2-12-11 Mickey Mouse Club House Birthday Cake

My co-worker Sally was planning a Mickey Mouse Club House themed party for her daughter's 2nd birthday and she asked me to make the cake. She researched some images and bought the candles and figurines for the top and left the rest to me.

The bottom layer is yellow cake and the top is chocolate.  Both layers are filled and frosted with buttercream icing and then covered in fondant. 

I love to work with fondant!  It's like edible clay/play-doh.  You can sculp just about anything out of it.  It's a little bit time consuming rolling out, cutting and sculpting but it's pretty easy to work with.  Unfortunately it's a lot more expensive so I don't get to do it that often.

I also make yellow and chocolate cuppcakes!  Iced with buttercream and decorated with sprinkles and fondant Mickey Mouses!

12-11-10 Laura's 2nd 29th Chicago Bear's Birthday Cake

So Laura's husband Brett decided to throw a surprise party for her 30th 2nd 29th birthday.  In trying to decide how to decorate the cake and what kind of decorations to have for the party a Chicago Bear's theme was decided upon.  I was a little nervous that she might not like it, but she loved it!

Another color flow icing creation.  The Chicago Bears logos and lettering are all handmade from color flow icing....I LOVE THE STUFF!!!!  The possibilities really are endless!

The cake itself is carrot cake with cream cheese icing...the icing didn't quite cooperate with me but it turned out ok anyway.

11-13-10 - Auburn University Birthday Cake

A co-worker went all over town trying to find a bakery that would make an Auburn University cake for her husband's birthday and she couldn't find anyone to do it.  She was talking to another co-worker who suggested that she ask me - they had both seen the retirement cake I had done for Marianne.  It was short notice but thanks to have the day off for Veteran's Day I was able to pull it off. 

The cake is yellow iced with buttercream and decorated with hand made color flow icing decorations that I made!

7/17/10 - Diane and Dana's Birthday

Simple white cake with chocolate buttercream frosting.

Brett's 30th Birthday Cake - 10/31/09

This is a picture of the cake before we left our house to take it to the party.  I always try to take a picture before just in case.  Good thing that I did this time because by the time that we got to the party there was a blow-out on the side of the cake and it looked like the moon had crashed into it!  I chose not to take a picture of that.  I choose to remember the cake like this!  All the cakes I've made over the last year and a half and this is the first that didn't arrive to the party fully intact...I would say that's a pretty good track record!  And thank goodness it was not a wedding cake for a paying bride...that would have been disasterous! 

The cake itself was german chocolate with coconut pecan icing as the filling and buttercream to decorate.  The moon was made from the round pan that comes with the Betty Crocker Bake and Fill pan set and also had coconut pecan icing in the middle!  Even if the cake didn't arrive looking perfectly at least it tasted good!

Stephen and Matthew Huffman's 1st Birthday - 9/19/09

One year ago Stephen and Mattehew came into this world at only 1lb. 6oz and 1lb. 7oz.!  They were only 24 weeks along - born 16 weeks early!  They were so tiny and fragile - they spent nearly 3 months in the NICU at Memorial before being able to go home.  Looking at them now and thinking back, it doesn't seem possible that they are already 1 year old!  They are not quite developed to where a full-term 1 year old would be, but they are learning and growing every day.  They are just the cutest little boys ever!

Since they were born on "International Speak Like a Pirate Day" their parents went all out with a Pirate Themed party!  I have to apologize to Dana for going overboard on the cake. (no pun intended)  She ordered a gorgeous pirate ship cake from Publix (she'd been dying to order the cake for years!) but was afraid that there wouldn't be enough so asked if I would make an extra one.  I was just supposed to make a plain chocolate cake with chocolate frosting....but I couldn't help myself.  So, I'm sorry.  I promise to follow directions better next time!

Brownie Cake - 8/15/09

I probably shouldn't even be posting this picture because it's so embarassing, but what the heck, I'm not perfect and I never claimed to be!

Mike doesn't really care for cake so this year I thought that I would make him a brownie cake.  I had all these grand plans to cut the brownie into the shape of an airplane (one of his hobbies is building and flying RC model planes), elevate it and use oreos for the wheels, etc.  Well, as with most things I do I ran out of time and ended up with what you see above...I guess I need to work on my airplane drawing skills.

At least the brownies tasted delicious...especially b/c they were served with vanilla ice cream, hot fudge and caramel and whipped cream!  YUM!

Birthday Cupcakes - 7/18/09

No gumpaste daisies this year for Diane and Dana.  They wanted simple yellow cupcakes with chocolate frosting so that is what they got!

Bartering for services - 6/4/09

My boyfriend and I were robbed back in March and all but 3 pairs of my earrings were taken.  I still had a lot of the necklaces that went with them because they were in another location, but the earrings were all in the jewelry boxes that were taken.  So, when a co-worker (who is also a jewelry maker) asked me to make a cake for her husband's 75th birthday party - we bartered for services.  It was a pretty sweet deal - she got a delicious cake and a dozen cupcakes, and I got 6 new pairs of earrings!

She had some extra decorations to add to the cake so my part was pretty simple.  It was chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream filling and white buttercream to ice it.  I really need to practice my writing skills though...definitely not my strong suit!  Her husbands name is Jim but it looks a little like Tim...and that was after I had redone it 3 times!

Linda and Beth's Birthday Cake - 3/5/09

Each month at our office we have a birthday cake to celebrate whomever's birthdays fell in that month.  Usually we get a cake from Sam's Club, but if I have the time sometimes I make it.

Linda and Beth were our March birthdays and they requested a Red Velvet cake!  I had never made one before, but I found a recipe and managed to make a delicious one from scratch!  I even colored the cream cheese icing and decorated with it.  It was so smooth and easy to decorate with - I might just use it all the time!

My first paying customer! 1/23/09

One of my co-workers commissioned me to make a birthday cake for her daughter.  She finished off the cake by adding candles that spelled out "Happy Sweet 16".  She was supposed to get me a picture of the finished cake but never did.

Mike's Bowling Birthday cake - 8/16/08

My boyfriend wanted to go bowling for his birthday. So, me being the coordinating freak that I am, had to make a cake to match!

The ball was made using the round pan which bakes the cake in two halves.  The pins were made with a cupcake, a mini cupcake upside down and a donut hole on top of that.  They were held together with icing and then frozen to set-up.  Then white frosting was melted and they were dunked in to give the smooth finished coating.  Once the icing thawed though, the cupcakes started to fall apart and lean.  If I had it to do over I would dunk them in melted white chocolate.  The red accents on the pins were made by cutting up some fruit-by-the-foot snacks.  The whole thing was made up of both chocolate and white cake.

German Chocolate Birthday Cake - 5/22/08

Made this for a co-worker's birthday - she requested German Chocolate Cake.

Not your traditional German Chocolate Cake because I iced the sides and decorated it with some left over royal icing flowers that I had from Wilton Course 2.  The cake was 3 layers tall!  I need to work on my icing penmenship skills...they are terrible!  It looks like a 5 year old wrote it!

Wilton Cake Decorating, Course One Final Cake - 3/26/08

A definite improvement from my first cake!  Maybe there is hope for me.

Just so happend that we were celebrating my friend Heather's birthday when I had to do this cake for class so it doubled as her b-day cake!