Tuesday, January 18, 2011

House Divided: Gators and Noles Cake!

Photobucket

This cake was soooo fun but also quite the ordeal!!! I normally don't drive cakes over an hour a way, but for my oldest friend I decided it was definitely worth it! She asked for a Noles/Gators cake for her Brother-in-Law who was getting married. This was their rehearsal dinner cake!

Here's a close up of those time consuming gumpaste figures:
Photobucket
Check out the cute pics she sent me of the happy couple with the cake!

Photobucket

And look...no rivalry here! :)

Photobucket

Despite some of the drama I had with my car keeping me stuck at my sister's for a day and at my parents for another 2 days...it went smoothly...looooooong story!!!

Here are some other pics because they are just too fun to miss out on:

Photobucket
That's me. HI! Putting finishing touches on this cake at the site of the Rehearsal. Luckily the only thing that fell off the cake was 2 fondant balls and the "united" sign. Easily fixed! I had to pipe all the grass and fix those pieces...plus pipe all the details on the fondant footballs.
Photobucket

Also there were these babies:
Photobucket

Lots and lots of work!! I'm so glad I got the experience of doing a cake this large and of traveling with it. Lessons learned are definitely always worth the trials we endure to learn them. I'm soooo thankful for all of my answered prayers along the way and for the "cake angels" I'm certain were with me on the way there! Otherwise my car would have failed on me before the delivery. God is good.

And last but not least here I am with my oldest friend...we go waaaaaaaay back.
First the throwback pic...no laughing:
Photobucket

And here we are with the cake this weekend:
Photobucket

Love you girl!!!! Thanks for making me a part of Corey and Sarah's special day!

Blessings!

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Tyler's Groom's Cake

Photobucket

Woohooo! My first cake for a wedding! I love weddings. I really do.

I haven't ventured making a wedding cake yet, but just the fact that this was for a wedding brought a huge smile to my face. I loved doing this for them! It was surprisingly easy to pipe the borders (something I have always been hesitant about) and I think it added a nice finishing touch to the cake. The bride gave me the design choices and I worked with her a bit to find something that would work well. We came up with this design and it came together just the way we wanted!

The groom is both a UF and UCF alum so this cake featured his two schools.

The cake was lemon cake with vanilla buttercream with fondant and buttercream details.

Blessings!

Saturday, January 8, 2011

"Wise Men Still Seek Him" Cake

Photobucket

I made this cake last night at midnight. Yes. I know what you are thinking. She's nuts. I'm sure most of us cake ladies and gents are often up into the wee hours finishing our cakes. Or...maybe it's just those of us with little ones at our ankles! Either way I really wanted to take a cake to the Epiphany Party our Catholic Families Group is having today sooooo I made two cakes for the same weekend. Yes there was another one too...pictures of that cake will be posted next time! Sooo stay tuned. ;)

The best part of this cake is the before and after. Here take a look...you can see how working on a cake at 1 or 2 in the morning can impair your ability to make good design choices!

BEFORE:
Photobucket

Photobucket

AFTER:
Photobucket
Photobucket

Thank goodness my husband doesn't mind telling me the truth. Otherwise...I would have just left it and said "eh" and "I'm too tired to care about changing it" but his loving question of "what does the black under Jesus represent?" and my realization that is was an attempt to fix a failed design....left me no choice but to try and work some "fix-it" magic. Soooo this isn't a perfect cake...NOPE. But I like it better after the fix. AND I enjoyed the practice piping on the before version so I guess you could say it's a win-win!

The cake is Red Velvet with vanilla buttercream and Marshmallow Fondant decorations and buttercream piping.

Tomorrow is the last day of Christmas for us Catholics! I'm going to enjoy today's Epiphany Party and Feast well! Enjoy your weekend!

Blessings!

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Yes Merry Christmas still! I'm Catholic and we party like it's Christmas until, well it's not Christmas anymore!!! :) We celebrate Christmas for an Octave (8 days) and then the Christmas Season lasts (liturgically) until our Feast of the Baptism of Christ...soooo Merry Christmas!

Here's a cake I made for a Christmas Party:

Photobucket

It was chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream and decorated with marshmallow fondant.

I had the hardest time deciding what to do, but decided to keep it simple! I embossed the cross and the navy blue border with a circle cutter since the circle symbolizes eternity.

Photobucket

I also made a New Year Cake at the request of my daughter. She gave me instructions that it should be black and white with flowers, balloons, sprinkles and a clock. Although it didn't turn out exactly the way she asked (no room for balloons!!) it was still a decent attempt at meeting her expectations!!! Also ALL BUTTERCREAM! Always a good opportunity for me to practice my flawed piping!

Photobucket

I did some piped borders and dots and all in black buttercream. The clock is piped on and I used some colored sugar sprinkles to give it a bit of contrast. The little white snowflake sprinkles are supposed to help meet the "flower" requirement.

Photobucket

It was a chocolate dairy-free, egg-free, gluten-free cake with dairy free vanilla buttercream. The kids loved it! :)

Here's a pic of hubby and I on New Years Eve!
Photobucket
Many Blessings to you and yours in 2011!!!