A Very Special Baby Shower Cake

Our good friends Hilary and Alan are expecting a little baby boy in July and I was honored to get to make her Baby Shower cake this past Sunday. The cake itself was an awesome vanilla bean (tinted blue in honor of baby Kyes!) with pastel yellow vanilla bean butter cream. I'm a chocolate girl myself but the cake was delicious! I'm normally not around when my cakes are cut or eaten so this was certainly fun. Her shower was beautiful and everyone had a great time. We can't wait to meet your precious boy Alan and Hil, only a few months left, enjoy them!

Casey's Going Away Party

I decorated this cake for my brother in law, Casey, who will be leaving for the Special Forces (Army) on June 22nd. (Cake says "Good Luck Casey!" -with a paw print for Champ, his dog). Everyone is so proud of Casey but will miss him so much while he's gone! Especially his new little neice, Lilly! All our love and luck to you Casey!

Sammy's 9th Birdthday Cake

Sam got a baby corn snake for his birthday (whom he absolutely LOVES) so I thought I'd give him a snake cake this year. The snake actually turned out looking pretty much like Sam's snake (who I think is still nameless?). Anyway, even though the outside was cool, it was the inside that really came out awesome. I made tye dye cake batter for a fun surprise when Sammy and his sleepover party friends cut into it. I'll try and post a pic of the inside of the baked cake later.

Mom's FANTASTIC Red Velvet Cupcakes

These are hands down some of the most awesome cupcakes I have ever had. I have a weird thing about getting cupcakes to bake with that perfect dome on top (crazy as it sounds, some bakers actually try to get this NOT to happen...) but these come out perfect every time! They are moist and so delicious. We topped them later with a thin coating of cream cheese icing- but they were all eaten up before I could snap a picture!

A Cake For My Uncle

It happened to work out that I was home the same weekend as my Uncle Ward's birthday. My Aunt asked me to make him a cake and pretty much left it up to me as to what it would be about. He loves music and traveling so I went with that. The border of the cake turned out so cute as a piano keyboard, and then the map on top with little red pins stuck in is supposed to represent all the places he's been. I thought it came out very well!

Cupcakes for Haley's Yellow Team

Brandon's sister Haley was doing a cheer camp for little girls and wanted to bring in cupcakes for her yellow team. They certainly were very yellow :)

Coconut Cupcakes with Lime Buttercream Frosting

I couldn't get enough of these. They were incredible! And that's saying something coming from the chocoholic queen of the planet. They were perfect during the hot few days we had here in Pittsburgh a little while ago. Very appropriate for summer.

Mother's Day Cake for Kim

Made Brandon's Mom a two tier Mother's Day Cake. Best fondant job I've ever done.

Peanut Butter Planet Cupcakes (for Nick)

I'm trying to create a series of cupcakes that go with memebers of my family/friends. For Nick,the peanut butter cup king, I went with a vanilla cupcake with a mini reese's in the middle, dipped in chocolate ganache, with peanut butter buttercream and half a reese's on top.

More Details of Haley's Cupcakes

Haley's Sweet 16

For Brandon's little sis, Haley's, 16th Birthday party, her Mom and I decided to make over a hundred cupcakes. Kim baked all the cupcakes (thank god!), chocolate, funfetti, and vanilla, then she made the buttercream, courtesy of her Dudt Family's famous buttercream recipe (that I have to say is fantastic!). Then I made all the fondant decorations to top them with; lots of flowers, her name in chocolate fondant, and then some with sprinkles. They turned out so cute so I am going to post quite a few of the pictures so they do the whole thing justice!

Red Velvet Cupcakes

It was little Sam's all about me this past friday so I tested out a Red Velvet cake recipe in cupcake form to bring in for his class. They are topped in traditional vanilla buttercream not the cream cheese frosting because not all little kids like the cream cheese type. Anyway, they were a hit and the recipe is now a new one of my favs!

Death by Chocolate Layer Cake

3 layers of devil's food cake filled with dark chocolate ganache. Frosted in cocoa frosting and covered in pirouettes. I wasn't home for Dad's birthday so I made this for him last night as a belated treat. I'll post a pic of the inside if I get a chance. We have yet to cut it but I'm dying to try it! Yummm!

Sammy's 8th Birthday Cake

Brandon and I drove home one weekend in September to visit my family, swim with the sharks, and be there for Sam's birthday party. He requested this "Lionfish" cake (strange request for a 7 year old, don't you think?) haha but it turned out well. He like it, anyway! He just found a book with a picture of it and I rough copied it in icing on the cake. Yumm!

Cake with blueberry filling for Mom and Dad's Anniversary <3

I made this cake over the summer for Mom and Dad's anniversary <3 The blueberry filling was an experiment but the whole thing was really delicious. The big round flat sprinkles were a nice fun touch too. And for once I made vanilla cake instead of chocolate and actually liked it! Love you Mom and Dad!

Cakes for Amy's 21st!

These were really fun for me to make. I used the premade fondant for the first time and it was surprisingly easy to use. Brandon helped me dye the pink and green ribbons :) Everyone really liked them, the cake and frosting were really moist and tasty. I had originally planned to cover the whole little cake in fondant on all sides but I didn't think I'd have enough to cover all the cakes and the ribbons themselves took so long that I abandoned that idea and just did the bows on top. I'll have to try real, covered, mini cakes some other time, with a more dense cake recipe that isn't as sticky or hard to handle.

Cupcakes!!!

One of my favorite things to make and experiment with is cupcakes! I love how you can make all different kinds very easily with just one batter variation and one frosting variation. They keep forever and are easier to serve and eat as individual treats than cutting a cake. These were for Sammy's Spring Fair at New Eagle Elementary School. Chocolate cake (as always!) and then 3 types of icing. The flower ones are a dark chocolate thick ganache that is FANTASTIC, by far the best topping I have used. Then the ones with green swirls are a peanut butter buttercream. Each of those cupcakes has a cake tube cut out of it, then the filling piped into the channel, and the cake replaced and pressed down into them again. This way the frosting goes all the way through and you're not stuck with the good stuff on top and the boring cake at the bottom! The white topped ones are good old plain vanilla buttercream with red sprinkles. Some of these white ones got a little fondant flower and piped green leaf just for a change in pace. Very cute! I'll have to make a confession here... these were so good that they never actually made it to the Fair! My family wanted to keep them too badly and eat them all up! (which is exactly what we did in about 1 day).

Welcome home/ late birthday cake for Lj

I made this little double layer cake for Lauren. It's chocolate cake with buttercream frosting and MMF on top (of course). That's pretty standard by now. I had fun playing with the piping decoration on this one. It was very simple but possibly the tastiest actual cake I have made.

German Apple Cake

This recipe is from a cookbook called the Joy of Vegan Baking. (Incase you're wondering... I tried the whole vegan thing for about a month this past spring. Let's just say it's not my style.) But this cookbook is great! The vegan element inevitably cuts out alot of the dairy and cream and butter and what not so many of the recipes (like this one) are low in fat or fat free :D (very good news for my health conscious self.) The cake is mostly applesauce. Couldn't be any simpler!

Daisies in the Dirt

Made these cute mini cupcakes for an end of semester party my studio drawing class had. (Yes, very second grade of us). They were very good!! The perfect little bite :)