Pink Ribbon Cake

After batteling breast cancer for several years, a daughter wanted to celebrate her Moms last day of treatment.  I made the Moms favorite cake, an 8" red velvet with cream cheese frosting.  A simple pink ribbon was piped on with colored cream cheese.  Now this is something to celebrate!

Chinese Takeout Cupcakes

I saw these cupcakes in a cupcake book and just had to try them.  My April Fools Girls Night Out Party was the perfect opportunity!  I gave them away as door prizes.

So lets talk about the Chinese takeout boxes first.  I put paper towels in the bottom of the box to elevate the cupcakes.  Each box contained three cupcakes with butter cream frosting.  The Chinese noodles are piped butter cream and I formed the meat and broccoli out of candy.  The fried rice is actually rice crispy treats with candy veggies.

The fortune cookie cupcakes were dulce de leche with caramel meringue butter cream frosting.  The cookies were made of a caramel chew that I rolled out and cut with a circle cookie cutter.  I printed out fortunes that read: "sweet treats are in your future".  Big hit of the night!

Pirouette Cookie Cake

For my husbands birthday last year I made his favorite cake.  Well one of his favorite cakes, he has a few.

 

 

 I covered a 6" chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting.  To decorate it, I simply placed pirouette cookies around the sides and tied them together with ribbon.  Chocolate covered strawberries filled in the top (those are my favorite!).  Very simple and easy, yet looks so elegant. 

Go Cubs!!!

My husband is from Chicago and is a big Cubs fan.  So for his birthday we had a Chicago party including deep dish pizza and Chicago style hot dogs. 

For his cake I made a chocolate 8" square and half a medium size ball pan.  The base ball plate was easy to decorate, just shaping the square a little bit before covering it with fondant.  After covering the half round ball cake, I used several tools to make the stitching on the hat.  A covered piece of cardboard gave the rim of the hat a nice arch.  The last touch was crushed gram crackers around the plate.

Oktoberfest Beer Stein Cake

Another Oktoberfest for my husband, another opportunity to try new techniques on a cake!

 

For our Oktoberfest party this year I decided on making  Black Forest Cake (rich chocolate cake with cherry filling).   I just bought a cake decorating airbrush and wanted to experiment with it a little more.  I painted a fondant covered plastic pipe anchor for the handle of the stein and the fondant frosting with several colors (gold, yellow, and brown).  I thought that would give it a nice speckled antique look.  I hand piped our families crest and shield on the Stein (next time I would use royal icing).  I wanted the butter cream frosting on top to look frothy, so I took a torch to it.  Wasn't quite sure how that would work out, but it turned out great! 
 

Golden Anniversary Cake

It was beyond a privilege and honor to make this cake for a 50th wedding anniversary celebration.  The daughter of the couple called me up and after several meetings of going over sketches and talking about flavors, she decided on this. 

The 10" square cake was chocolate with an Oreo Cookie cream filling.   Yellow cake with fudge filling made the 8" square cake.  I spray painted the fondant with edible gold paint.  After I made the roses with gum paste I hand painted the edges of each rose pedal with some more edible gold paint, just to make them pop a little bit more.  I found the cake topper online. 

BBQ Cupcakes

My friend invited  us to her house for a BBQ dinner.  My two daughters were thrilled because my husband was deployed at the time and I don't BBQ, so it was a great treat!  I told her I would bring dessert!  I made vanilla cupcakes with chocolate ganache frosting.  I used candy and edible marker to decorate the tops (I think this idea came from the Family Fun Magazine).  This became a weekly treat and other wives whose husbands were deployed joined us!

Boy? Girl?

 

My friend was expecting her first baby and was going to find out the sex before birth. I begged and pleaded to do a "reveal cake" for her and her husband. I love the idea of this cake and wanted to do one for a long time. On the day of the ultrasound I got a text from her stating there was an envelope for me waiting on my front porch with the gender information. I think the reason why I liked this idea was that I got to know before the parents! I had this great secret that I had to keep (it actually gave me a head ache)! I can't tell you how many times I read the piece of paper with the words, "It's a ..." during the making of the cake. I was so afraid I would screw it up and some how add the wrong color, ruining this great reveal! The pressure made my head ache even worse! I made a 6" round white cake and put a few drops of food coloring in the batter. To ensure that no cake crumbs would show, I crumb coated the cake twice before icing with butter cream. Simple blue and pink question marks decorated the cake. Delivery of the cake was even more stressful than making it! I was so afraid I would accidentally reveal the gender if I chatted with my friend. I texted her that I was on my way and that I was not going to say a word to her (she laughed when I wouldn't even say "hi").   

My head ache finally subsided when I received a text with a picture of the cake.  Surprisingly a stressful cake, but so worth it.  I would do it again! 

Easter Peeps

  These cupcakes have become a tradition in our house around Easter time.  When my friends found out about these, oh they were so excited!  The week before Easter, my kitchen was filled with Peeps!  Not only do you get a delicious cupcake with a fondant shell, you get a yummy marshmallow Peep!

Go Broncos!!!

These twins celebrated their 18th Birthday with family watching their favorite football team play a Sunday game.  Their Mom surprised them with this cake when they came down for the game.  I made an 8" round yellow cake with butter cream frosting.  All the piping was done in butter cream.

Aloha Cupcakes

Dave's office had a farewell BBQ for several of the families, including us, that were PCSing (moving) over the summer.  Dave signed us up to bring dessert.  I made hummingbird cupcakes (a great tropical flavor with fresh pineapple and coconut) with cream cheese frosting.  I frosted them like a cake and piped on the call signs of the guys who were leaving.  A simple gum paste Plumeria lei decorated it.  I strung the flowers with floss and painted the centers with yellow food coloring. 

The Making of a Donut Cake

This was such a fun cake to do and surprisingly easy.  I took pictures along the way to show you step by step.  Great cake to make for a donut lover in your family. 

I started off with two 10" round yellow cakes.  Because this was going to be a heavy cake, I used more than just cake boards.  I used a sturdy board along with the cake boards and cake paper.  I cut and leveled the cakes and used butter cream for the filling.

 

 

After crumb coating the cake I made about a 3" hole in the center.

With a serrated knife I started shaping the cake into a donut.  It doesn't take much, just a little off the top, bottom, and sides.  After that I frosted with butter cream.

I tinted my homemade marshmallow fondant with brown gel food coloring and rolled it out for the donut.  The tricky part was piecing fondant in the donut hole.  I used a fondant smoothing tool to help with this step. 

I used some pink fondant for the donut glaze.  Again rolling out the fondant and using a fondant smoothing tool.  Once in place, I carefully cut out the fondant edges to make it look like glaze.  I rolled out different colored fondant and cut it into large sprinkles.

The birthday boy I was making this cake for was a huge Simpsons fan, so I added a Homer made out of fondant.  A little bit of frosting in the hand made him look even more like Homer.

Last touch was a banner to personalize the cake.  See how easy that was!

HOSC Flip Flop Cupcakes

The Hickam Officer Spouse Club (HOSC) held a flip flop themed bunko night.  The location was amazing:  a pavilion on the beach at the port of entry of Pearl Harbor.  They gave me a napkin that I used to go off of for the colors.  I made two kinds of cupcake:  Hummingbird (which has a very tropical taste with pineapple and coconuts) and chocolate.  Both had butter cream frosting.  The flip flops were made out of fondant.  I used edible markers to add a little more detail to the flip flops. 

Pizza Party

For my daughters 8th birthday, she asked if she could swim with the dolphins at Sea Life Park instead of having a big party with friends.  She got her wish and I was the lucky parent who got to escort her in the water tank and take a dolphin ride myself!   One of the coolest things ever!  So glad I got to share that memory with my daughter.

 

So the story behind her cake:

 

 

My daughter would have been fine celebrating her birthday with no cake . . . . . but I wouldn't be!  We told her we would just have a birthday dinner at her favorite pizza place with a close family of ours.  I secretly made this 12" round white cake and decorated it to look like a pizza.  Strawberry pie filling made great sauce.  I froze a bag of butter cream and shredded it for the cheese.  The black olives and the crust were made out of fondant. She was totally surprised, and so were the other pizza patrons at the restaurant, us bringing in our own pizza!

Zebra Cake

 

I had the opportunity to make a zebra themed birthday cake:  a 6" chocolate cake with butter cream piped zebra stripes.  The original idea for the cake had no other decorations, but at the last minute I added the pink fondant ribbon and bow.  Fingers crossed, I delivered the cake, hoping I chose the right color and she liked pink.  I got my answer a few hours later with a text picture from the birthday girl herself.

 She loved it!  Whew!!!

Major Promotion Cake

My neighbor was promoted to Major and I was honored when they asked me to make the cake for the ceremony.  She knew exactly what she wanted, she even had a picture of the cake she found online.  Both the 8" and 6" were chocolate with fondant frosting.  The decorations were made out of fondant also.  I used cardboard for the Major and Air Force emblem and covered it with the fondant to give it more stability in the humid weather.