Simply Delightful Cakes

Happy birthday to my daddy who turned the big 6-0 today! Because my sisters and I bought him a trip to Vegas for his birthday, I was going to make a Vegas themed cake, but when he's not farming, he's golfing. One of my sisters found this cake on-line, so I re-created it for her. He loved it! And it was a surprise! He came over when I was baking it, but thought I was making cookies :)

I challenged myself again with this Lego cake. Because we were on the road for my son's birthday, I told him I would make him a cake when we arrived at out destination. What I forgot to take into account was the elevation. It reeked havoc on the baking time of the cake and the frosting. (The wine came out pretty early!)  I was, however, very thankful my sister-in-law was eager to help out, once I had the cake baked and assembled. I taught her how to make fondant and had her helping me cut out all the Lego blocks for the side. We work on this all afternoon, and finished it up shortly after dinner. And he LOVED it. Mission accomplished!

My sweet little girl turned 1 today, so for the last few days, I've been busy in my kitchen baking, frosting, and molding her cake. With the exception of one cake, I've only made boy cakes. Do I have to say how exciting a girl cake can be after making so many boy cakes? ;)  I had been thinking for nights on end about what I wanted her cake to look like. When I was pregnant with her, I became hooked on owls, so I themed her room with a touch of owls. The only thing I knew I wanted on the cake was an owl. By this morning, I still didn't know what I wanted so I ended up just winging it. (No pun intended!)  With my little angel tugging at my ankles and my 4 year old sick on the couch, I think it turned out pretty darn good!

This cake took me out of my kitchen and into the kitchen of my mother-in-law's in Whitefish. With my birthday and my sister-in-law's birthday on the horizon, I set to work on making us a cake.  With my other sister-in-law in town as well, I walked her step-by-step on how to make this cake. She even successfully made a couple swirls with a baby in her front carrier. And conveniently enough, we were two small rows of frosting short. I made enough to finish the top of the cake, but in my annoyance, I forgot to fill the holes between swirls. Ah well, it was consumed two hours later!  I'm not sure if there is anything more annoying than not having enough frosting and having to make more! Happy birthday to me and Em!

If one cake wasn't enough to do, I made another one once I completed the Ninja Turtles. Normally I probably would have said no to doing two cakes in a weekend because I don't like to feel rushed. However, I knew the Ninja Turtles weren't going to take too long so I figured I could squeeze another one in.   The only relatively time consuming thing about this cake was baking it....and waiting for the black fondant to set. Otherwise this was a pretty low stress cake! Hooray! These keep getting easier and easier! I was a little disappointed when I dropped the cake off. Having worked at this hotel for 6 years, I should have known the pool area was going to be humid, causing my camera lens to fog up. So I quickly became frustrated with cleaning my lens and didn't quite get the picture I wanted. Ah well.  Happy Birthday Landon!

My son's birthday is on Monday but we celebrated his birthday a few days early. And it's a good thing because he has been waiting for his birthday since October! Last year he had a guitar cake , but this year he insisted on having a Daniel Tiger (from PBS's Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood). I wasn't really feeling it though, so I did a lot of convincing! Jimmy LOVES the color green and everything that is green, so it only makes sense that he likes the Ninja Turtles too. With enough persuading, he agreed on having a Ninja Turtle cake, but Daniel Tiger had to be on it too.    So here is our version of Daniel Tiger + TMNT. I had a lot of fun making this cake too! And I practiced my ombre shading on the outside of the cake...inside will be another project! I'm not sure if he was more excited about the green cake, the Ninja Turtles, or the fact that Daniel Tiger was with the Ninja Turtles. I can image we'll be taking about this cake for months to com...

The opportunity presented itself for me to make a wedding cake. The picture she sent me was this very simple rustic looking cake with a burlap bow on it. When I arrived to set it up, I was in love with the reception hall. Burlap everywhere! But maybe I was a little partial to it because she and I had the same wedding colors - purple and green.    After an entire day of baking cakes, I finally finished up Friday night. I had them all crumb coated and was able to make it to bed at 12:57a, 3 minutes ahead of schedule! However, as the morning came, I quickly became behind schedule between cleaning up my mess from the night before, running to the store for more Cisco, feeding children, etc. I had planned to take the cake over around 11, but I didn't leave here until 12:30, and when I arrived, the doors were locked. But I calmly was able to put the cake together, as I played hostess for people coming and going.  With a few days notice, they added an additional sheet ca...

I'm making my FIRST wedding cake next weekend and I am super excited about it! But since it's my first, I'm also a little nervous! With that said, I thought I would do a "practice" cake to see how messy frosting a cake would turn out. Not too bad! Actually, I'm pretty thrilled with how it turned out. The actual cake will be three tiers, with a burlap flower (like shown, but in brown) on it. Very simple, but very pretty. I can't wait to get started!