First Communion Cake

I made this cake for my dear friend's daughter on her First Holy Communion. It was about a year ago, but I'm just getting my act together. Looking at it now the gumpaste chalice really is not as well done as I would have liked. It was my first go at trying to make one and I think next time I will get a mold instead of free handing it. The grapes and wheat were very successful and I did enjoy learning to make the drape. This was my first draping attempt.

The cake was gluten-free vanilla and chocolate with vanilla buttercream. The accents are all gumpaste/fondant/buttecream. The little hosts were so easy to make. I really enjoyed making this cake for all the trouble it gave me...honestly I'm so used to using dairy-free buttercream I think the texture and the crusting always trips me up when I work with icing that has butter. Sculpting fondant is my passion when it comes to cake decorating. I enjoy it all, but the part I love really is the sculpting.

I consider this one a good design that I may use for my own daughter's First Holy Communion cake. Hopefully if I do another Chalice I can have a little more success next time.

Blessings!

Sacred Heart Cake

 "I need nothing but God, and to lose myself in the heart of Jesus."

Yesterday was the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. This devotion became popular following the Lord's revelations to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque. More information can be found at American Catholic.org...see link here:
Saint Margaret Mary

I have a very special devotion to Our Lord through this image of His Loving Heart. We did the Sacred Heart Enthronement just before our daughter was born and this Feast is extremely important to our family.

The kids made some toppers for cupcakes to share and I made this 6 inch cake for our family. It is small, but filled with love for Our Lord! :)

The cake is gluten-free vanilla with dairy-free buttercream and fondant accents. If I'd had more time and more red fondant I would have covered it completely, but time was short and I was making dinner at the same time so I left it as it is above. I painted the wooden pieces with food color mixed with vanilla extract and dyed a little red fondant burgundy to do the blood from the wound made by the soldier's lance. My son was very adamant that we not leave any detail off of the cake.
Immaculate Heart of Mary Pray for us.
Sacred Heart of Jesus Have Mercy on us.

 Many blessings to you during these two precious feasts.

Easter Cake and Divine Mercy Cake

Here are two cakes I made during the Octave...

  I threw this together at the last minute...which is obvious!!! :) I had promised my kids a cake for Easter Sunday but was soooo very busy with many things to get ready for the kids in our program entering the Church on Easter Saturday Vigil. I was also making Sacrament Cake Topper pieces (which I forgot to photograph...go figure). I did manage to get this little cake iced and decorated. It is not really a great design: but the kids do not care about such things the way that I do!

Divine Mercy Sunday occurs the 2nd Sunday of Easter (the readings for that weekend are very much about Mercy already and go so well with this theme) and since Sundays are my baking days during Easter after giving up baking for most of Lent, I decided to make a small cake again to celebrate. I really wanted Easter to be very different from Lent and the "feasting" aspect of this for us is usually tied to cakes/cookies and the like since Momma's a baker! Divine Mercy is a beautiful devotion started through a favorite saint of mine Saint Faustina. She was a Polish nun who Christ gave a mission to that she should proclaim His love and mercy to sinners that He comes to us first with love and mercy before the day of judgement. There is a lovely prayer that accompanies it called the Divine Mercy Chaplet. I took my daughter to our Parish's afternoon prayer service for Mercy Sunday and then we prayed the short prayer at home before having cake. This design is so simple but very strong in impact. The kids enjoyed deciding which "color" to eat and it emphasizes the teaching of Divine Mercy without too much hassle. I really just spread the frosting on and scraped across it to make the red/blue rays. Here's a link to more info on the Divine Mercy devotion:
Divine Mercy

For this past 3rd Sunday of Easter I made some GF/DF Krispy treats...no photos of that though...not really a lot involved! :)

Easter Blessings,
Evie

Monster Truck Cake

Making this cake was a gift to me. I think that whenever the Lord gives us an opportunity to serve others He gives us tenfold from that service. I really enjoyed making this cake and praying for the family as I worked. Work with prayer is twice as sweet. I made this cake for Evan and his family. Evan has many challenges being an older sibling to a handsome little brother with many medical needs. As a new volunteer with Icing Smiles I was honored to make a cake for Evan. You can read about this beautiful family on Facebook at the below link. Please like their page and show your support! Team Hayden

 Icing Smiles is a great organization and if you are a baker who is interested please check out this beautiful charity here:  Icing Smiles

I didn't get to attend the party but I was really blessed to meet them and become a part of the community support network in our area.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     Evan's Cake was Monster Truck themed and based on his favorite truck. I made this cake Gluten-Free with Gluten-Free Krispy treats to make the truck and wheels. I have never had so much fun playing with crumbs of cake and frosting!!! Making mud mountain was a challenge that took time (a deliberate mess always does) and ended up being quite enjoyable. :)

                                              This all was very emotional for me and I really enjoyed the process and the joy in Evan's response to seeing the cake. I always wondered if I couldn't sell my cakes what I could do with this love for baking and I think this experience has shown me that God has a plan for our gifts and finds the right time for them to be given to others. 

This week's Office of Readings had the following scripture from Peter that really came at the right time and touched my heart: 

 "As each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God’s varied grace. Whoever preaches, let it be with the words of God; whoever serves, let it be with the strength that God supplies, so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ..."

Easter Blessings,

Evie 

Rainbow Pony Cake

   Here is the latest baking fun from my home!
I had a very specific request from my daughter to make a Pony Cake based on her favorite toy and that it should be inscribed in exactly the way she directed. Hmmm...I think she gets this from me!

  So I made a very small cake (it was Palm Sunday when we had cake) as we were starting to the holy week fasting/prayer. However telling a girl she can't have a cake for her birthday was not really an option for us. I enjoyed making the very anime-esque eyes and thought it looked as close to her toy's match as it could in the time I allotted time to work on the cake.

 This was a new recipe I found for homemade chocolate allergen free cake that used vinegar and no eggs. I was somewhat happy with the  taste, but I think that it called for not quite the right amount of sugar. Next time I will up the amount. My hubby saw me making all the swirls and was somewhat confused. I did use them, but I made way too many!  I love this design. I think it could have more color (white clouds/white cake sort of bothers me) and if I had thought it through a little more and had the time I might have made the cake blue but I was thinking it would conflict with the blue on the pony. I covered a bunch of mini marshmallows with fondant to make the large cloud and then piped the smaller clouds from buttercream.

She loved her cake and even though it was a quick and short celebration (the cake didn't last more than a day since it was small) she was happy and that made me happy with it. :) :)

Easter Blessings from our home to yours!