Shoppoholic Birthday Cake

My friend Steph wanted a birthday cake for her sister who loves to shop so I came up with this :) First time making gift cards and shopping bags and it was alot of fun! There's a Coach shoe box, Juicy Couture shopping bag, receipt, Macy's shopping bag, Tiffany & Co. gift box, Starbucks gift card, Gap gift card, Victoria's Secret PINK gift card, PNC bank card and some colorful candy to top it all off. Makes me want to go shopping!!

Bridal Shower Cake Toppers

Loved this idea a returning client, Kristina, asked me to make for a bridal shower: a wedding dress and matching bridesmaid dress cake toppers to go on a cake provided by the venue (venue did not allow outside cakes but ok-ed the toppers). They are 100% edible and I thought they were really cute! Kristina sent me pictures of the brides dress and the bridesmaid dresses so I detailed the toppers to match. Thanks Kristina! Love making cakes for you.

4th Birthday Cake: Dinosaur Train

One of my favorite cakes yet! The inside is vanilla cake with vanilla bean buttercream. The birthday boy's favorite show is a new one called "Dinosaur Train" and those are his two favorite characters- Tiny and Buddy (or is it Shiny?). The show looks really cute, I'll have to keep it in mind for miss Lilly. I have to share this little jingle though. It's really cute and indirectly addresses adoption, and acceptance. I need to find an episode and watch it for myself.

Once upon a time, there was a mom,
Her name was Mrs. Pteranadon.
Sitting in her nest, she heard a scratching
And said, “Oh boy! My eggs are hatching!”
One by one, her kids popped free,
Baby pteranodons one, two, three.
“I’ll name them Tiny, Shiny, and Don.”
But Tiny said, “Wait! There’s one more Mom.”
The last little baby was a different size
With teeth and a tail and big green eyes.
He didn’t look anything like the rest.
“What am I doing in a pteranodon nest?”
But dear old Mrs. Pteranodon said,
“This is your family, and I’m your mom.
You may different, but we’re all creatures.
All dinosaurs have different features.
Come on Buddy, we’ll take a vacation.
I’ll get us a ticket at Pteranodon Station.
We’ll travel the world in sunshine and rain
And meet all the species on the
Dinosaur Train!”

Kristina and Adam's Engagement Party Cake

I made a cake this past weekend for a wonderful girl name Kristina and her fiance Adam. She had a fun idea to start with and the cake came out wondefully! The ring she gave me to use is originally intended as a novelty napkin ring but it worked perfectly in her cake. The inside was vanilla bean cake with vanilla bean frosting. Delicious. I have to share a very sweet note she wrote me after her party:

"Hi Jacqueline,
I just wanted to say thank you so so much for making our engagement party cake, it turned out fabulous and we really couldn't have been happier. We got soooo many compliments on the cake (both on how it looked and tasted). My wedding isn't until next May and the venue provides us with a wedding cake- but I will absolutely be in touch with you to make all of the cakes I need for any other occasion
(birthdays, bridal shower, etc)! You are extreamly talented and should be very proud of your work.
Thanks again,
Kristina & Adam"

Salted Chocolate Truffles

Not the greatest picture ever, but these were so good! The salt with the dark chocolate was amazing. I think they were slightly too chocolatey for Brandon (if that's even possible), but for a true chocoholic like myself they were absolutely perfect.

Baby Shower Cupcakes

I made these fifty baby shower cupcakes for our neighbor Liz who was throwing a baby shower in Ohio! The theme kept with the blues and silvers of winter rather than pink as the Mom to be is not a fan of pink. Vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream. Very fun to make.



There were 20 covered in white sugar crystals, 10 with homemade white chocolate snowflakes, 10 with baby blankets that say "baby" on them, and ten with baby "stuff" (Pacifiers, footprints, and bottles).

Snowflake Sugar Cookies

So I guess it is now tradition for me to try and squeeze too much into my visits home. I just can't help it. For some reason home+Mom+Mom's-fabulous-kitchen-and-everything-in-it=baking! for me. I'll plan months in advance of a trip home what I want to cook for dinner or bake for dessert. I store up my recipes and copy pages out of cookbooks and come armed and prepared to camp out in the kitchen. Part of this trip home was squeezing in sugar cookies. I wanted to try just simple and pretty snowflakes with Mom's new snowflake cutters (so cute!).



We were doing well with the dough all made and waiting for us in the refrigerator, but time snuck up on us and after decorating the tree Saturday night there was just no energy left over to start on the cookies. We were baking/icing/decorating all these cookies up until the minutes Brandon and I had to pack up and walk out the door. Sammy managed to be hired and fired all at once as Mom and my bakery's apprentice (but he did do such a nice job on his cookies!). And Brandon got to show off his white piping skills with a very, er.. original spider man snowflake- nice job hun! (Spider man snowflake not pictured hehe).

Martha Stewart Magazine will be the death of me.

If anyone reading this has come across this magazine and thought to themselves, "Hm, this would be a fantastic recipe to try"- please, I beg you, flip the page. Brandon and my Mom can attest to the fact that this recipe was not only quite difficult but single handedly allowed us to dirty every bowl and spatula in my Mom's kitchen (which is saying something considering my Mom has so many bowls and spatula's we don't know what to do with them all). Maybe it was the fact that my pregnant and irritable self didn't have enough patience while making them, maybe it was the fact that we were rushing out to dinner that night, or maybe it was the fact that there was my beautiful christmas tree waiting to be decorated... whatever the case, these *individual* {cough-cough-GIANT) Martha desserts were more trouble than they're worth. Mom's original chocolate mousse recipe still reigns supreme althought we liked the cake recipe and the mousse had its strong points. We all decided that just ONE of those rounds is enough dessert for 4 people (unless your name is Jacquie and you happen to be pregnant with one very hungry baby girl!). And on a side note I have to mention that little Sammy loved the mousse because it lacked the strong coffee that Mom's mousse (originally my Aunt Sharon's recipe) calls for.

Ana's Candy Buffet

Here are some shots of Ana's Candy Buffet. The girls loved it and I thought it came out looking very cute! (Then again I'm a candy lover so how could you not just love a table full of it?!). But special thanks to my wonderful husband ;) who transported and set up the ENTIRE thing with Mr. B since I had to take my Praxis II exam. He did such a nice job didn't he?!

Cake Pops for Ana

These were part of a dessert/candy bar I did for Ana's 8th brithday party. Pictures of that should be up soon! These little cupcake pops were a hit- vanilla cake and vanilla frosting on the inside, chocolate candy coating on the outside.

Cupcakes in the City!

Here's a shot of one out of a set of 50 cupcakes for Brandon's co-worker's birthday at BNY Mellon. Very cute.

Nicole and Mason's Wedding

First of all I have to say what a pleasure it was to work with Nicole. She had contacted me about doing her wedding almost a year ago and I am so glad everything ultimately worked out so well! I loved making these cupcakes, the little medallions with her heart and cross bone motif were just so cute to make. There were 150+ cupcakes, devil's food chocolate chip with madagascar vanilla bean frosting, and an 8" top cake to either save for their anniversary or to cut for photos. The only tough part was making that cupcake stand! But eight tall tiers later I was really happy with the end result. Hope you had a wonderful day Nicole!

Kelly's Baby Shower Cupcakes

These are a little bit late! But thought I'd get them up here since I had some time... Devils food chocolate chip cake and dark chocolate frosting (Kelly's fav!). Her very talented Mom, Sue, made the oh-so-cute diaper cakes as center pieces.

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 :)

Mountain Dew Cake

I made this for my hopelessly-addicted-to-Mountain-Dew-boyfriend haha. It wasn't anything too crazy but the recipe used 20 oz. of Mt. Dew. It tasted like a sweet lemon/lime cake. The icing glaze is also Mt. Dew and powdered sugar. He liked it and so did I, but like I said, it was nothing too crazy.

S'mores Bars

Who doesn't love graham crackers, chocolate and marshmallows? These were incredible (esp. hot and gooey right out of the oven). Got the recipe from the Favorite Desserts issue of Paula Dean's magazine. Really easy recipe that's so delicious!

Berry Cupcakes From Martha's Book

These were SO delicious. The cake was light, fresh and sweet and the frosting was just a perfect amount. Not the fluffy, tall clouds of icing I was imagining, but they were a huge hit. Brandon's Dad is a fan of berry cake so I made this for Father's day.