Happy Birthday for a Very Cool Baby

I got some creative freedom on this one and I LOVED it.  I saw a cake kind of like it on TV and I had to make one like it.  I didn't use any stencils on this one but cut every single shape out freehand with a knife.  It was a challenge and a fair amount of work but totally worth it. (Thanks for the help Sydney.)  I think it turned out great.  What a lucky kid to get such a cool cake for her birthday!

Happy Happy Birthday to You!

This cake was so much fun to do.  It was for my chiropractor.  Her husband got it as a surprise for her because he didn't get a cake for her last year and her kids couldn't believe that their dad wouldn't get an awesome cake for their mom.  So, he made up for it this year by getting the most fun, sparkly cake ever.  And of course it was her favorite on the inside, chocolate on chocolate...  I did a lot of different textures on the ribbons around the bottom of each tier as well as on the polka dots.  Then I pearlized the whole cake and glittered the polka dots.  Those things along with adding all those little dragees took FOREVER but totally worth it because this cake ROCKED!  

Golfer in the house!

A golf fan turns 33!  This cake was SO much fun to make.  I hope he dug it.  I wasn't quite sure how to work a golf theme into a fun cake that is still interesting and cool so I found a cake very similar to this one online and kind of ripped off the idea to put this together.  But hey, at least it was from someone across the country and wasn't someone in town.  The argyle was a rough pattern to make but totally worth it in the end.  It's just not golf without some tacky argyle right....? :o)  The golf ball on the top was giving me problems but I finally got it done.  Everyone kept telling me, "you should just use a real golf ball," but I just couldn't.  I had to make one.  It's bad enough that the flag pole is not edible.  

I'm still working on taking better photos of the cakes... so I had to post 2 so you could see the top of the cake as well as a side view so you could see the slanted tiers.  That always make a cake more "fun" to make... or scary.  :o)

NFL Retirement Party

An East Valley native played for these 2 teams over the last 9 years and his wife wanted a cake to celebrate his great career.  I wish I would have taken a photo of the back of the cake (that was silly of me...).  It had the "Bears" & "Chiefs" in their team fonts on one side and then the seasons that he played for those teams on the other.  On the top is a banner that says "congrats on a great career!" with silver and gold stars.  I wanted to put the football field hash marks on the green but I ran out of time.  I bit off way more than I could chew with this cake.  It was huge (10 inch bottom & 8 inch top) and when those are square it makes for a very big cake.  Then the detail level was insane.  Between all the precision cutting and using 7 different colors... it was nuts and took WAY longer than I anticipated.  I had to commission my darling neighbor girl to cut out and paint the stars for me too, thank goodness or those wouldn't have gotten done either.  But who cares, it was worth it because it still turned out amazing and I really hope they liked it.  :o)

Elegant Penguins

I only had two weeks notice on this cake but hey, we do what we can to accommodate.  This was officially the biggest cake I've ever done, and frankly the most elegant.  This is not normally something I do but I would do it again in a heartbeat.  It was way more fun and challenging than I expected.  If you look closely there are TONS of those little silver "BBs" around the bottom of each tier.  I also did all the piping then went back after it was dried and painted it all silver.  This cake was a lot of work but it was amazing.  It was delish on the inside too.  The bottom tier (weighing in at almost 30 lbs all by itself) was chocolate, white, chocolate, white with chocolate mousse filling.  The next 2 layers were chocolate with peanut butter mousse with chocolate chunks...  Holy Cow!  We were making little cake top sandwiches with the leftovers on this one too.  It was GOOD!  Then the top tier was white cake with chocolate ganache.  At first I was a little nervous about putting penguins on such an elegant cake but I thought it was really cute!

70th Birthday Party

Yeah!! 70th Birthday Party!  They asked for nothing chocolate or alcohol flavored and something different so we did white cake with key lime filling!  It was sooooo good!  We were making little sandwiches with the cake tops and leftover filling.  Then they just said to match the outside to the inside so that's what we did.   I thought this cake was very citrusy looking and very fun.

Babies & Monkeys

Okay, let me just tell you that square cakes are insanely difficult.  But this cake was so worth the effort!  Is it wrong to be in love with your own cake that you made?  This was a last minute request but I couldn't pass it up.  I had to do the baby blocks!  It was worth getting up at 1:00 a.m. to work on it all night to get it done before my cake class started at 8:30.  When my husband got up to go to work he said "that's a really cute bear."  It's not a bear, it's a monkey!  The ears are a little big and mouse-like but overall I thought it was a dang cute monkey... :o)

Baby's First Birthday

This was a little take off my niece's birthday but we made it way more sparkly.  It's hard to see it in the photo but the flowers and all the polka dots, and the 1 are all covered with pink edible glitter.  I love the 1 on the top.  I just had to add it.

Happy Valentine's Day!!

The guy who ordered this cake has to be up for the husband of the year award!  Listen to this... He bought her a Juicy Couture Charm Bracelet and had me build it into this cake!  The box was kind of long so we had to make the cake 3 tiers high to fit it in.  I couldn't believe that it all lined up and that it worked perfectly.  We did a little take off the wedding cake I did on Jan 3rd and mixed up the colors (and made it much smaller of course) and came up with this.  I thought it was FABULOUS!  Jenn, you're a lucky girl!  Keep that guy around.  :o)

Baby Boy Shower

This cake was for a baby shower on Sunday.  I know it looks kind of purplish but I swear it was light blue when I mixed it.  This happened to me another time except in the other direction.  No more Fondex for me.  It's Satin Ice only from now on.  :o)

Go Cardinals!!!

This photo has a little too much light on it but you get the idea.  It was for a party that I went to so I didn't go too all out, not like their logo is very extravagant but...  Sometimes I like the simple elegance of getting straight to the point and nothing else.  Too bad we lost the super bowl.  :o(

Another Fun Wedding!

This was a super fun cake to make for a backyard wedding.  As much as I like traditional wedding cakes I LOVE the non-traditional.  Does it get any more fun than this?

90th Birthday Party

90 is definitely a mile stone to be celebrated.  I hope she loved her cake.  Nothing like chocolate with chocolate mousse filling with chocolate fondant...  YUM!!!  This cake was a derivative of the last flowery cake that I did.  We just modified it with a big pink bow.  I think it turned out famously.

Tiffany's Box

I have found out that a "simple" gift box is much harder than it looks like it should be.  Square cakes are way harder than round to make them look good.  This bow was my favorite!  But... just before it got picked up my darling 2 year old son grabbed the bow off and started to eat it!  I just about died!  He also left a few nice finger pokes in the cake as well.  I had to rush to make a new bow but it had to sit up right because it didn't have time to dry.  We managed to patch it up pretty good and Mike was so gracious about the whole situation.  Thanks for your understanding Mike!!!

Strawberry Shortcake Colors

This cake was for a 7 year old's birthday party.  There was a Strawberry Shortcake theme for the party but we didn't really want to put strawberries on the cake so we just did it the strawberry shortcake colors.  I think it turned out dang cute!  The lime green bows and the bling were fashionable additions to this little cake (it was 8in, 6in and 4in tiers.  I have come to realize the the smaller the cake the more difficult it is to work with and cover with fondant...

Another Traveling Wedding Cake

My other little brother got married this weekend in Colorado.  They told me that they wanted the cake to be "playful and crazy" and that "the only rule was that there were no rules."  Being that it was a wedding and I didn't want to do something so crazy that I might jack it up beyond repair I stayed a little on the conservative side.  My sisters didn't want me to do black tiers but I couldn't help myself.  The wedding was in a small town and the guests at the wedding had never seen anything like it before.  They were blown away that something like this was even possible with cake.  Oh, the bike...  They are HUGE bicycle fans and there were bikes all over the place so we had to put one on the cake too.  :o)

Romantic & Vintage

I always ask a customer to choose the 2 words that would describe the way they want their cake to look and she chose Romantic & Vintage.  The decoration at this wedding was over-the-top FABULOUS (Great job Tam & Kara)!  I hope the cake did the rest of the decor justice.  I haven't done very many cakes with piping so I was very nervous about this but it turned out great.  I was up till 3:30 am working on it.  It took me so long because I had to keep scraping off piping that wasn't good and redoing it until it was perfect, but it was totally worth it in the end.  I thought this cake was Gorgeous!  Oh yeah, it was really tall.  Each tier was 6 1/2 inches tall!

Bella's 3rd Birthday!

My baby girl turned 3 on Saturday.  I can't believe it!  The first cake I ever made was for her 1st birthday and now I've made more than 70 in the last two years and it just keeps getting busier.  She couldn't decide on pink or purple so we did them both and of course she is  little princess so we had to the theme the cake so.  She LOVED it!

Shipped a Wedding Cake to CA

I finally got the picture of this one!  Yeah!  I made the tiers and boxed each one up.  They put them in a rigged-up cool chest to keep them cold without getting them wet, all while keeping them level..... and they made it!!!  I couldn't believe it!  It was a happy new year's day wedding.

Something totally different

When Molly asked for this cake for her wedding I thought to myself, "seriously?"  Then after looking at the picture a few more times I thought it was fantastic.  Then after I made 1/2 inch ruffles for 9 hours I really grew to appreciate it.  I also questioned the apples, but once the flowers were on the cake and it was sitting on the apples I fell completely in LOVE with it.  It was just so simple and organic for this outdoor wedding.  It's a good thing that other people have great vision because without them I would be way less creative.  Thanks Molly!!!