Holidays and more!

It hasn't been too busy of a holiday season with cakes. January, on the other hand, is gearing up to be crazy!

Christmas cookies, with personalized stocking cookies!

This is a cookie tree that I made as an island centerpiece for our holiday party. It was made using a cookie tree kit from Wilton. It is a kit with 10 star cookie cutters in graduated sizes that are stcaked after the cookies are baked.

Below are oranment cupcakes I made. I made standard cupcakes for the bases and then used a half-ball pan to bake the rounded ornament tops. The tops were iced in vanilla frosting and then covered in fondant. Both fondant accents and piped royal icing were used for the decorations.

There were more than just holiday creations this month. There were wedding showers and birthdays too! These mini cupcakes were made for a wedding shower in colors and design that matched the invitations.

This cake was made for a friend's daughter's 2nd birthday. The cake was inspired by the invitation for the party. The best validation anyone can ask for is when a 2 year old exclaims "I love it"! So cute.

Thanks for looking and I hope that everyone has a Merry Christmas and a safe and Happy New Year!

Busy few weeks...

I remember commenting a few weekends ago that I truly had nothing to do that weekend. I also remember thinking that it was the calm before the storm....I sure was right! I have had a busy last 2 weeks and haven't updated this blog in a few weeks. Thanks for looking and I hope that everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

The cake below was for a 1st birthday party. The cake was based off of the invitations, plates, napkins, etc for the party. It was a 10 inch and 8 inch 2 tier cake that was yellow cake with chocolate ganache filling. The bunny is fondant.



This anniversary cake was for the same day as the bunny cake. It was an awful, rainy day and the humidity was really causing me problems. The buttercream wouldn't set properly to really be able to smooth it and the bow completely fell apart during the drive. I was able to rebuild it, but it caused some damage to the buttercream frosting and the copper fondant border.




I really had fun with these cupcakes and smash cake for a friend's son's 1st birthday. The frosting on the cupcakes was made to match the invitations (which matched the menu you can see in the pictures). The footballs were made of fondant with royal icing piping.

The smash cake for the birthday boy was a 1 layer 4 inch round cake. For the top, I made a cooler to go with the theme of "Max's First Tailgate". The cooler is made out of fondant with sugar candy ice and fondant baby bottles in the cooler. What made this so fun was being able to put a Chicago Bears logo on the cooler! Living in Houston I don't get to do too many Chicago teams.

Finally, I made a cake this weekend with the theme of "5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed". The monkeys were made of fondant and were a lot of fun. The headboard was a big cookie and the bananas are Runts candy.

Here are closeups of each monkey:

Two birthday cakes this weekend

I did two birthday cakes this past weekend. One was for a friend's daughter's 1st birthday. The theme was a ladybug picnic. This was the biggest cake I have done to date! It was 10, 8 and 6 inch rounds. I had a lot of fun with this one.

And a close up of the picnic basket and the ladybugs enjoying their picnic:


The second one was made for a friend of a friend. The birthday boy has a hobby of DJ-ing/spinning and she asked if I could make a cake to look like a turntable. I was way out of my comfort zone with this one since I am not familiar with them at all. I found some different pictures online and did my best with it. I am happy to report that the cake was a hit!

Wedding cake cookies

Wedding cake cookies. They are sugar cookies covered with rolled buttercream. The pearls are edible and the flowers are fondant.

Pinhead cake

I did this cake for a friend's husband birthday. He loves Pinhead from the movie "Hellraiser". This was my first carved cake and first face.

How to make fondant ghosts

I have received a few requests for instructions on how to make the fondant ghosts that are on the Halloween cupcakes. Step-by-step instructions are below. Enjoy!



1. You will need 2 mini peanut butter cups and 1 Whopper candy.





2. Put a small amout of frosting on each peanut butter cup (peanut butter cups should be upside down). If you don't have frosting, you can use very small dots of fondant that have been softened with water. You could even use peanut butter.



3. Stack the peanut butter cups and the Whopper.

4. Roll the fondant into a small ball. I only made 1 ghost, so the ball was pretty small. If you are making multiple ghosts you may want to roll out a larger portion and cut as many ghosts at one time as you can. I used marshmallow fondant.

5. Roll the fondant pretty thin, about 1/8" thickness.

5. Cut a circle that is just over 4" in diameter. A round plastic container was the perfect size.

6. Drape the fondant circle over the stacked candy.

7. I used a #4 frosting tip to cut out the eyes and mouth. You can also use dots of frosting or cut the eyes and mouth out with a toothpick.

8. Place on top of a frosted cupcake or cake!

Just for fun...

I made this cake for our Labor Day BBQ. Everything is edible.

Halloween!

Halloween cupcakes. The "dirt" on the tombstone cupcakes is crushed oreos. Everything is edible.

Cake for a Halloween/birthday party. Cakes are covered in fondant (buttercream is underneath). All decorations, including the house, are edible.

Birthday Cakes!

This cake was for a 2nd birthday party. The cakes are iced in buttercream and have fondant decorations. The "2" is fondant as well, with a birthday candle attached to the back.

29th birthday cake. It is iced in buttercream and decorated with fondant zebra stripes.

1st birthday cake that was made to match the invitation. Buttercream icing with fondant decorations.

This was also for a 1st birthday. The plates, napkins, invitations, etc all had a cupcake theme. You can see the napkin next to the cake.

Baby Showers

The 2 pictures below were for a baby shower. The invitation had a wagon with various sports balls in it, so the cake was made to complement the invitation. All of sports balls and the wagon were made from fondant. All are techically edible, although they wouldn't taste very good!

These were mini cakes made for a baby shower. The flowers were cut out and hand-painted. The guest list was small, so the mini cakes worked out well. They were, however, a giant pain to make!

This cake was for a friend's baby shower. It was made to match the bedding that you see below.




This cake was also based off of the shower invitation.

This cake was for a baby shower with a sports theme and included mom and dad's favorite sports team logos.