Sand and Sun Cake

Every year we go to the beach for Memorial Weekend to be with family and friends. This year was no exception! Last year (if you remember back that far) I made a "beach cake" at the last minute to take and suprise everyone. I promised I would bring a cake each year and so I came up with this sand pail/sand castle (sort of) combo. If I could do it again I would use a castle pan. Mainly because I had to drive this cake a ways and to do intricate sugar work or delicate fondant pieces was not possible. PLUS the humidity is insane beachside...soooo yeah...I had to finish it when I arrived with cookies and sugar. I think the little crab saved the day as without it I would have felt the cake lacked something color wise. I literally threw the crab together the night before the cake was served with some leftover red fondant. I thought he turned out cute in spite of how soft he was when I took this picture! He had dried a bit by the time we cut into the cake.

The pail was a pina colada cake. Coconut cake with pina colada buttercream and marshmallow fondant. The "Sand Castle" was chocolate cake with oreo buttercream. I used raw sugar, buttercream and fondant accents. The crab's eyes are chocolae candies.



We had a blast playing on the beach with the kiddos and everyone seemed to enjoy the cake!

Blessings!

Oreo Cupcakes

These didn't turn out as pretty and perfect as I had planned. The cupcakes were tasty but a sticky, sticky chocolate that didn't shape well and crumbles easily. I decided to go oreo buttercream which is hard to pipe pretty since it has chunky spots. Overall I'm just happy I was able to do my first homemade logo piks in the cupcakes. That was super fun!

Blessings!

Piggly Wiggly Cake

Dig the Pig!

A neighbor with a soft spot for Piggly Wiggly turned 30. This was her fun neon green (color of her piggly wiggly shirt) 30th birthday cake!

I hand shaped the logo in colored fondant and then outlined the design in black buttercream. Vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream and fondant and buttercream accents.

This was challenging and fun too!

Blessings!

I Scream, You scream...We All Scream for Ice Cream

So there isn't actually ice cream in this cake. Just a chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream and fondant decorations. I over thinned the icing so it didn't do well in the hot sun, but since it was a donation to my church's carnival I didn't let it bug me too much.

It was fun! I loved using the sprinkles.

I also took a family vacation to Disney this month so I wanted to share some cupcakes the kids requested me to do before our trip.


These were gluten free/dairy free/egg free and turned out better than usual. I made some chocolate ones from scratch just last week and they were the best yet. I think Gluten Free baking just takes a lot of practice. I'm almost there! :)

Here's the cupcake sandwich I made for my daughter when she requested more icing.

Fun stuff! I'm sure I paid for all that sugar later on...oh well!

Blessings!

Suitcase Cake

This was for a friend moving from the U.S. to Canada (her hometown). I tried to include all the things that are special to her...hobbies, work, homeschooling, church missions...she is a special lady and I'll miss having her around.

The suitcase is dark chocolate cake with non-dairy chocolate buttercream. The decorations are all fondant and buttercream. The cosmetic bag is chocolate cake with buttercream and marshmallow fondant decorations with little candy pearls.

She's a Mary Kay Consultant hence all the makeup and "MK"!

I think everyone enjoyed it but I'm still pretty self conscious of my baking skills. It's so hard to please everyone! I *want* to make one flavor for each guest just to be sure they love it! :) Impossible!!! Especially with a group of 20 women! Everyone loved the design and I was so happy to have had the opportunity to play with hand drawn designs on fondant "Stickers". Thanks for looking!

Blessings!

Rainbows and Flowers

Happy 4th Birthday to my little rose! She specifically requested rainbows, flowers, clouds and for the cake to be green.

This is a dairy and casein/gluten/egg/peanut free cake. My little girl is allergic to these items plus 7 other things (including coconut and almond). I used the Betty Crocker box mix (two of them to get a taller cake) and then substituted butter flavored crisco instead of butter and egg replacer for the eggs. I used an all crisco icing with soymilk and butter flavor and marshmallow fondant.

Now, normally I would make a cake for her from scratch but I wanted to see if this cake mix would get a better flavor than some of the other recipes, so we shall see how this goes! I am hoping to try some new recipes eventually but this time I had limited supplies and opted to go the easy, but still experimental, route.

All the decorations are fondant and buttercream.

Blessings!

Twilight: 16th Birthday Cake

I made this cake for a neighbor's 16th birthday. I had never read these books at all, but knew from the neighbors that she like it. I used a cream cheese frosting recipe that was a bit soft so there was some buckling with my squares. But overall I like the way it turned out. I suppose I need to be humbled with some small thing each time I make a cake. I know that the knowledge helps me feel more confident the next time I attempt another cake!! :)



I shaped these numbers from gumpaste and then painted the checkered pattern on with food coloring mixed in vanilla. I didn't have vodka soooo ya know...sometimes you've just got to use what you have in the pantry! There was some slight bleeding in the color because of it, but I was too cheap to go out and buy a food color pen! One day I will get some and go crazy! They look like fun!



The apple is fondant with a real apple stem that I washed and stuck in. I also painted the apple with some burgundy food color to keep it from looking too fake.


The top tier was a breeze (no cream cheese icing!) and was vanilla with vanilla buttercream and marshmallow fondant. The bottom tier is red velvet with cream cheese buttercream and marshmallow fondant. All accents are fondant and gumpaste.
And on a completely unrelated note...
Happy St. Patrick's Day!