A Wedding!!!

A Wedding! A Wedding! A Wedding! Yes, I finally was asked to do a wedding ............. I have been waiting uh....well like my whole life (as my kids would say - that always cracks me up that they are 5, 9 & 12 and will say "my whole life".........sigh - if they only knew).

Anyway - I have a wonderful neighbor who lives down the main road from me that has started a business as a wedding creator extroadinaire. She really knows her stuff and can make events fun - and or elegant. Simple Elegance is the name of her business. A few months back she asked me if I would be interested in doing wedding cakes for her wedding if the couple chose me. While I tried to remain calm about the whole thing I think it came out in my eyes that I was boggled with excitement!!

and then as we talked about the wedding cake they wanted they started with saying that they really wanted SHEET CAKES!! Many Many of them!!! Pink.......

Purple........

Green...........and there was a Blue one too. Ack!! That was too easy.......4 Sheet Cakes!! Granted they were each in a different flavor.....but still - TOO EASY!! So I asked if they didn't also want at least a small stacked cake with some flourish - and YEA they did!!

A nice simple white cake with some fondant Gerber Daisies because that was what the Bride and her attendants would be carrying.

It was so much fun to create the flowers for the cake - and even more fun to deliver it....

Although - at the time of the wedding there was a monsoon happening. Poor Wedding - it rained and rained and rained and rained. I sat in my van for a few moments waiting for the rain to let us so that the cake didn't get too wet - but it never did let us. I am pretty certain that after I finished setting up it started raining even harder!

There was so much moisture in the air that I noticed my cake started to wilt a little. Heheehee.

Jenna Rose & Rose's roses

Here is a little secret.............I have never taken a decorators class. Here is another secret.............no matter how hard I try I have never been able to figure out icing roses. Oh I try and try and try. I watch the YouTube video's people post to teach them.......check out books at the library.....buy the right tips.....make the right icing.....make the OTHER right icing.....but I can't make an icing rose to save my life. So I have been experimenting with fondant and gumpaste. This is as far as I have gotten.

While the roses are pretty cute - I think that the stems look a little like Asparagus. So maybe I need to shift my focus from worrying about how well I can do roses and take a class on making stems not look like Asparagus?

This cake was asked for by a friend who works at Western Ave. - a local community center that works to keep kids and families connected with the things they need to be successful. She wanted to bring a nice cake for a hard working volunteer. I had the honor of meeting Rose later on a delivery there and she is a VERY sweet woman. Now I suppose I should look into decorator classes.........or at least trying the more difficult roses I have seen in videos??

This cake was half Chocolate and half White with a Chocolate Buttercream icing. Vanilla fondant was used for the flowers (like you didn't already know that).

A Sweet Cake for my Mom

This is a fun cake that I did for my Mom. She was coming to visit and she was the first baker I ever fell in love and awe with...........but she lives 2.5 hours away..........so I never get to bake for her or have her taste test anything that I make. Anything I am goofing off with and trying to get feedback on I take to friends who love dessert and are honest (or at least I think they are honest) about what might make something better or if I got it right the first time. My mom lives too far away for that. And she lives a little too far away for celebrations like Mother's Day or Birthdays. Sometimes we get to see her on those days, but not always. This year was a "not always" year since she went out of town for Mother's Day and the kids were in a production here in town on her birthday in December. I owed her a cake.

Now I mentioned in another post that growing up when we had cake it was primarily White Cake with White Icing. This is my mom's ALL TIME FAVORITE cake. When we have a celebration that is centered around her we KNOW that it needs to be White Cake with White Icing. Hands down done deal - or you have messed up. But I really want to share my other flavors with her so I took a risk and decided to mess with her White Cake standard............I added some Cinnamom. Because I know she loves Cinnamon (probably where I got the Cinnamon belongs in everything - but not my husbands meat rubs - gene).

So this cake is a Cinnamon Cake with a White Icing (Vanilla Buttercream). I made the cake - Iced it white - and then looked at it.

I wanted to turn it into something pretty. At the same time my mom does not love fondant. Even though I have been told my scratch fondant is yummy - fondant is not White Icing. Yeah, icing is under the fondant, but it changes the texture if not the whole flavor. So fondant as a cover to create something that is "my mom" was out. Then I thought about flowers. Second to her basket and quilting (they are interchangeable hobbies) is her ability to grow things. Veggie gardens and flowers are a call to fame for her in my eyes.

Delicate looking daisies it was. As I was getting the fondant ready for the daisies I thought about color. White - Yellow - yeah those are perfect............but a Raspberry/Plum is "Her" color. I can remember as a kid she always had a shirt in that color. Mom said it was "Her" color. Then when I was a teenager she bought me one of my all time favorite turtle neck sweaters. It was a Raspberry/Plum color. I am fairly certain I wore that sweater in the winter months for about 10 years. As the weave began to stretch a bit and make the sweater longer the style of leggings came in and it changed from a sweater with jeans kinda top to a sweater with black leggings kinda outfit for the clubs. Mom had one to match - only she never came clubbing with us. And yes, I was the dork girl at the club with a turtle neck on..........I rolled with the idea of leaving a bit of mystery to what was under my clothing.......hoping to instill that dress code in my kids (especially my daughter).

So the flower color was born. It was the perfect combination to be a perfect cake for My Mom (in my eyes). Simple - Elegant - Beautiful. Just like My Mom.

When my mom came I envisioned us waiting for the kids to come home from school - sitting and celebrating her and then having a piece of cake. Only none of us was really hungry because - well we just weren't. However, the bigger problem was that Mom didn't want to cut it. She said it was too pretty. So we boxed it up and sent it home with her - with a promise from her that she would tell me what she thought of the flavor. Because for me part of the point of it all was to share a bit of what I am doing with her. The next day I called to see how it was. She said she still couldn't cut it because it was so pretty. She was going to lunch with girlfriends and was baking .............cookies............for the gathering and thought she might take the cake with her to share. The day after that gathering she called and said the cake was a hit. Everyone loved it and she didn't have any leftovers. And that she loved the flavor - plus she was approached by friends to have me make cakes for them...........until they realized I lived 2.5 hours away.

This cake was ........Cinnamon with a Vanilla Buttercream icing and Vanilla Fondant.

Princess Castle Cake

Here is a cutie and a Quickie. I really wish that I took more time to take pictures of things as I put them together. Because the one thing that I am really giggly happy about this cake is the edging on each tier. Kinda like a railing to keep the princesses from falling over the edge........

Yet at the same time totally similar to a Crown.........yet completely edible. The person who asked me to do this cake sent a picture - and I was doing a sort of a copy job of that cake. As I looked closer at the cake I realized that the railing and the windows were plastic add ons. Disappointing, yet at the same time understandable - but copyable too. So I tried. I am pretty sure I got it. There was also a purple crown at the top (that I forgot to take an aerial pic of!) and a flag that went into the center and had the Birthday Girls name on it. Those things were given to the family to put on right before the party......so no pics for me, but safer for Michelle so she didn't have a crying princess.

Speaking of Princess - Michelle had a totally clever idea! In the original cake all the windows held princesses. Michelle sent a note saying, "What if we add my Princess into one of the windows?"..........Totally Clever!!! and.........Why Didn't I Think of That!!?? See her in the window above the door?? So cute!

I love it when the people asking me to do a cake have specific and clever ideas of things. Makes it more fun!

this cake was Chocolate in one tier and White in another tier. Vanilla Buttercream icing (we were trying not to cover the cake in fondant) and then Gumpaste for the railing crowns and Vanilla Fondant for the other additions.

Rapunzel & Architecture

It is the sweetest thing ever (pun intended on the use of sweet because....well this is about cakes) - Dave watches Alton Brown videos about cake stuff. I am not sure if he is doing this because I out loud say, "Why does that happen?" when some cake related thing occurs ........ or if it is because I try to explain something about a cake related thing and Dave doesn't get what I am saying and wants to hear an experts take........or if it is because really he has always like Alton Brown - which I shouldn't overlook - he has watched Alton on Food Network for years - but now he is looking up cake stuff and watching on the computer so I am totally taking it to be a sweet support to my cake dealings.

How is this related to the mess of stacked cake above? Well he was watching an Alton Brown episode about whipping eggs or something and there was a question/answer thing happening and he made the statement that many cake designers have an architecture background. Usually I can zone out what Dave is watching........because unlike the kids when they watch videos (like Annoying Orange) on the computer.....I don't make him put on earphones. This statement by Mr. Brown caught my attention - because in High School I studied drafting and architecture.......and then in my first year in college I continued my studies. Many of you know that following that first year I switched schools and eventually attended many colleges before earning my bachelors and masters in social work and counseling related fields - not architecture. Still.......I do have an architecture/design background of sorts. So this statement was kinda cool.

See Mr. Jackson........apparently I am using my years of architecture after all - just in cake building. Kudos to you for making me so good at it all.

Now the first picture is of a budding tower. And I didn't just stack those cakes up and hope for the best. That would have been ridiculously not smart.

This is the beginning of the roof top of the tower. The original cake I found on line had a roof just like this. But this looked pretty.........well..........boring and like a hat that I made in kindergarten with construction paper.
In fact if you turn it upside down you will see that it basically is the hat I made in Kindergarten. I took a piece of poster board - created a cone - lined that with plastic wrap so the fondant didn't adhere to the cone - then I put a base on the cone so that the weight of the fondant didn't pop it (I'm a mother - I worry about everything).

Then to make the cone head roof look a little nicer I put shingles on. This is my first shingle making and while I did really well, they are by far not at all uniform........of course if I think about it do you think the elves who were making the shingles in the forest for the magical tower that Rapunzel would live in made them all uniform? No probably not. Besides they were using wood - which is probably way easier then fondant. Elves have such an easy life. All they mostly make are cookies and shingles.

Now .......this is really the only architecturally structural picture I took. I knew that if I left the stacked cakes without a base support I would be crying the next day. So I put 3 very long dowel rods into the cake. Unfortunately one of the dowel rods went in at a slight angle. Personally I began freaking out as soon as I realized that to take it out and replace it might mean to cause holes that would cause cracks.

My husbands advice was that I was worrying about nothing that needed to be worried about. It would all be fine. Move forward and let it go.

My focus was to drive him berserk. "Can you come here and look at this?"......"What do you think does it look like it shifted?"......"Do you think it will hold?"......."How about now has it shifted now?"......each question came with his having to bend over and peer at the cake (or pretend to in order to appease me) as I turned the cake swirling around thing (you store may call it something else if you go to purchase one of these).

Once it seemed Dave had enough of this I left him alone.........for a bit at least.......and moved onto the next thing.

The landscape. I iced the landscape to include a river. Can you see the river?

As I was putting the landscape to the side to dry before putting fondant on it my 5 year old came in and said, "Maudy that is way too bumpy to be smooth." I said, "It is going to be a valley with a river in it. Can you see the river?"........he looked at me like I had lost my mind. Nodded his head and smiled at me like he was afraid to tell me he didn't think it did. And walked away.

I can see the river........can you see the river?

Then I iced the outside of the tower. A nice gray mortar kind of a color. And Dave and I did another round of "Can you come here and look at this?"......"What do you think does it look like it shifted?"......"Do you think it will hold?"......."How about now has it shifted now?"......

Then I began placing the rocks on the tower. Added a few windows that Rapunzel would have swung open if she were planning to throw her locks out to Finn to climb.......and did another round of Does this look leany to you Dave? Dave was getting quite tired of this game, but he was playing it really well by continuously stating, "No it is going to be fine." "It looks great.".......but he didn't want to play anymore and left - then luckily my friend, Sheri, showed up to drop her son off for a sleepover. Unfortunately for me though.....when I asked her "Does this look leany to you?" she said, "Yes."

So I spent the rest of my night LOOKING at the tower.....over and over and over and over. I was so paranoid about the cake leaning into breakage that the side I thought was leaning I put a towel under the cake swirling thing to make sure it started leaning straight - because things can lean back to straight right? In my head at least........hey no one ever said I was a GREAT Architecture student (but I was - right Mr. Jackson?).

While waiting for my tower to fall over I went back to the valley. Put a nice layer of fondant over the top......pretty right? Then started to fill in the river........My five year old started to see it.

Add in a few boulders around the river - some grass - a few pine trees........a lizard - rather I believe he is a chameleon.
Then a few flowers scattered all about............. After that I called it a night. Tried not to think about the tower that I had propped to lean straight in the china hutch and played with the kids.

The next day we took the entire collection of cake pieces - and two cookies - to the party.

These are views of the car ride to the Birthday Girls house. I thought that the view from this angle was kinda cool. What I did was place the tower on the cake and then pushed the remaining portion of the dowel rods into the base cake. There was also a cake board at the bottom of the tower that had hole punches matching the top of the tower - so there was a foundation at the top and bottom that kept the dowel rods from shifting much.

Although in my head the whole thing was about to fall at any moment. Poor Dave driving the van........

Once we got to the party I put the roof on the tower - placed the figures they had given me to use on the cake........and all was right with the world.

The cookies were Shortbread........I was trying to think of a way to get the Birthday Girls name and message onto the cake and also incorporate the crown that Finn had stolen and was a pivotal point for the characters. Plus everyone loves a cookie right?

So in the end Dave was right (please don't tell him I typed that). The tower was fine. I worried for nothing. But hey, I'm a mother - I worry.

This cake was Chocolate with Vanilla Buttercream and White with Vanilla Buttercream.......Vanilla Fondant and Shortbread cookies with Royal Icing. The pictures of the final cake could have been better, but honestly - I was so crazy nervous putting it together I am just happy I remembered to TAKE a picture!

Slumber Party!!

This cake was a lot of fun to make. And when something looks "easy" I always underestimate the time it takes to do it the first time........because I haven't thought up all the ways to make the cute stuff it would include. Now if I do this cake a SECOND time (and I hope to) - I will know what I am planning to do ahead of time and it will go more quickly.

When Stacey first talked about her daughters slumber party cake we thought we were going to recreate the iCarly laptop cake I did for my friend Julie. However, Stacey is now like me and she will google the theme of what she is thinking. This time it was .......... slumber party cake pictures........and when she did it this she got hits on some super cute cakes and asked if I could do them.

I started with a plain old white iced cake. This cake had no real need for fondant sides because the perfectionistic smoothness was not going to matter anyway.

However, a super bright and cute base would be important and Stacey said Gabby really liked the bright pink colors. Done. Usually I wait to put the base trim on just because I can be messy with my hands and hit the icing and make myself crazy because I dent it. No one wants a cake that looks like their kids stuck their fingers in the icing.......but I figured I was safe - and honestly the bright pink inspired my mood. Weird?


Next up were the slumber party attendees. I knew there were 7. I also knew from the millions of slumber parties we have had at our house now that if you do something that represents a "figures" on a cake it is helpful to try to represent them for each attendee if possible. 50 Boy Scout pinewood derby cars I can't make - 7 slumber party goers I can. So I did.

I rounded some heads and made some hair to pop on. I didn't worry too much about matching up colors for hair to the girls slumbering - the base was bright pink so things on the cake needed to be bright too - having red heads, flaming orange heads, blonds, and brunettes just made sense.


The hair was a challenge at first. The original cake I was referring to for the idea has beautifully cute hair. My first attempts to make hair looked more like a Max Headroom skull cap. Remember Max Headroom? He creeped me out. Or the bad guy from one of my favorite kid shows - Lazy Town - what was his name? Well anyway - what I mean is that my hair totally stunk. How did they get the really cute hair? It reminded me of what kids make with a playdoh press.......the playdoh press we owned was currently under 2 feet of snow in our backyard playset so that wouldn't work.........but I did have a garlic press.........so I cleaned it and tried and guess what!!

It totally worked!! I was so thrilled that it worked I immediately stuck the hair onto the head so that it didn't fall apart. Of course then I noticed they were all starting to have short hair. So I tried making longer hair......and guess what!! It totally worked!!

Sometimes I make myself kinda dance in place and giggle and high five myself. And that is just what I did - which drew the attention of my 5 year old in the other room........who came in to investigate and when I explained just how brilliant I was with making hair he said, "Maudy I do that with my playdoh".........sigh......but then my 11 year old came in and said, "Oh My Gosh Mom that is so GREAT!" and meant it and I went back to kinda dancing in place and giggling and I high fived her.




Then things kinda got to going faster. I put the heads on the cake and made some bodies. At first I was thinking the bodies would be more realistic - then I thought how I was just going to cover them up with blankets so why bother?


At this point I just needed to make the cake fun looking. The only real challenge was figuring out a way to decorate 7 sleeping bags to look individual with the same 3 colors. That is what all those tiny cookie cutters I have been collecting my entire life comes in handy for.


I popped on a few flowers in matching colors of the border to make the white sides a little less empty........wrote a cute message on the bottom to the Birthday girl because there was no room on the actual cake........made a few juice boxes and added some popcorn all over the cake - some slippers tossed in and Tah Dah!!


My understanding is the cake was a hit. Each of the party attendees picked out who they were on the cake and Stacey was so sweet to "wrap up" their girl to take home as a party favor. Smart move because those things are pure sugar and eating all that would have kept them awake for hours!!

This cake was Chocolate Chocolate Chip with a Vanilla Buttercream icing and Vanilla fondant for decorations. So Fun!!

Dave + Patti Cake

The other day we were talking about who needs to do what for that weekend. I had volunteered to do the cupcakes for Ben's class - 30 cupcakes........then a friend asked me to do cupcakes for her class - 30 more cupcakes........then we found out a class didn't have any parent help so I offered to do cupcakes for that class - 20 more cupcakes....then someone called last minute and asked to place an order for their sweetie - I like her she is really nice so I said yes - 18 more cupcakes......then Andersen asked her teacher how many kids in class because she was making gum valentines for everyone - he thought she was volunteering to bring in cupcakes......ah how do you say no? He seemed so excited and knew I was friends with all the allergy kids moms (which makes me safe because they don't mind me baking for their kids I guess)........so 30 more cupcakes. How many did that total?

Well whatever it totalled it made for a VERY BUSY Sunday because each one needed to be cute on top.

Back to Dave and I talking. So I have all these millions of cupcakes to do (and honestly I was happy to do them all) and we have been married for 14 years...15? No pretty sure it is 14 - 13? Anyway I can figure that out later. So needless to say - many years of marriage and 3 kids ='s not much on Valentines Day done as a romantic gesture. Andersen was headed to the college campus for a GS event - Dave offered to run to the store to get the 1 item I needed - plus I wanted some boxes from Michales for a teachers gift and to drop Andersen off. I told him he didn't have to and then he said, "No I want to do it. Besides I have some errands to run too." He WANTS to go to the grocery store and Michael's?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm......this can only mean 1 thing - crap - he is getting me a Valentines Gift. I had NOTHING planned - because we don't do anything - well we do - we snuggle and hang out and say nice things to each other - just like most days. We love each other why do we have to buy gifts to prove it (yikes I sound like a guy don't I?).

So I put my thinking cap on.........no time.......what do I have? Cake batter. So I did what I could -


I baked a cake. Then I looked at it - boring cake ........ carve it........ice it.........cover it with fondant........


See where I am going with this? A little grass on the bottom.....a Heart carved out....


Some flowers thrown in and then a carving of initials. SWEET right?

I knew the kids would like it and I thought about how I could include them.......so D+P=ABD


The kids knew what I was doing.......


but they didn't know they were being included.......until they found it hidden in the China cabinet.


They were pretty excited to see their initials carved in too. Dave has yet to see it - wonder what he will think? Oh and since I had a little time I decided to grab a gift card to a sandwich shop and a gift card to a book store......It is a Date Night Kit. Cute right? Any babysitters out there?

Happy Valentines Day!!

This cake is Chocolate (because that is what my sweetie likes) - covered in Vanilla Buttercream (because that is what my sweetie likes) - covered in Vanilla Fondant.