Archive for Cakes

Ask me about cartoon shows for kids 5 years and under and I will probably tell you all about them.  I really can’t believe I traded my grown up shows for cartoons… but’s that’s life uh?

Anyway, SUPER WHY is in that long list of cartoons that now I am so familiar with. What??? You don’t know them??? Well, here’s a picture of them. They are kinda cool, but I still don’t understand the pig among children super heroes.

My target this weekend was the green super hero, Whyatt Beanstalk.

A dear friend of mine, Yolanda (I’m sure she won’t mind me sharing her name here) asked me to make a chocolate piece of this little character for her son’s birthday party cake. She would be making the cake at home and I would provide the image for her.

Here’s the chocolate piece that was recreated for the cake.

Cute uh? I really liked it and people at the party did also.

Yolanda came over the house with her cake and we set the image on top of it. It looked really nice, but I don’t have a picture of her finished cake.  She promised to send me a picture of it though.

About two years ago, her son was very much into Sesame Street. If you are interested here’s a link to the Elmo cake I made for her back in 2009.

My friend is a very crafty person and she made super hero capes for every child at the party as her thank you favors. My kids had fun at the party and they are still playing with their capes.

Thank you Yolanda!

I received a request to create a construction cake for a birthday boy in love with construction vehicles, a yellow digger to be specific. Mom told me about his favorite book, Digger Man.

If you have never heard about this book (and I had not), here’s a picture of it.

Construction sites, mud, dirt, trees… how fun! I can make mud, dirt and trees from many different edible things. I tried to stay as close to the book image as possible. We start with some details of the cake.

First of all, the yellow digger. This is a chocolate made image that’s removing some piles of rock/dirt just like in the book (because a little boy is trying to clear the ground to make a playground for his little brother, if you really want to know).

Chocolate Yellow Digger

My client thought it would be fun to add some construction tape and cones around the cake. Caution tape, check! Construction cones, check!

Cake details

Here’s the tree. I added one or two pieces of pretzel sticks to ‘raise’ the trunk and make it seem more real. I thought the pretzel would be better than a pile of frosting (not that’s it wrong, because it’s still good). Some buttercream leaves and grass to decorate the scene.

And here the finished cake.

Digger Man in action

The cake was white butter cake with alternating sections of vanilla buttercream frosting and chocolate ganache (mmmmh, ganache).

I don’t really know how the story ends because my 2 year old boy is more into dinosaurs and animals than anything else. I’m sure it is a very cute book and will soon be going to the store to check it out.

Hope you liked it.

I finally got a chance to post this. This post really did take me a lot of time to get it done. Here it is…

The love of my life (one of them) turned 5 years old on July 4th (sniff). It breaks my heart to see her grow up, but she is turning out to be this wonderful little lady (with a sassy attitude) and I couldn’t be more proud of her.

For some reason, something almost always goes wrong whenever I make cakes for my family and I tend to be very unhappy with the end results. However, this year I was happy with Lillie and Noah’s cake.

Lillie decided to have a Scooby Doo party for her 1st birthday party (yes, she had a few). So Scooby Doo it is!. They have both become very big fans of the lovable Great Dane.

I was soooo busy with all the party details that these are the only pictures I managed to get of her cake (… bad ones).

The cake design is meant to be Scooby Doo’s collar with his doggy tag. Velma, Shaggy and Scooby himself were part of the topper. We had chocolate butter cake as the main cake, vanilla bean buttercream for the filling and it was covered in fondant.

I made a lot of sugar cookies and added the chocolate images, doggy bones and some funky colorful flowers. I couldn’t get better pictures being in such a rush.

 … and some chocolate and fondant details of the cake.

Here are only few of the pictures of Lillie’s friends having fun breaking the pinata and waiting for cake. Friends, you might see some of you out there too.

Overall we had a pretty good, but windy day. We had to leave sooner than we wanted because rain and lightning were fast approaching.

Thank you very much to all our wonderful friends for making the day extra special for our children. Out of the three parties she had, she really enjoyed this day the most. If you weren’t there, we missed you!

Thank You again from my little bakers.

Oh, just to answer someone’s question… we celebrated Noah’s birthday too because I never organized his party back in December. I know, shame on me.

I had the pleasure of working with a very nice couple in creating their wedding cake. Their dream cake came together in a simple yet elegant design.

I loved the combination of turquoise and white tiered cakes accented with a deep brown ribbon around each tier.

Heavier on the bottom and lighter on the top, Swiss dots highlight the first and third tiers of this 4 tier cake. The topper is a made out of beautiful real green mums.

The cake flavors included chocolate butter, golden butter, lemon, and white caramel.

We also surprised the groom with a  personal cake decorated with a Hawkeye logo made out of chocolate.

Hawkeye Cake

This cake was a Chocolate Butter cake and it was covered in buttercream. The design included the lines from the football field. This is a very popular cake design!

We delivered the cake to the Historical Building in downtown Des Moines. The couple also had a separate White Butter sheet cake (not shown) for guests.

I do have to apologize for the terrible pictures I took. The lighting was shinning on the cake table and my camera is really not the best.

Congratulations to the lovely couple.

I received a request to make a cake with a Star Wars (SW) theme. Even though I knew that topic is difficult to recreate, I said ‘Yes’.

Before I go into details about the cake let me say that I may not be the greatest Star Wars fan, but I would watch those movies over that Star Trek… ahemm, creations.

Although I like SW, I have ‘sometimes’ a tough time understanding the plot or follow the sequence of those movies. One thing is for sure, I don’t know the difference between one clone or the other.

Back to the cake right? The birthday boy seems to be a huge fan of certain characters from the movie and wanted someone specific on his birthday cake.

This is the paper plate that was handed out. I present to you, Captain Rex (clone ?)….

Yikes! I knew he would be hard to re-create, but not impossible. I made the mistake of involving my husband into this. He really knows his SW stuff and set me straight on which clone is which.

Captain Rex chocolate piece

It did take me quite a while to think about the ‘surroundings’ for the cake.

“No, it is not the sun“, said my husband. “It is a planet!“… just don’t ask me its name. Don’t get me started on the flying thingy in the back, I heard the story (not that I listened).

Anyway, here’s the cake.

Star Wars Captain Rex cake

The double sheet cake is covered in buttercream with a marble effect in shades of blue and orange.

The next cake celebrates Erin’s (her name is on the cake anyway) 40th birthday.

Since I was given permission to let my imagination play with the design (and it can be dangerous sometimes, jk!), I decided to go with girly colors and wild design.

I love zebra prints.

A few cupcakes accomapnied the order. I decorating cupcakes in two or even three tones of color. I think that has become my signature docoration on them.

The cake is a White Caramel Cake with Dulce de Leche buttercream and it is covered in a marble mix of soft pink and white.

The following wedding cake was designed for a beautiful couple who joined in marriage this past May.

Each of the cake’s layers is represented with a different design. The bottom layer is adorned with drapes or swags going from one corner to the other.

The second or middle tier have a diamond patter and every other intersection is joined with a small silver detail that gave it a nice touch.

The top tier is covered with random dots that are heavier on the bottom and lighter on the top. A beautiful “B” topper sits on this layer to represent their union.

The couple also received three large sheet cakes in different flavors: red velvet with cream cheese frosting, white caramel cake with dulce de leche frosting & a chocolate delight cake with raspberry and buttercream frosting.

There was a special cheesecake designed specially for the groom. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get a picture of it (and I hate myself for it because it was very neat). I know that any Iowa Hawkeye fan would have appreciate it as a chocolate hawkeye logo sat on top of it.

I love the simplicity and elegant design of the cake. The fact that each layer is different in design made it unique and special to the bride. The roses on the cake were displayed in their reception (which by the way, it looked beautiful).

To the lovely couple, congratulations and thanks for letting me be part of your special day.

I think most people are familiar with The Cat in the Hat books by Dr. Seuss. Well, this cake is about Thing 1 & Thing 2 and in case you don’t know them here they are.

I don’t really remember reading the books when I was a little girl, but now that I have my children I’m finally familiar with them. They even have the books in Spanish!

The story on the cake is about a couple of little ones celebrating their birthday, I believe on the same day (if not only days close). My client liked a pair of matching cakes I had made in the past on Monster’s Inc. where one is bigger than the other one. So this Dr. Seuss cake is bases on that idea.

Here’s the cake for 2 boys, one turning 5 years old and the other one celebrating his 1st birthday. 

Thing 1 & Thing 2

There’s a lot of details to show on the cakes. Here’s Thing 2 designed for Drake, the little brother.

Thing 2 and the always looking frightened fish

Thing 1 went to Quinn, the older brother.

Thing 1 with a flying kite

 Here are some of the details on the cakes. You have balloons, popular faces and that always worried looking fish. 

We also prepared sugar cookies for them. The images are made out of chocolate and placed on top of the cookie to give them a ‘dimensional’ look to them. 

Green Eggs & Ham

The Famous Dr. Seuss Hat & Fish

The Famous Dr. Seuss Hat & Fish

 I’m sad to report that I forgot to take a picture of the actual Dr. Seuss cookie, I did actually make one or two.

I think this set of cakes and cookies are some of my favorite ones ever. I love the fact that the chocolate pieces on the cookies look actually alive (! ? !).

This is as Pink as it gets! Do you know who Pinkalicious is? Honestly, I didn’t… and I have a 4 year old girl who absolutely loves pink. So I got to meet this pink princess with this next cake.

Meet Pinkalicious, a little princess girl in love with the colr pink and cupcakes.

Even though Pinkalicious loves cupcakes, my client didn’t ask for them. She wanted a cake with anything that had to do with this little pink girl. I couldn’t incorporate all the items onto the cake, so I decided to have only some of the important elements of her.

Here’s the cake for a little girl turning 4 years old.

Pinkalicious Cake

 Four stars because she is turning four. The fondant stars have a little non-edible sparkle in the center that make them prettier (I think). The “Pinkalicious” title has some glitter to it also, but you may not be able to see it.

The next two cakes were prepared for the same client for a First Communion and Confirmation celebrations that were held on different days. The cakes are simple, but they make an impact.

This first cake is for a lovely girl. It is a fondant covered cross cake embossed with a flower design, adorned with small white and lavender flowers and topped with a beautiful real Lily flower.

The cake is Chocolate Butter cake with vanilla cream frosting.

You might be able t see the flower design on the cake a bit better here.

That day, my house had a mixed smell of cake and Lily flowers. I didn’t complain, it was delicious and beautiful.

The second cake is also a simple cake and elegant cake in colors appropriate for a boy.  My client wanted the cake to be decorated with a cross and in her request, she mentioned and/or possibly a rosary (so of course… we gladly kept that in mind when making the cake).

Inside the cake we have a White Butter Cake with Chocolate buttercream frosting. As opposed to the first cake, this one is covered in buttercream.

The cross is made out of chocolate and my mom created the rosary (she is amazing with them). You probably can’t see it , but the rosary’s beads have this beautiful shine to it that made it look very realistic.

My client was very happy with the extra detail on the cake and was pleased overall. I really loved the cake.