First Holy Communion: Pink and White

I really still am in shock that this all happened, that my dear sweet child has made her First Holy Communion and I made a cake for it. It feels surreal!!! My baby is not a baby and she now can receive Our Lord in this amazing Sacrament! I feel more than I can possibly express.

Here she is with her cake...

 And yes that is a cake pan under the cake!!! I changed the size of the cake last minute and didn't have a board big enough for it so I flipped the pan. Sometimes you have to be flexible!

 I used gumpaste for the chalice and paten and fondant for the hosts so the kids could eat them. I put some red fruit snacks in the chalice. My kids thought that was the best...eating the hosts and getting fruit snacks out of the chalice. Nevermind about the humongous cake I baked and decorated...HA! The top cake is strawberry-lemonade (Gluten-free/dairy-free/ egg-free and safe for my allergic-to-everything child) and the bottom cake is safe Chocolate all with dairy-free vanilla butter cream icing.

The two little cakes are vanilla with marshmallow fondant I made from scratch. I used one of my cupcake toppers I had left to decorate one and a gumpaste plaque I piped onto for the other.

The biggest hit in my mind was the strawberry-lemonade. I found a gluten-free cake doctor recipe that I adapted to be safe and added lemon to to make the lemonade aspect of it. The fresh strawberries, increase in oil amounts and the jello packets seemed to keep it moist. The other cakes always dry out so quickly, but this cake was soft well into the week. My husband said it is now his favorite and requested it for his birthday! Win!

I am so proud of my beautiful daughter! Congratulations to her on her First Holy Communion!! I pray God guides her to the saint He desires her to be.

"There is but one suffering...to not be a saint."  Our bishop quoted this in his Pentecost Homily, but I can't remember who said it. I love it!

Blessings!!!

Alleluia Cake!

Easter this year was crazy busy! I am helping with the children's class for RCIA and that means Holy Week is I-have-something-every-night week. That said on Holy Saturday I managed to pull this off and take it for the Easter Basket Blessings at my parish.

This was a combined effort as my daughter made a little chickie and a bunny for it as well as Easter Eggs for the border. My son made one of the big flowers on the egg and I did the rest. They love making things out of fondant and I hope one day they savor these baking memories as blessed times in our life.

Although our 50 days of Easter Celebration have ended I pray you carry the Alleluias in your heart. We are the Alleluia people!
Blessings!

Bake Sale Cakes 2014

Here are some pics of the bake sale items I submitted this year for our church festival.
All my cakes sold including an Olaf cake I forgot to take a pic of...oh well! I have been using my phone camera to take pictures so forgive all the poor quality pics. They are the only kind I have lately! #poor excuse for a blogger

 These were cupcake toppers that did NOT sell...sigh. Too specific and not really reasonable. I saved them and used them for our own religious celebrations here.

 This is the white chocolate cake with vanilla butter cream. Not my best design! lol. Still fun and bright for a birthday cake or a just because cake.

 This is chocolate chocolate with a vanilla butter cream filling. I liked the simplicity of it.

These were some chocolate cupcakes I decorated in Festival colors that our parish uses to advertise. I incorporated virtues on them to appeal to my fellow Catholics. I made some allergen free cookies and some chocolate caramel cupcakes too but didn't get a good pic of them so just imagine the sweet image in your fabulous mind. ;)

Blessings!!!!

Clue Crew Cake

My daughter's request for her birthday this year was for a Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew Cake. Huh? I was thinking it would be impossible!!!! However I drew up a sketch to try and mimic the cover style of her favorite book at the time and it turned out better than expected!

She liked the one about strawberry scented perfume and the beauty shop (it's the age!!!) so I incorporated some pink cosmetic/perfume bottles and did her age in the magnifying glass. I put a fondant image of her as part of the clue crew and dressed to match the cake with a "birthday sash" on as she was planning to wear one this year.

 As you can see from the clock I was up all night working to finish this cake!!! My hubby was out of town and I can't sleep when he's gone so it was a good excuse to just finish. I do think if I hadn't been exhausted I might have added some more detail to the bottles and possibly a border around the top tier. Exhaustion won the battle!

All in all it turned out the way she wanted and really who can complain about that! The cake was gluten free, dairy free, nut free, etc. It was chocolate on the bottom and vanilla on the top with dairy free vanilla butter cream and fondant decorations.

Blessings!

Pearls and Ribbon Anniversary Cake

This cake is from a while back, but I never posted it. My dear friend celebrated her 10th Wedding Anniversary and wanted a pure white cake to make up for her wedding day cake being not quite what she wanted. This cake was gluten-free and nut-free with vanilla cake and fondant decorations. I hand rolled the pearls and then painted them with pearl dust to give them shimmer. The topper is floral (not evident from this picture) with some pearls added to it. I used a ball of fondant and then attached the flowers and pearls to it to add dimension and interest. The ribbons is not edible but everything else was edible.

I'm back to posting now, so hopefully I can post a little more than once in a year!  I have some cakes I have yet to post so I will try and catch up when I can over the summer.

Blessings!