Bizzy Izzy

My friends little girl turned 2 this summer.  Her favorite color is yellow.  I think yellow is a great color for a cake!!  This was dark chocolate with chocolate butter cream.

August, 2010

35/19

A Mile Stone!

This cake marks a major mile stone for me!  One year ago I was paid for my first cake!  Last year this little cuttie turned 4 and wanted a flip flop cake.  This year she is 5 and it's all about Hello Kitty!!

The top tier is cherry chip cake with cherry frosting.  The bottom tier is strawberry and white cake, checkerbord pattern, with strawberry frosting.  Strawberry Nerds filled the boarder very well.  Hello Kitty is all MM fondant.  She really looks like she is falling over but truely she was not.  Her head is tilted a bit but that was intentional.  I could not get her wiskers to stand up to save my life, so they ended up pressed aginst her face, still cute though. 

June 15, 2010

65

Oldies but Goodies

Being as I am on a self-appointed "cake hiatus" and am not planning on returning until the twins' 3rd birthday, I thought this may be a good time to post a few of the cakes I made in the past... before the blog.

The Pooh Bear cake was for Kendra's 1st birthday.  Gotta go chocolate all the way...makes for better "first time cake" pictures. :-) Raspberries around the edge, her personal fav at the time!

This was a Birthday cake for my Grandma a few years back. It was a spice cake with pumpkin pie ice cream in the middle, a cream cheese/butter cream frosting and dark chocolate cut outs.  It also had some gingersnaps crumbled around the edges.  This would have been a VERY yummy cake, however it was my first attempt at an ice cream filling and I didn't give it long enough to set up.  It made a real mess when it was cut in to!  But it was pretty before.

The Lady Bug cake was for Kendra's 2nd birthday. She had a fun party with all her little friends and was also a lady bug for Halloween that year.

I think part of me wanted to have kids so I could make birthday cakes and Halloween costumes! :-) This was the first year Kendra had 2 birthday cakes.  (that has almost become a tradition now)  The Princess castle was for her "friend" birthday party.  I was a mess that day as I had 5 month old twins at the time!!   But that didn't mean Kendra didn't deserve a rockin party (insert my BFF to the rescue) ~ maybe she was even more deserving that year as I had just turned her world upside down by bring two new babies into it.  It's possible the TWO cakes was my way of compensating?  The second, crayon box, cake was funny, because I have pictures of me decorating that with a baby on my hip!  Both were fun to make.  I had no idea I would taking cake decorating so seriously 2 1/2 years later!  Good times!

A Love Story!

My grandparents just celebrated their 61st wedding anniversary!  Wow, that is a long time!  My Mom called me and asked if I would do the cake.  I was almost in tears!  I was SO "caked out"!  If there was anyone I wanted to do a cake for it was my family.  I had just done like a million cakes in the blink of an eye, and my creative juices were all washed out!  I had no idea what to do for this cake.  Finally at the last minute I pulled this out.  "A 61 Year Love Story"  I had their wedding picture printed on sugar paper and made a very simple book cake using their two favorite cake flavors, spice and dark chocolate.  I covered it with a cream cheese butter cream and added the first initial (in my grandma's favorite color) of every person that was "made" because these two people fell in love 61 years ago.  My family started with Jack & Jeanneane Lake on March 4, 1949. They made Linda, Carol and Carl, and in turn they made Jennifer, Jason, Ryan, Katy and Kimberly, who eventually made Tyler, Lucas, Everett, Isabella, Kendra, Kayne, Avalon, Travis and Trevor.  This was a chance to do something very personal. I would LOVE the opportunity to "make up" for this one, but it did turn out OK and really tasted very yummy!  That spice cake with the cream cheese...yikes and wowzers!!
Happy anniversary Grandma and Granddad.  I love you.

March 6, 2010

Refief Society Birthday

I LOVE the fact that I belong to the largest womens organization in the world!  The ladies of the LDS Relief Society in my ward are awesome!  When I got the phone call and was asked to make the cake for the Relief Society birthday party, I was heartbroken and excited all at the same time.  I had WAY overloaded myself with cakes and was just not sure how I was going to do it.  Maybe I would have someone else do the baking and I would decorate.  Well then my BFF/baker decided it was time to have her baby, just kidding. ;-)~ It was ok of course and it wasn't too complicated of a cake. I really enjoyed this one.

Marks words when he came home and opened the fridge to see it were "Holy Cow!" I obviously impressed him and that made me feel really good!

Dark chocolate fudge cake with chocolate ganache and fresh strawberries between each layer, covered with a chocolate cream cheese/butter cream frosting and garnished with huge chocolate dipped strawberries. YUMMY!!! I was so happy I was able to eat this one! The Relief Society seal was edible and done in sugar paper.  I found out at the party, that the relief society president herself did not want the seal on the cake. Oops! But everyone seemed to enjoy it and she told me that was the cake she wanted for her next birthday, minus the seal.

March 4,2010

A Return Customer!

A while back I did a Coach Purse cake for a friend of my Mom.  Well he called again and asked for another cake.  This time it was for his wife's baby shower.  He gave me the invitation as inspiration and $150.00 budget.  Although that was a bit much for a cake for 25 people, it gave me freedom and I think it turned out great!  This cake may even be my favorite cake I have ever made.

This was a French vanilla cake with strawberry filling & bit of a bonus.  Instead of just the strawberry filling I usually do, I added REAL strawberries this time with a touch of brown sugar sprinkled on top of them.  It had a cream cheese/butter cream frosting and a little fondant.  The larger peas were a little challenging.  I tried to make them out of cake but that didn't work.  So I tried strawberry ice cream.  That didn't work very well either.  So I had seen this done before (but never really liked the idea) and really it was my last chance, so I made them out of rice cereal.  I don't think I will be using this very often, but it was necessary for this cake and it worked fairly well.  Then my favorites new trick (I learned for the wedding cake, last week) I covered it with luster dust!  What an awesome trick to cover flaws and make it sparkle.  And who doesn't like sparkle? 

February  27, 2010

75

I Saved the Flop!

This is kind of hard to see but I looked pretty cool.  The side and top of the top tear is embossed with a Happy Birthday print, with balloons and curly streamers.  This was for a couple of friends of mine who had birthdays back to back so we did one big ladies lunch for them.  I cannot even believe this cake turned out like it did, because IT  WAS  A  MESS!!  If anything could go wrong, it DID with this cake!  Many times I wanted to call and say we are just going to have to go buy one, this is a flop!   But in the end I was able to pull it out.  The bottom tier is a white cake colored the same blue a purple as the fondant (the Birthday Girls' favorite colors).  I learned NOT to do a yokeless cake when it will need to be carved.  The top tier is dark chocolate and both have dark chocolate butter cream (that I had to make 3 batches of, because the first separated and the second clumped) and the fondant was some chocolate and some regular.   Another problem I had was trying to make that chocolate fondant!!  It was a very rainy and "humid" day (for Nevada, anyway) and I tried to blame the troubles on that, but I don't really know for sure what the problem was.  It just crumbled like dried out cake and I had to toss the whole batch of chocolate fondant.  The second batch just wouldn't get as dark as I wanted it to.  Like I said before, in the end, it turned out pretty...OK for my second topsy turve cake, anyway.  Now it tasted wonderful, so really that made up for the other flaws, I thought. ;-)~

February, 10 2010 

Purses 1 & 2

In an effort to try and get all the past cakes I have done on this blog I am combining a few.  These are both purses.  They are totally different events and times.

Purse #1

A while back this guy that works with my Mom needed a cake made that  described his new wife.  She is a Mom of many but still like classy things.  He wanted a "Coach" purse with "Mom" things falling out of it. Well me not being a very "classy Mom" I had no idea what a Coach purse was, so I had to do a little research. Then I just thought of what falls out of my own purse as a Mom of many!  The cake was a white cake with strawberry filling (as requested) with mostly butter cream frosting.  Each of the C's (that partially define a coach purse) are painstakingly hand painted on with butter cream frosting. The phone, lip stick, crayons, pacifier and fish crackers are all made from fondant, as well as the "COACH" tag and pure handle. This was definitely the beginnings of my fondant work. Oh what a door that opened for me!

This was only the 2nd cake I was paid for and still very unsure what to charge for it. I think Mark did the math for me & I made something like less than a dollar an hour for all the time I put into it.  But that didn't matter to me at the time.  I just had so much fun doing it!!  He recently called me back and ordered a baby shower cake (and gave me a MUCH larger budget).  Keep checking the blog to see that one at the end of February.

September 2009

60

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Purse #2

This cake was more recent and was for a VERY good friend of mine. It was her baby shower and the cakes were intended to look like the invitation. These were all chocolate cake with chocolate butter cream under that pink and green fondant. These were SOOO YuMmY!!! I hope all the cakes I have made for people taste like this one did! Again there was a lot of learning done on this cake but I still liked how they turned out. I cant wait to hold that baby!!

February 2010

Kendra's 5th Birthday

When my baby girl turned 5, I cried!  Ok not really but it did make me sad to see her hold up all five fingers when asked how old she was.  We do birthday up big around here so she was able to have 2 parties, one bubble gum party with 5 of her little friends and the other a Care Bear party with of our family. 

Both are white cakes, tinted light purple and pink and covered in butter cream frosting.  However the gumballs are fondant.  The cup cakes around the Care Bear are heart shapes an decorated by the birthday girl herself with a little help from her brothers.

October 21, 2009

Hamburger or Cheesburger?

We had a few bar-B-ques to go to last summer.  I did a Hamburger for the first one and it was such a hit.  But Mark said he wished it had some cheese on it.  So I did a Cheeseburger for the second.  Both came with a small order of fries and a side of ketchup.
The buns are yellow cake and the meat is chocolate cake.  They are covered in butter cream and have real sesame seeds on top.  The lettuce, tomatoes, pickles and cheese are rolled out and flattened large gum drops, as well as the fries.  The ketchup and mustard is just butter cream frosting.  This was all in fun!

September 2009

Baptisim

My nephew Jackson was turning 8 and was getting baptized while we were there visiting for Thanksgiving, so I took the opportunity to try and add a little something special to his very special day. He loves "camo".  So it was a gluten free, (for the benefit of another nephew that was there) camo, CTR shield, and a baptismal font with his own personalized towel.  He kept the fondant figure of himself and his Dad for a few days.

Thank you, Jackson for sharing your day with us!  We love you!

November 2009

Nerf

This was for a friend of mine, well actually for her 10 year old son's Nerf birthday party.  I really had fun with this one!  She brought me the toy gun and it sat around for a few days while I thinking of how to do this cake.  My boys thought it was the coolest toy ever, because we have nothing even remotely gun related in this house.  The bullets are made of fondant and totally edible. The cakes are done in butter cream.  The gun is chocolate cake and the target is a white cake, colored to match the patter of the icing. (does that make sense?)  When you cut into it, it was 3 different colors.  I had fun with this cake.

November 2009

30

Scouts!

These cakes were actually for a set brothers, just done at different times. The Cub Scout (Bobcat cake) was for one of my Cub Scout boys, as a gift from me to him.  His mother liked it so much she highered me to decorate the top of a Costco cake she bought for her older son's court of honor. Both caked are done solely in butter creams.

October/ November 2009

20

T 'n' T They are DYNAMITE!

This was Travis and Trevor's #2 birthday. "TnT" We had a dynamite time! The boys each got their own jumbo sized cup cake. They loved it and made a twin sized mess!

May 2009

Pixar Cars X2

This was for my sister's kid, on his 3rd birthday. It was all butter cream and the rounds were white and chocolate cake that looked like a checkerd flag when you cut into it. That part was a huge hit and one of my favorite fun surprises. She gave me all his little toys cars to add to the cake. The plaid was ribbon I got at the craft store. This was my first experiance with black frosting and I soon learned to...dislike it VERY much!

May 2009

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Someone that works with Mark saw a picture of Kayne's cake and wanted something very similar.

December 2009

30

The Boat

This cake was for my Father-in-law. He is a VeRy special man to me! His birthday is at the end of the summer and we had spent some good times out on the boat that year, so this idea came to me rather easily. I made the boat out of yellow lemon cake (at his request), Kendra helped with the water and sand (also lemon) and Mark cut me the piece of real ski rope and game me tips on the shape of the motor and added the PVC pipe to the back of the boat. (My husband knows that boat like the back of his hand!) Oh and we barrowed the Lego men from my nephews. So this cake was a real "family event". Happy Birthday Bob! I love you!

September 2009

Flip Flops

This was the first cake I was ever paid for! A friend of mine that has awesome talent and takes great pictures of my family called me and asked if I would make a cake for her daughters 4th birthday. She sent me a picture of what she wanted and this is what she got. On the plates I sprinkled brown sugar, to look like the flip flops were in sand, but forgot to take a picture of that.

July 2009

40