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.