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.

Its my party and I'll cry if I want to...

Yes, those are bits of fresh strawberry puree in the frosting.

My niece, Liv, was excited about her lovely birthday cake but not excited about being the center of attention.  No birthday pics for her.  On the upside, the cake was absolutely delicious.
Vanilla cake with strawberries baked in.
I spread nutella on the cake layers along with strawberry swiss meringue buttercream frosting.  The frosting tasted like strawberry whipped cream and the nutella was a fantastic accent - noticeable without being overpowering.  Probably my new favorite cake.

She wouldn't blow out the candles but she did enjoy eating her pretty pink cake.

Sweet cakes for Sweet friends

Two of my good friends recently had birthdays within days of each other and I decided that was the perfect excuse to bake cakes.  Happy Birthday Amelia and Emily!

Behind - Chocolate cake with chocolate swiss meringue frosting on the inside and peanut butter swiss meringue buttercream on the outside. 
In front - Chocolate cake with nutella and nutella swiss meringue buttercream on the inside and nutella swiss meringue buttercream on the outside.

Its all about the frosting

I made this birthday cake for my good friends Jen and Dave.  It was Dave's birthday and he wanted a chocolate cake with just a little bit of chocolate frosting.  Jen loves frosting and fillings and tried to talk him into choosing something different.  (Cookies and cream!? ganache!?)  But Dave kept saying he just wanted chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.  To please them both I made my chocolate cake with my special swiss meringue buttercream frosting, 4 thick layers of cake with modest layers of frosting on the inside and more cake crumbs on the outside. I put lots of extra frosting on top so that Dave could lovingly gift Jen with some of his frosting. 
In the end the cake was a success and the birthday was celebrated without any marital discord.

Happy Easter!

This lovely carrot cake was a surprise for a friend's much loved daughter in law. Surely,a treat the Easter Bunny would approve of with all of those delicious carrots.

Four Cakes for Forty Ladies

I made these cakes for an event at my church. Each cake is 8 inches round but quite tall with four layers of cake.  These cakes disappeared with amazing speed.  

From left to right - carrot cake, vanilla fudge marble cake, lemon raspberry cream cake and chocolate blackout cake

The carrot cake is frosted with cream cheese frosting and has toasted pecans on the sides.  The marble cake has cream cheese and chocolate fudge frosting swirled in and around it.  The lemon cake is frosted with a fantastic lemon cream cheese frosting with alternating layers of raspberry puree.  And finally, the chocolate blackout cake is one of our favorites with a cookies and cream filling, chocolate ganache and chocolate swiss meringue buttercream frosting.

This is all that was left at the end of the night.  The cakes were completely decimated but the ladies were completely happy.