Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Go Forth & Create!

The theme for this month's birthday party at the DWC is "Artist." It took me awhile to come up with an idea. First, I wanted to incorporate a famous painting into the cake, but that just sounded too complicated. Then the idea of a paint palette came to me. So I went with a cake full of artist tools!



If I had more time and money, I would have loved to make a plain cake for each table, put a bunch of decorating supplies next to it and let the ladies decorate the cakes themselves. How awesome would that be to watch!?

Monday, December 21, 2009

Penguin Pool Party

I decided this past weekend that I don't like generic birthday cakes. For me, it's harder to come up with a generic design than a specific one. I like knowing someone's interests and then making a cake around that. Generic is so boring!

Thankfully, there's only one birthday in HR this month, so the cake is all about her. And I know her well. I made two baby shower cakes for her last year. She's obsessed with penguins. Her desk is covered with them! So I wasn't surprised when HR requested that theme for the cake.

I really wanted to make a cake shaped like a penguin, but I was missing parts to the cake pan. So I went with a penguin pool party instead!



Again, I wish it snowed in Southern California.

Monday, December 14, 2009

A Corncob Pipe and a Button Nose

December has been a slow cake month. I don't mind though. Getting ready for the holidays has kept me busy, plus I plan to bake a plethora of cookies for work this week.

My friend, Louise, hit me up about making a cake for her work's holiday party. She works at Home Depot, so I knew it was going to be a big order. She wanted three cakes and cupcakes to feed around 120 people. I was free to do whatever I wanted with the design, so I was excited about that. When she said three cakes, I immediately thought "snowman!"

His scarf is my favorite part. You can't see it in the picture, but there's a pattern on it.


And here's some holiday cupcakes to go along with the snowman:


I wish it snowed in Southern California!

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

A Freckle-Faced Redhead Girl!

I LOVE Pippi Longstocking. Love, love, love! The "Scrubbing Day" scene is the best ever. I've always wished I could clean my house like that. *sigh* A girl can dream...

When I got an order for a Pippi cake, I was super stoked! I browsed the internet for some ideas and came across an awesome picture. So I decided to copy it. =)

I used fondant and food markers to make the image. The letters and flowers are made out of fondant.


I made an orange braid border for the bottom to represent her spunky pigtails.


I love this cake so much. I wanted to keep it for myself!

I'm a Little Teapot

The theme for this month's birthday party at the DWC was Victorian tea party. The cake is pretty obvious...a teapot! I didn't want to make a huge teapot, so I thought some cupcakes would be good on the side. Not just any cupcakes though...teacup cupcakes! I bought girly cupcake wrappers from etsy and then added a little paper handle.

Here's the teapot cake:


Teacup cupcakes. My mom baked these. Spice cupcakes with a caramel topping. Yum!


The entire display:


It was a delicious and fancy affair!

Monday, November 23, 2009

Stachelicious

I had some leftover batter from my lemon bar cupcakes and I didn't want it to go to waste. So I made a mini mustache cake!



A lemon cake with chocolate frosting? I wasn't too sure about the combo, but @emsiehammer tried it and liked it. I think she more than liked it, because she ate the whole cake!

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Commemorating the Wedding Day

My sister is getting married next week. Yay! The HR department (where she works) threw her a shower this week and they asked me to make the cake. I was going to do a little wedding cake, but since it was for my sister, they wanted me to make it more personal. You'd think I'd be able to come up with an idea quickly since it's for my sister, but I couldn't think of anything for a long time! And then, it came to me...

My sister loves going to Cirque du Soleil. Every time she goes, she has to get a "commemorative cup" and then she has to show it off. So a commemorative cup wedding cake seemed like the perfect theme!

Here's the front. The back says "Official Collector's Cup."


The top:


Matching cupcakes:

Flower Power

Generic birthday cakes aren't as easy as they look, especially ones with flowers. Someone in the DC at work ordered a birthday cake and all she requested was flowers/roses and a Happy Birthday greeting. Simple enough, right? Not so much. Roses are very time consuming! Plus I was feeling lazy this week. So when it came down to making the flowers, after five roses, I was out. I then switched to much easier flowers. =)



I probably should have made more flowers to put around the entire cake, but I still like how it turned out. And the writing came out great, so I'm happy.

Monday, November 16, 2009

Fired Up

I haven't been to many baby showers. In fact, I think I've only been to two. I've made a lot of baby shower cakes, though! I had no idea there were so many theme possibilities! I've done butterflies and rubber ducks, which aren't wacky for a shower, but this past weekend I had an order for a firefighter themed cake.



I made the firemen, firetruck and ladder out of fondant. This was only the second time I've made fondant people and I think they came out pretty darn cute! I enjoy the firetruck, too. And polka dots are always fun!

Monday, November 9, 2009

This Cake is Super Rad!

To welcome @tonyrad1 to Skalifornia, I decided to make him a cake. And what better way to represent California ska than with an Aquabats theme!





It's a white Russian flavored cake. I think we'd have to eat like five of these to even feel anything. It hasn't been cut yet, so I don't know if the checkered patterned came out. Hopefully, it did! *crosses fingers*

I think I need to make a series of ska cakes.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Spring into Action

The theme for the DWC October birthday party was superheroes. I was SUPER excited about making a cake with this theme. I decided to go with a general superhero cake since the decorations for the party included Hulk, Batman, Superman, Spider-Man and IRON MAN.

My original design had a ton of action words popping out of the cake, but when it came around to actually decorating the cake, I got lazy. =/ So this is a very simplified version of my design. I still love how it turned out and all the ladies at the DWC loved it, too. =)

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Wow Wow Who!?

My lady friend, Christi, asked me to make a cake for her friend's daughter's birthday. Her friend wanted a Wow Wow Wubbzy themed cake. Wow Wow who!? I had no idea who this character was, so I googled it. Apparently it's a show on Nick Jr. I don't have cable and I'm not two years old, so I've totally missed this show. He's cute though!

If I had the time, I would have made the cake in the shape of Wubbzy. Also, the cake only had to feed 20 people, so I didn't have a reason to make a huge, shaped cake. So I kept the design simple and cute. After all, aren't all the shows on Nick Jr. simple and cute?



I like how the cake turned out. It kind of makes me want to watch the show!

Berry Sweet!

Mike's friend works with me. He's in the DC. He LOVES my chocolate chip cookies and always tells co-workers about all my sweet treats. I've gotten quite a few cakes orders through him. If he ever wants a cut, I'll pay him in cookies. =) This is an order I got through him.

It's the second Strawberry Shortcake cake I've done. The cake set came with a design sheet, so I stuck with that. It's all strawberry buttercream, except for the pink and purple fondant pebbles on the road and the red jellybean strawberries.



Side note: I really need to come up with a better place/way to take pics of my cakes.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Creepy Crawlers

A very lovely lady in HR asked me a couple months ago if I would make the monthly department birthday cakes. The first ones were individual cakes for each person, but this month she asked me to make one big one for all the birthdays. Since it's October, of course it had to be Halloween themed!

I baked the cake before I had the designed planned out. Dumb, I know. If I had done it the other way around, a.k.a. the right way, I would have done a round cake instead. Oh well.

A chocolate cake covered in orangey frosting goodness.


Then I added some spiderwebs, spiders and bats.


And finished it off with some green, slimy accents!


The slim is my favorite. I want to put it on all my cakes now!

Friday, October 2, 2009

This Boot Is Made for Eatin'

Mike's cousin emailed me months ago about a cake for a bridal shower she's hosting. She wanted a white cowboy boot with all white detailing. At first, I thought this would be a really plain cake since it had to be all white. But I thought if I used some white pearl dust and pearl beads to fancy it up, it could turn out really nice.

Also, I originally planned to buy a shaped cake pan, but after finding out how much they cost, I decided to cut the shape out myself!

Here's how it turned out:


I'm not into cowboy boots, but I love this cake! It's so lovely.

Fashionably Late

Maria, my sister, is my cake "manager." She's great at spreading the word of my cakes, especially to HR at work. And that's where this order came from. It was a last minute request. The only guidelines I was given was something "fashionable" and "fun" for her daughter's 13th birthday. I didn't have much time, so I wanted something relatively easy. When I searched the internet for some fashion ideas, purse cakes were all over the place. So I decided to go with that!

I took two 10" cakes, sliced off one of the ends and then stuck them together to make the shape. I was worried the cakes would tip over, but thankfully they didn't. I think the fondant helped keep them in place. I went with a pink zebra and polka dot pattern to make it girly and fun. The lady who ordered the cake gave me some pink and clear jewels to use, so I put them around the cake.



For not having a lot of time for this cake, I think it came out super cute!

Sunday, September 27, 2009

It's All Downhill from Here

My sis helped plan one of friend's bridal shower. Planning with the other bridesmaids was a little difficult at times, but when it came to the cake, she knew who to go to. Me! The couple loves to snowboard, so I thought a cake with that theme would be perfect.



I really love the scarf. She's a total snowboarding babe! haha

Fiesta Adventure!

The lovely Courtney (@clearasmud) asked me to make a birthday cake for her niece Vanessa. The first theme was Abby Cadabby, but Courtney's mother said Vanessa is more into Dora the Explorer these days. So I browsed the internet for some ideas and found a cute design.

I started with some green on the top and blue on the sides.


I added some clouds, grass and a yellow star.


Then I placed the fondant/gum pieces I made and Dora playset on top.


And some matching cupcakes, of course.

The Great DWC State Fair

State Fair was this month's theme for the Downtown Women's Center birthday party. I LOVE going to the fair, so I was really excited about this theme. The decorations included red and white gingham table cloths, ferris wheel center pieces, blue ribbons and corn husks. There was even a game table with a ball toss, pin the tail on the donkey and guess how many jelly beans are in the jar. It was all too cute!

I got this cake idea from www.pinkcakebox.com. I lovelovelove their cakes. Here's how mine turned out:

My favorite parts are the little cherry pies and the blue ribbon.

A Chop Off the Old Block

The fourth season of Dexter starts today! I CAN'T wait. So to celebrate, I made some Dexter themed cupcakes.

Butcher knives, syringes, Dexter logos and red splatter...oh my!


Here's a closer look:

Monday, September 21, 2009

A Trip Around the World

My sister (Maria) LOVES to travel. She's always on the hunt for good travel deals and planning her next trip. So it was only fitting that her bridal shower be travel themed!

We decorated my grandparents' house with vintage travel posters. We had food from different countries. We even thought of some travel-themed games. And I made the cake, of course. What better way to send Maria off to her married life than with a suitcase cake!?

First, I made these little "stickers" to go on the suitcase. Each one represents something. The British flag because Maria studied abroad in London. It's her favorite place to visit. The Las Vegas and San Francisco stickers because Maria and Paul have gone on many trips there. Ireland because Paul is Irish. The Volkswagen logo because Paul LOVES Beetles. Maria had a Beetle, too. And a yellow M&M because he's Maria's favorite.


For the cake, I covered a 13" x 9" cake with chocolate frosting and added some fondant buckle straps and handle to make it look like a suitcase. Here it is all finished:


Maria loved it and the bridal shower was a hit!

Monday, September 14, 2009

Look Out! Here Comes the Spider-Man!

I've never advertised Free Cakes For Kids on Craigslist. I thought about it, but I wasn't sure if the families I was trying to reach use Craigslist. I should have posted an ad anyways. It wouldn't have hurt. And now I'm definitely kicking myself because someone from the organization posted a general ad two weeks ago and I ended up getting two orders because of it! It was awesome. I'll post on Craigslist from now on. Lesson learned.

Here's an email I got for one of the orders. She typed it in all caps. Sorry!

HELLO, I SAW AN ADD ON CRAISLIST, AND I IMMEDIATLY THOUGHT OF A FRIEND OF MINE, SHE HAS A LITTLE BOY WHO WILL BE TURNING 2 ON SEPTEMBER 15, SHE IS A SINGLE MOTHER WHO IS JUST STRUGGLING TO GET AHEAD. SHE IS CURRENTLY GOING TO SCHOOL TO BECOME A MEDICAL ASSISTANT THROUGH A COUNTY PAID PROGRAM, AND SHE DOES NOT HAVE A STEADY PLACE TO LIVE SO SHE HAS TO LEAVE HER SON WITH HIS GRANDPARENTS AT NIGHT SO HE HAS A PLACE TO SLEEP AND BE SAFE. SHE WILL NOT BE ABLE TO GIVE HIM A BIRTHDAY THIS YEAR AND I WONDERED IF THIS ORGANIZATION WOULD HELP WITH A CAKE, AS I TRY TO GIVE HIM A SMALL PARTY WITH A PRESENT OR TWO. HE LOVES SPIDERMAN AND LIGHTING MC QUEEN AND ALL TRUCKS!! HE IS ABSOLUTLY THE SWEETEST CHILD, AND NOT BEING WITH HIS MOTHER ALL THE TIME IS TAKING ITS TOLL ON HIM, SO I WOULD LIKE TO MAKE HIS BIRTHDAY AS SPECIAL AS POSSIBLE WITH THE HELP OF FREE CAKES FOR KIDS. CAN YOU PLEASE HELP??

Awwwww! Obviously I said yes! How could I not!?

She decided to go with a Spider-Man cake. I love making superhero cakes.

I started off with a red cake board and a chocolate cake.


I covered the sides with blue frosting.


Red on top.


Covered it with a black web.


Topped it off with a Spider-Man candle, red shell border and a happy birthday greeting.


I'm delivering this cake tomorrow. I've also got a couple little presents for the birthday boy. I'm so excited!

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Hurts and Tastes So Good

The season finale of True Blood is tonight! Of course, I had to make themed cupcakes! I wanted to have a variety so I used logos (Merlotte's, Fangtasia and Tru Blood) from the show. I also used some memorable quotes. If you can't read them because the picture is too small, here's what they say:

"Smite me, mother f*cker"
"V...one drop, that's all you need."
"Sookie is MINE"
"Who ordered the hamburger with AIDS?" (my favorite!)

I HAD to make an "I (heart) Eric" cupcake too. And I made a couple with dripping blood.



30 minutes until the finale. I've got my Eric tee on and cupcakes in hand. I'm ready to visit Bon Temps!

The Gift that Gave Too Much

I went to a murder mystery birthday party last night. It was for Mike's aunt. I probably wouldn't have gone if she hadn't asked me to make the cake. I'm not an actress and I've never played Clue. Not my cup of tea, but I actually ended up having fun! I didn't participate in the murder mystery though. I just sipped on my mojito and chatted with Mike's family.

Mike's aunt had a specific idea for her cake, which was fine with me! She likes gift box cakes. The colors of her party were green and blue. And she really likes stripes. So this is what she got...


Exactly what she wanted! lol These cakes took for-ev-er to make. I don't know why though. I didn't have much fun either. Total bummer. But they turned out alright and Mike's aunt loved them. So all the sweat and tears were worth it.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Can't You See I'm Addicted?

Ska is pretty much the best thing that's ever happened to me. Give me a horn solo and an upbeat rhythm any day! It's hard for me to put into words how much I love this music. I wrote a blog once about ska that was posted on Hot Topic's site. If I was at work right now, I'd just repost that. But since I'm not, I'll use some lyrics from a Spring Heeled Jack tune to try to express my love.

When things are going down and you wanna pick it up
Why don't you try and do what I do
The way I know to get you out of a slump is
To listen to music that puts a smile on your face
I won't let you be down so you better start jumping
Cause you're making me ill
Well no one says when they grow up
They wanna be an addict well, I wouldn't have it another way

When things are going down and you wanna pick it up
Why don't you try and do what I do
I know some days you get dealt a bad hand
So listen to music that puts a smile on your face
I won't let you be down so you better start jumping
Cause you're making me ill
Well no one says when they grow up
They wanna be an addict well, I wouldn't have it another way

While you're passing through my way give me a little S-K-A
On my tongue and in my veins, I wouldn't have it another way


Can't you see I'm addicted?


I don't know why I haven't made a ska-themed cake yet. I've just been too busy making cakes for everyone else. It's about time I make a cake for myself! haha

My mom has a cake pan that makes a checkered pattern. Totally perfect for this cake. So I stoleborrowed it. I followed the directions and it doesn't seem like this would make a checkered pattern, but as you'll see in a bit, it does!


I decided to use this picture as my design for the cake.


I covered the cake with white frosting. Not the best icing job, but I wasn't in a cake mood at the time and I was almost out of frosting.


Since I wasn't in a cake mood, I decided to take a break and decorate the cake when I was cheerful. A day later...


A ska cake is not a ska cake without a checkered pattern.


And in case you still didn't know what kind of cake it was.


It's even checkered on the inside. <3


We do the ska, yeah we ska, yeah we ska...Ska is all we need.

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Ghosts...Don't...Die!

One of my most memorable Christmases was the year Maria and I got our Nintendo. We spent all morning playing it on our tiny TV in the living room. That was also the year we had a frog in our Christmas tree. So as we were playing, we'd hear the frog ribbit. We'd get freaked out, but it didn't stop up from playing. It was then that I fell in love with the Super Mario Bros. series.

I came across a Boo cake last week and I decided I had to make my own. Yoshi is my favorite character, but I've already make a cake of him. Check it out!



As for the Boo cake, I used Wilton's 3D sports ball pan and added a crumb coat:


Then I covered it in white fondant. Not my smoothest cover job, but that's alright.


I made his face and hands out of fondant and stuck them on the cake. Here he is:


The only ghost I don't fear!