Ellie and Logan's Winter Wedding

"Whitaker Mountain"  Ellie's husband, Logan loves the outdoors and his jeep almost as much as he loves Ellie.  This little cabin in the mountains next to a ski slope is meant just for him.

My sweet sister in law Ellie was married in December.  I was able to make her wedding cake, groom's cake (above), 600 cupcakes and about 400 flavored spoons for her hot chocolate bar.  I had so much fun putting everything together!  There are loads of pictures so hold onto your hats!

The honeymoon cabin.

This tiny snowman next to their fire-pit was ridiculously hard to make.

This Jeep or "Logan's pride and joy" is parked at the bottom of the mountain because it is constantly breaking down. ;)

Funny story about the wedding cake - They were supposed to order flowers for it but forgot.  Logan's mom and grandma were kind enough to put some extra ribbons and greenery on it while I set up the cupcake and hot chocolate table.

A hot chocolate cupcake extravaganza. 

I made 6 different kinds of cupcakes.  Cookie Dough, Lemon, Chocolate Peppermint, Cookies and Cream, Snickerdoodle and Caramel Pecan Carrot.  I made the Chocolate Peppermint in a Gluten Free Version as well.  

We made 3 different flavors of hot chocolate spoons.  Dark chocolate aztec, milk chocolate caramel and white chocolate peppermint.  Our family collectively mourned when these chocolate spoons were all gone.  They were so incredibly good in or out of hot chocolate.

The caterer told me these were the best cupcakes he'd ever had.  That means a lot coming from a food person.

Personalized hot chocolate cups.  So adorable.

Happy Thanksgiving!

 I know that this is a cake blog but I just have to share these lovely pies I made.  Thanksgiving is basically pie day at our house.  It takes me ages to decide what flavors to make every year because there are so many to choose from.  This year the winners were -
Chocolate Cream
Chocolate Chip Pecan
Lemon Lime
Pumpkin
Apple Cider
Little Lemon Tarts

This little tart doesn't look like much but super flaky pastry, sweet tart lemon curd and fresh, sweetened whipped cream made this just about the most delicious thing on this table.

This is a little pie tasting plate to give to a friend.   Apple cider, lemon lime and chocolate cream pie.  Yum!

Gwyneth + Peppa = BFF's

  Gwen turned 3 this year!  To celebrate, Tamsin, (her fantastic mom and my good friend) threw her a Peppa Pig party. Gwen loves Peppa and we decided to create a cake reminiscent of the hot air balloon episode.  The top tier is butter cake with fresh raspberry puree and lemon curd in alternating layers topped with a bit of cream cheese frosting.  The bottom tier is dark chocolate cake with alternating layers of chocolate ganache and raspberry puree.  (Gwen has very adult taste buds.)  Check out all of the adorable party favors and if you'd like to see more of Tamsin and her fantastic party/life ideas look up her blog - Project Project on her website.  www.tamsinnorth.com

Gwen prepares for the big moment.  What will she wish?

Peppa and her little friends love mini pizzas.

Inside the top tier.

The happy sun on the back of the cake.

Maybe you haven't noticed but there are little chocolate ganache mud puddles around the side of the cake because mud puddles are important in Peppa's world.

Client Appreciation Cupcakes

Client appreciation cupcakes!  I made 30 boxes of cupcakes for a customer to give to his best clients.  In honor of the fall season I made 3 different flavors.  Caramel Apple, Pumpkin Fudge and Cranberry Orange.

It doesn't seem like a lot but it took ages to put together all of these sweet little boxes.

All that's left. . .

 I taught a cake decorating class for a large group of women and I completely forgot to take pictures.  Very sad.  I made four different cakes and decorated them while teaching the women the basics. It was such a fun night.  When I got home I took this picture of the last little bit of cake before my kids devoured it.  I had fun playing with some new flavors.
On the left is spice cake with thin layers of dark chocolate ganache and maple buttercream frosting.  On the right is spice cake with my homemade apple butter on the inside and cream cheese frosting on the outside.  Both versions were really, really good.
I also made pumpkin cake with chocolate fudge frosting that was amazing and a yellow cake with my homemade apricot jam and brown butter frosting.

The Hobbit House

My brother Jordan got married this summer.   I've made wedding and/or grooms cakes for my other 4 siblings and so, for years me and Jordie have been joking about what kind of grooms cake I would make for him.  He always said that he wanted Saurons tower from Lord of the Rings or something else from that series that would be equally hard for me to construct.   But what man can imagine what his bride might want?  Rebecca didn't want a big fussy wedding and reception.  She wanted (and had) a beautiful wedding on the beach in California.  A lovely informal reception was planned for family and friends here in Utah who couldn't attend the wedding.  Rebecca never really planned to have a wedding cake and I couldn't really make a cake for the groom without something for the bride.  So I created this sweet little hobbit house for both of them.  

Jordy is a graphic artist and even though the dragons he's created aren't nearly this friendly, I thought he would appreciate having one on his cake.  Becca loves to shop and H&M is one of her favorite stores.  And of course, they have two adorable cats.

If you look closely you can see the dragon is curled around 3 golden eggs.

The windows on the hobbit house are made from sheets of gelatin.  The cake itself is a Gluten Free vanilla and fudge marble cake with cream cheese frosting and chocolate ganache.

Little Gnocchi (yes one of their cats is named after pasta) fearlessly plays within reach of the dragons teeth.

Vineyard Elementary Carnival

Every year Vineyard Elementary puts on a fall carnival to promote school spirit and raise money.  6th graders get to participate in a cake auction.  My 6th grader (Arielle) was beyond excited to submit a cake this year.  She decided that she just wanted to make a pretty cake and said that it had to be my chocolate with cookies and cream filling.  (everyone's favorite)  She had a lot of fun and helped with every step in the baking and decorating process.  My contribution to the carnival was 2 dozen pumpkin cupcakes with orange cream cheese frosting.  (I actually made 4 dozen but a tidy sum went to work with my husband...much to the delight of his co-workers.)

Ari crumb coats her cake.

My cute friend Tamsin enjoys a pumpkin cupcake with orange cream cheese frosting.

There she is! Ari with her finished cake.  It was 4 layers of chocolate cake with cookies and cream filling -frosted with chocolate swiss merengue buttercream and dark chocolate ganache. 

Sunday Dinner

Not a whole lot of mystery here.  Sometimes I just want to bake a cake.  It's crazy, I know. We had family coming over for Sunday dinner and so I gave myself permission to make a moist, fluffy butter cake with creamy chocolate frosting.  So. Good.

Will is so helpful.  He's always willing to step in to clean the dishes. 

Young Men Cake Competition

My son, Will, is 15. (He's the one in The Beatles t-shirt.) He was responsible for planning an activity with his young men's church group and he thought it would be fun if I taught them how to bake and decorate a cake.  I was a little skeptical at first.  After all, I've fed these boys cake many, many times but none of them have ever expressed an interest in learning how to make them.  Will assured me they would love it.  Just to be sure, we decided to make the activity even more exciting by having the boys form teams and compete against each other.

I baked 2 cakes and each team had to decide what frosting and fillings they would use and how they would decorate their cakes.  This was such a fun night!  I love these boys!

On the left- Butter cake with raspberry apricot filling and whipped cream for the frosting.  These boys won best tasting cake.
On the right-Chocolate cake with chocolate ganache for the filling and cream cheese frosting.  These boys won best decorating.  (My 13 and 11 year old daughters were thrilled to be the judges.)

Team Butter Cake putting on their crumb coat.  And yes, they all know what that means now.  Each boy had to help with every step in the process.  They learned that it really is harder than it looks.

Team Chocolate cake presses oreo's to the side of their cake.  Look at that attention to detail!

They discovered that "piping is hard" but had so much fun giving it a try.

The Lady Loves Chocolate

This is just a simple chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.  The cupcakes were used to encourage my son and his friends to ready our backyard for this party.  I made the cake because the party was scheduled for the day of a friends birthday but sadly, it was not a birthday party. She mentioned that if I happened to make a cake; she really loves chocolate.  

These fantastic women gathered in my backyard for a night of good food and great company.

School's Out For Summer!

To celebrate the end of the school year we decided to host a big backyard movie party.  We invited lots of friends and neighbors over for backyard games, yummy snacks, cupcakes and smores and "Pirates of the Caribbean" on the big screen.  I made 5 different kinds of cupcakes.
Chocolate peanut butter - Snickerdoodle - Red Velvet - Lemon - Strawberry Cream
This was such a fun night!  It may become  yearly tradition.

Kids gather around the fire pit.

Campfires need Smores

Will and his friends play giant Jenga 

 W

Happy Birthday Honey

This year for my husbands birthday I made his favorite cake.  Angel food cake with lemon curd and whipped cream frosting.  This cake is light and airy with just the right amount of sweet tart lemony goodness.  I shared some of this cake with a good friend and she proclaimed it her favorite of all of my cakes.  That is really saying something considering all of the different kinds of cakes that I make.

Everything is Awesome!

To celebrate Ari's birthday this year we had a little mini cake class at school.  She and her classmates enjoyed my chocolate blackout cake while decorating little lego figures. A big thank you to Mr. Mortensen for letting us take over his classroom.

Ari displays her lego fairy.

Such a cute little hula girl.

Wendy, Jenna and Robin show off their lego people.  I especially love the little Elvis, complete with a microphone on the far right.

Lauren shows us her progress.

Jenna is just getting started here.

There were lots of little mermaids in class.

Geneva and her mermaid.

Kiki hard at work.

Diego and Will, very focused on their lego men here.

Haley, ready to begin.

Juan and his merman.

I'm not sure what Ben did with this little guy but he worked really hard.