters I had I didn't have a mitten.  I was able to find a mitten on an after-Christmas clearance rack which was excellent.  I actually had to buy a set of about 15-20 cutters to get the one mitten.  But now I have all sorts of Christmas cookie cutters for next year.  (I will have to think about whether I should do Christmas cookies for the family next year or not.  You can check out the post about that here.)  I actually made the number 1 cookie cutter because I couldn't find one in the right size without having to order one online.

The cupcakes were white almond and cookies n cream.  The cupcakes shown were just the white almond. The decorations on top were made out of royal icing.  The big snowflakes are the ones that my son broke.  Luckily I had the last cupcake topper in my hand when he hit the container.  I lost all the extras I was going to put on the cake but it all worked out. 

My Baby Girl Turns 1!

This past December my little girl turned 1.  It is such a bitter sweet thing.  She no longer is a baby but she is developing such a little personality.

 Of course I had to throw her a party but I told myself I was going to do something small and just for family so that I could enjoy the day and not feel overwhelmed.  I must not know myself very well.  I did enjoy myself but I maybe went a little overboard. 

The theme revolved around her invitation that I created on Inkscape. Of course I incorporated a little bit of chevron as well.

Instead of doing a big cake I decided to do a smash cake and then do some fun cupcakes.  The flavors I did were banana pudding, peanut butter cup, and cookie dough.

Since there was only family I decided to serve a lunch.  We had...

 

Crockpot Mac n Cheese (always a favorite in our house) 

 

PB&J Sandwiches shaped like elephants

 

A Salad bar which was originally going to be salad on a stick but I decided to save time and energy and do it this way.

A yogurt bar.  You filled your waffle bowls with yogut, mixed fruit, and granola.

 

Elephant cookies.  Which I cheated and used already prepared cookie dough and I won't do that ever again.  Or at least not use the brand I used.  They did not hold their shape very well. :/

 

Last but not least Mexican Fiesta Bites.  These were by far the party favorite.  Everyone seemed to love them.  Even my mother-in-law who has a little stricter diet.

I also made the decorations.  Here a glimpse at some of them. As well as a few other party ones. 

 Her aunt made this adorable skirt to go with the top that I made.

Princess Birthday Sheet Cake

This sheet cake was from a mom who was ordering for her daughter's Princess birthday party.  This made the 3rd cake this lady has ordered from me.  :) When we were talking about the design of the cake she told me she would like the princesses on the cake and that her daughter really wanted Pocahontas to be one of them.  When you search for Disney Princesses Pocahontas is not a popular one so it made a little bit of a challenge to get a good example of what Pocahontas looked like when grouped together with the other Princesses.  Another challenge that I never knew was so difficult is getting the characters to look like the actual characters.  I have created a lot of human figures in fondant but you have some creative leeway with those but when you are trying to make them look exactly like another persons creation it is a lot harder to get all the features to match up so that it resembles the character. It was a neat challenge and I think you can at least make out who they were suppose to be. :)

Hunter's Birthday Cake

So we were going to be home over my dad's birthday so I thought I would make him a cake.  It is always a lot harder to make a cake when you are not in your own house but it turned out ok.  My dad loves to hunt so I thought it would only be fitting to do a camo cake with him and a deer sitting on top.  It also was a chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting and peanut butter cups in the middle.  It was really good!!!

Before we left my dad HAD to get my husband out in the field to hunt which would mean my husband would have to get up extra early to go.  My husband is generally not an early person but he thought it might be fun to go.  After a couple of hours my husband, dad, sister, and her boyfriend came back with a deer that my husband had shot!!! I was so proud. :D  But then that meant we had to eat the deer.  I'm not a fan but I have been trying to learn new recipes to take out the gamey taste.  Here's a picture of my husband and his deer.


Here is a warning that the picture you are about to see might be a little gross for some. So I made it so that you would have to scroll down to see it.

 Good job honey!!!

Trashy Nashy's Birthday

This cake was designed for some friends from our church.  It was their dad's 60th birthday and they wanted to throw him a surprise party.  Their dad had worked for Republic Services which is a waste management company for over 30 years so he had gotten the nickname, "trashy Nashy".  So for his birthday they wanted to do something with a trash truck or dumpster.  They decided they would do a trash dumpster.  What they didn't know was I was going to incorporate their dad into the cake as well.  I thought it would be cute if he was peeking out of the trash.  This cake was a lot of fun to create.  Who knew creating trash would be so much fun.  Everything you see in the picture was edible.

Little Red Wagon First Birthday

This cake was designed for a boy's first birthday.  The theme was little red wagon and the colors were blue, white, and red.  The mom wanted a cake for everyone and then also a smash cake for the birthday boy.  Here is how it turned out.

My Nemesis: The Sphere Cake

So I have meet my nemesis, the sphere cake.  This cake was for my sister-in-law's surprise birthday at the beach.  She has done so much for me and this website that I really wanted to make the whole day special starting with the room decorated when she got up to a doughnut cake for breakfast and ending with a little birthday party after dinner with a ball of yarn cake along with her four cats on it.

I was able to do the first 2 pretty well.  The room was definitely decorated all over the place to where we were dodging things all day. :)  The doughnut cake was DELICIOUS.  I can't take credit for making the doughnuts though.   

But the cake...oh boy! My plan was to make the cake at home and transport it 4 hours to the beach.  I should have known when I tried the ball cake the first time and it collapsed that it would collapse after being transported 4 hours away.  I always say this is a learning experience for me and this one definitely was.  After the first ball collapsing I researched a better way to make it and I thought I had had it.  It looked like a ball of yarn which was exactly what I was going for.  I loved how the cats turned out and the board that they set on really looked like their wood floor at their house.  I even thought that I would take pictures of the cats before we left.  I hadn't dusted off the powdered sugar but you can still get the idea of what they looked like. She has 4 cats like I mentioned and I tried to use this picture to make them look like her cats as much as possible.

 

The actual cake was going to be a ball of yarn because she loves to be crafty like me. :) When we got to the beach late Friday night the cake looked OK.  It has settled a little but I thought it still looked ok and would be ok time we celebrated by Saturday night.  Midday the next day I checked on the cake and it had started cracking in the back.  I knew it wasn't going to last until that evening so we went ahead and had cake after lunch.  I feel really bad that this happened but I am happy it was for a family member and not someone else.

 The cake flavor was chocolate with a chocolate buttercream in the middle and was covered in chocolate ganache.  My brother-in-law said she loved chocolate so I made it a chocolate lovers cake.

To the ball cake:  You may have won this one but it ain't over. I will make you again and not travel so far and it will be perfect.  (Half sphere cakes:  I'm not intimidated by you.  You are much easier than your half sister. ;)  )

Bridal Shower Cake

 A friend from our Sunday School class was throwing a bridal shower for one of her friends and wanted a simple cake for the shower.  She told me she would like a design she had seen me do for another friend's birthday cake.  I had done this design many times and love doing it because of the simplicity of it as well as the neat look it has. 

These pictures were taken by her at the party.  She is an AMAZING photographer and if you need someone to take pictures of a special occasion she is someone to contact.  Feel free to contact me and I will get you in touch with her.

New Adventure: Carrot Cake

This cake was for a friend of a friend's surprise birthday.  She really loves carrot cake so that's what they wanted it to be.  I was a little nervous because I had never done carrot cake before.  I found a recipe I felt was one I could trust and went with it.  I did not realize the time involved in making this cake.  The recipe called for shredded carrots.  So I went and bought baby carrots and shredded them.  Boy was that a job.  I probably should have gotten whole size carrots because there were some very close calls. ;) Later I learned that you can buy already shredded carrots.  :/  Oh well.  This adventure is all about living and learning. :)

After the party I got some great feedback on the cake and I was excited to hear it tasted good and they "were sad when it was all gone." :D

Jungle Animal Sheet Cake

A previous customer contacted me again to do another sheet cake for her but this time it was for her son's 1st birthday.  I was thrilled to hear back from her and of course agreed to do a cake for her son.  She told me that the theme was jungle animals and that I could come up the design.  My first idea was just to do a few animal heads on top of the cake but as I started working I got a little carried away with it.  But I liked the way it all turned out. 

It was a vanilla sheet cake, iced in buttercream and decorated with MMF and some buttercream piping.