Pumpkin "carving"

Well after quite a compromise Chris and I "carved" pumpkins this year. Last year Chris overruled my desire to carve pumpkins saying he hates doing it because he's too much of a perfectionist and he gets frustrated when they don't turn out well. So I caved and we had a pumpkinless halloween. This year I found the solution: behold our Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head pumpkins.


The perfect compromise! We get cute festive pumpkins without the tedious carving. We're still planning on cutting the tops of and hollowing them out to roast pumpkin seeds this weekend. Stay tuned to see the great Halloween costumes I've schemed!

Congrats Mr. and Mrs. Hixson

Well I did it; I made my first wedding cake. A co-worker of mine asked me to make a wedding cake for her father's wedding. After refusing a few times she finally convinced me to take on the challenge. They gave me an idea of the color scheme and let me do whatever I wanted. They said if I didn't make the cake they were going to go buy something ugly at Albertsons so they didn't have high expectations. I was beyond nervous the entire process and still haven't decided if I would ever be brave enough to make another wedding cake. So basically to give you an idea of what you are looking at: We have a 3 tier champagne cake (12 inch, 9 inch, 6 inch) with a pale orange champagne butter cream. There are 3 bottles of champagne and 3 pounds of butter in this cake. Since I was working with a 12 inch round there was NO WAY I had the ability to cover something that large without a sheeter (a piece of equipment that rolls out fondant into giant sheets) so butter cream was my old option.

I did a lot of research to figure out how to make butter cream look smooth, every time i've tried before it always looks choppy and you can see all the lines from the spatula. I learned the answer is: Viva paper towels. No other brand will work. Once you frost the cake you let it sit for about 10 minutes for it set up a little then you set the paper towel lightly over the frosting and lightly smooth over the top with a scraper. Don't believe me? Watch this:

Simple orange ribbon was used to separate the layers then mini edible pearls were set all around the cake. Finally, I arranged fresh flowers finish things off. Here's a 360 degree view of the cake.

The wedding is in a hour, hopefully they like their cake!

Kolbey's 9th Birthday

Last year a co-worker of mine at Coldwell Banker, Jill, asked me to make cupcakes for her daughter's 8th birthday. Apparently, Kolbey was a fan of my work as she asked for me to make her cupcakes again for her 9th birthday this year. Her mom showed her pictures of the mini-layer cakes I made a few weeks ago and she simply had to have them. The mini layer cakes I made the time before were a little grown up so we made these brighter girly colors for the birthday party.

Here is Miss Kolbey on her birthday with one of her mini-cakes

Here's a upclose view of each cake:

All decorated with candy!

The girls with their cakes at Kolbey's party.

So glad you enjoyed your cakes Kolbey! Can't wait to see what I get to bake for your birthday next year!

Candy Cake

This cake may look impressive but let me tell you... it's the easiest cake to make! I made the inside a little fancy with a chocolate-chocolate chip cake with oreo filling--but you don't have to. You could take a simple box cake and a jar of frosting to make this cute cake. Just frost the top and sides as you normally would then break kitkat bars in half (so you have 2 sticks together) and stand them upright using the frosting as glue. Fill the top with m&m's.. I'd buy a big giant bag, buying several small bags was very expensive I learned. Especially if you forget them in the car all day in Bakersfield heat...stupid. The only problem is when you set it out on the table people don't realize it's a cake. Several people dug into as though it were a bowl of m&m's!

Mini Layer Cakes

For my birthday Chris got me this awesome mini-layer cake pan from Williams Sonoma. It's basically a fancy muffin tin that makes cute adorable little mini multi-layered cakes. The pan makes 6 cakes. Take note that you will only see photos of 5. One of the 6 turned out very very ugly. I made just basic white cakes with a pink glaze and white royal icing. Each cakes has several edible pearls around them as well!

Disney Birthday

Of course my birthday month wouldn't be complete without a trip to DISNEYLAND!! Chris, Jill (Chris' mom) and I all headed down for the day and had a blast! We even got awesome seats AGAIN for World of Color.

Pink Birthday Cupcakes

My dearest blog followers, I appologize for my absence. I didn't realize it had been over two weeks since we've last spoken. To make up for it I'll post a few things today. First up...pink sparkly cupcakes made for a co-worker, Linda Schubert,'s birthday! I just recently purchased a new giant frosting tip online that makes big poofs of frosting like the ones I've seen in bakeries like Sweet Surrender. It's hard to tell from the photo but they are topped with hot pink "disco dust" which is basically itty bitty little pieces of edible sparklies.