Texas Rangers Birthday

My boyfriend James turned the big 3-0 this June, so we hosted a big Texas Rangers party and took a big group to a ball game. Of course, this was the perfect time to use my trusty ball-cake pan. My baseball turned out a little lumpy, but overall I was pretty happy with this one. All decorations are fondant, save the edible image Rangers logo which i picked up at my local cake supply. Had a great experience with Satin Ice fondant, which I hadn't tried in a while. I might be switching brands! We'll see...

Was also super excited to find they had Texas-shaped cookie cutters in three sizes! Naturally I had to use them for the cake. And some cupcakes. And likely cake balls very soon.

Also made some cake balls decorated like baseballs. Because obviously there wasn't enough cake already. :-)

Monogram Cake Balls

I have the honor of being the MOH (that's Maid of Honor for non-wedding-geeks) in my Besties' upcoming wedding, so I was excited to co-host their engagement party a few month ago. Finally getting around to posting pics of the cake ball party favors I made! These matched the monogram design I used on the invitations and party decor. Loved them!

Brunching and Puppy Cakes

My boyfriend James' mom and stepdad, Patty and Larry, have almost the same birthday, so we hosted a joint birthday party for them! It was a brunch, but no brunch is complete without lots of cake and cake balls, right? I made a puppy-themed cake for them decorated with handmade gum paste doggies to match their real-life doggies, Lucy and Wesley. (I included the inspiration photo. I think they turned out pretty cute!) The cakes were lemon (top) and carrot (bottom), and cake balls were white chocolate cake with milk chocolate coating. I have it on good authority that no cake balls went to waste thanks to James' adorable niece, Addi! She may be a cake ball addict! I added a pic of the full sweets table with some of my decor also!

60th Anniversary Cake

My coworkers are the best! Auden asked me to make a 60th Anniversary cake for his in-laws. This one was designed to match both the party invitations and a similar cake they found online. I made the vine design by hand in fondant, and the flowers on top are also handmade in gum paste. I really liked the pop of the bottom tier with the pink top tier.

Baby Shower Cake

Ok, I know, first update in ageeees! I'll try to do better now that life has settled down a little.

This one dates back to last October! I was so excited to make this cake for my coworker Savanna who hosted a baby shower for her friend who was having a little boy. The cake was lined with chocolate-covered strawberries, all in colors to match the shower theme. Loved it!

Cakeball Groom's Cake

I had the privilege of making the groom's cake for my friend Akshay's wedding a few weekends ago.  He asked for two tiers of chocolate cakeballs with red and gold accents (their wedding colors).  He supplied the pretty red and gold sequined ribbon around the bottoms of the tiers.  I love how this turned out.  I'll post a pic of this cake next to their gorgeous bride's cake soon.  They looked great together.

We Wish You a Merry Cupcake

I was asked to make two dozen Christmas cupcakes for a coworker, and they needed to be extra jazzy for his family Christmas celebration. So I spent the better part of last weekend making cute cupcake toppers in assorted Chritmas designs. Loved how they turned out! The cupcakes are red velvet with cream cheese frosting - my favorite christmastime combo! All decorations are fondant with edible glitter, luster dust and sprinkles.

Love the reindeer most of all!

Baby Shower Cupcakes

I had the opportunity to make some baby shower cupcakes for a coworker a few months back, and I just remembered to post the photos! We didn't know the baby's sex, so we went for pastel green and yellow and some traditional baby decorations: pascifiers, bottles, teeny footprints and a monogram. The cupcakes were blueberry white chocolate (made with fresh blueberries) and a lemony buttercream. Very fresh and yummy!

All decorations were fondant dusted with edible glitter. The tiny feet were my favorite.

Petit Fours and Chocolate-covered Strawberries

I was asked to make fall-themed petit fours and chocolate-covered strawberries for a wedding shower. This was my first real attempt at making pretty petit fours, so I was both excited and nervous. Everything I'd read make them sound ridiculously difficult, so I kept my expectations low going into this and made plenty of extras in case I screwed up. In practice, I didn't think they were nearly as hard to make as everyone says, but they are extremely time-consuming.


The cakes were cream cheese pound cake with raspberry filling, and I used a poured fondant mix from my local cake supply and tinted it gold. I didn't bother torting the cake; I just did two larger layers and I think it turned out just fine that way. Maybe a bit less traditional, but you still got enough filling I think.



So, after my first round of petit fours, here are my tips:

1. Make sure each trimmed petit four is nice and cold. I refrigerated overnight.


2. Use a candy fork to stab the top of the petit four and hold it over the poured fondant bowl as you use a large ladle to cover each side and most of the top with fondant. Then, set the petit four on a tray covered with a cooling rack so the sides can drip. Use a spoon to cover the little holes left by the candy fork if needed.


3. Don't bother covering the bottoms.


4. If the glaze looks too thin, let it dry and do another coat. Worked fine.

I really liked how they turned out! I decorated the tops with a marbled fondant leaf and a monogram. The chocolate-covered strawberries were drizzled with orange and gold to match.

Pumpkin Patch Cake

My coworker needed a cake to celebrate his daughter's birthday, and the party was held at a local pumpkin patch just before Halloween. I have been wanting to try a pumpkin-shaped cake for ages, so I was excited this came my way! The cake is two bundts (one chocolate and one vanilla) with cream cheese frosting covered in fondant and airbrushed. The leaves and vines are green and brown marbled fondant, and the stem is an ice cream cone covered in fondant and airbrushed brown. I love how this turned out, and I learned a few things that I'll put to practice next time I do a pumpkin cake!

Tiny Cookie Cakes!

I was asked to make cookie wedding favors for a friend's recent garden-party themed wedding, and when I saw this idea on Martha Stewart's website I just couldn't resist giving it a try. Tiny wedding cakes made of stacked sugar cookies!

Each stack is made of two 2.5" rounds, two 2" rounds, and two 1" rounds held together with a soft royal icing. Each "cake" was adorned with handmade gumpaste flowers in the wedding colors (took a period of weeks to make!) which were attached with royal icing. Each "cake" was placed on a tiny 4" silver cake circle and 4" white doilies and then stuffed in a cello bag and tied up with sheer black ribbon and a matching tag. I made 130 in all, and with the help of some good friends I pulled off getting each one bagged and tagged in time for the wedding. They definitely took over my kitchen but looked cute at the wedding!

Harper's 1st Birthday

This was a first birthday cake for a good friend's niece. The cake was designed to match the party decor/scrapbooking papers. Love how this one turned out!

A Superhero Firefighter 4th Birthday

I made this cake for my coworker's son for his superhero/fireman themed 4th birthday. His birthday party was held at a local fire station (how cool is that?), so the cake features a fireman's hat, ladders, hydrants, and of course a little dalmation! The superhero element is his name in a cool superhero font to match the party invitations. All decorations are fondant. Cake was vanilla/vanilla and chocolate/chocolate. Yummy!

Side view:

The hydrant:

The doggie:

Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cupcakes!

How to make a strawberry/vanilla cupcake better: top with chocolate drizzle and a chocolate-covered strawberry!

S'mores Cupcakes

A minature version of my S'mores Cake. Noms! Marshmallow buttercream and a graham cracker, chocolate and toasted marshmallow!

S'mores Cake

S'mores gooood. Cake gooood. This cakes was for a quarterly office birthday celebration. Vanilla cake with layers of marshmallow buttercream, chocolate ganache and graham cracker crumbs, finished off with more marshmallow buttercream and crumbs, more ganache, toasted marshmallows and some chunks of Hershey's chocolate bar and Graham crackers. I just love toasting marshmallows with my culinary torch, so I may try to think up other recipes that need toasty marshmallows!

Hines Ward Cake

What better way to celebrate your retirement than with a cake to match Dancing With the Stars winner Hines Ward's jersey? This cake was for a super Ward fan to celebrate her last day.

Luau Cupcakes

My friend Mel is a grade school teacher, and she wanted to finish out the school year with a luau party for her kids. I made these vanilla cupcakes decorated with flip flops, leis, hibiscus and surf boards for the party. The flowers and surfboards are sugar art from my local cake store, and I made the flip flops and leis from fondant. The vanilla buttercream was an ocean-blue color.

Easter Cupcakes: UK Ingredients and the Metric System

For Easter, I decided to make cupcakes in homage to my favorite Easter treat: Cadbury Creme Eggs. So it was egg-celent timing that one of my favorite caking blogs, Cupcakes Take the Cake, posted an awesome recipe for just such a cupcake. Thanks to UK food blogger Sticky Pinny for the great recipe and technique.


Since the recipe originated across the pond, I had to do a bit of searching to find some of the key ingredients. For your edification: Golden Syrup, Caster Sugar and Dark Muscovado Sugar.

So golden syrup reminds me a bit of Karo syrup with the color of honey. Found it at my local Kroger in the international foods aisle; it's sweet and sticky, like you might expect. The Dark Muscovado sugar looks and smells like gingerbread. It's like a spiced dark brown sugar; seems like it would be awesome in holiday recipes. The Caster Sugar is basically just really super-fine white sugar; would be great in iced tea. I was able to track down both sugars at Central Market. Note: They weren't cheap. These one-pound bags cost 7 bucks each! It was worth it for the experiment, but probably not on a regular basis.

The original recipe gave the measurements in grams, so I was really glad I own a food scale. Sometimes I wish we could just all be on the metric system...accuracy is key in baking!

So the cupcake recipe was supposedly for Devil's Food, but these seem more like a sort of cocoa spice cake to me. It's definitely not as sweet as most of the cakes I'm used to making (but the frosting makes up for that). Also the recipe said it would make 12-15 cupcakes, but I got an easy 20. They baked up perfectly at 20 minutes.

The dual-flavor frosting (fondant and cream cheese swirled) is meant to mimic the filling inside a Cadbury egg. Mine didn't turn out quite as pretty as the originals, but overall I was happy with the project. And I learned something new, which is always fun!

Cupcakes in a Jar

For our friend Lindsay's birthday, our group of friends planned to go out to dinner after work. So I had to figure out a birthday cake that I could transport by myself to my office in the morning and to the restaurant that night, and it needed to have staying power! I saw the awesome idea for cupcakes in a jar on a cake blog recently, and I thought it would be a perfect solution!

The birthday party was at a Mexican restaurant, so I went for Margarita Cupcakes with Cheesecake Filling and Lime Buttercream topped off with a fresh lime. They were pretty tart, which is a departure from my usual super-sweet frosting, but the creamy filling balanced that out pretty nicely.

I finished off each jar with a ribbon, spoon and label, that way guests could enjoy them at the restaurant or take them home for later. Worked out pretty well! I'll definitely be making these again. Just need to buy more jars!