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.

Volcano Love

As we approached Ethan's 5th birthday one thing became clear - he needed, absolutely needed, a volcano birthday cake.  The kid loves volcano's and we've watched way too many documentaries about how they work.  But he didn't just want any old volcano cake.  His cake needed to have at least one rescue bot, lots of flowing lava, and lava exploding out of the top.
What good is having a mom who makes cake if you can't even get one cake covered in lava?

He loved his cake and insisted we keep the volcano. (Made with rice krispies.) It's still sitting on a shelf in my cake kitchen.

The bottom tier is chocolate cake with cookies and cream filling and chocolate swiss meringue buttercream frosting. The top tier is chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting in alternating layers with chocolate ganache and swiss meringue buttercream frosting.  It was delicious and I sent big slices home with happy parents.

Happy Thanksgiving!

In the past this has been strictly a cake blog. I suppose there are people who make cakes at Thanksgiving.  Pumpkin cakes, spice cakes and even a snickerdoodle cake evokes feelings about fall.  However, I firmly believe that Thanksgiving is for pies.  I make really excellent pies.  I make all of my own crusts and never use pudding mixes or canned pie fillings.  I always take the time to make everything from scratch with fresh ingredients.  That is the real secret to making amazing pies.  Every year, I get pie requests from family members and usually make about a dozen pies.  This year I made pies for the ladies at my church who were delighted to sample each and every flavor.  That night is referred to fondly as "pie night". I made 12 pies, 6 different flavors.  Triple berry, chocolate chip pecan, peanut butter, chocolate cream, apple cream, and lemon cloud.

Addi's smash cake

Sweet little Addison needed a cake to destroy on her first birthday.  I made her a yummy vanilla cake with strawberry cream cheese frosting.  I love the expression on Addi's face in this picture.  It looks as if she can't really believe what she's being told.  Yes, sweetheart, you can eat the cake.  Go ahead and enjoy! 

 

 

 

 

Who hasn't wanted to dig into a cake with their hands?

 

 

Princess Alivia

Princess Alivia turned 3 this year!  I made her a gluten free chocolate cake and chocolate cookies for her cookies and cream filling as well as chocolate swiss meringue buttercream frosting.  I also made gluten free strawberry and cream cupcakes.  Yum!

30 years

My friend Jen wanted to surprise her sister in law with something really special for her 30th wedding anniversary.  She asked me to recreate their original wedding cake for the party.  This is the picture she gave me of the cake.  As you can see, its pretty hard to see all of the original details and they no longer had her cake topper or any other the other embellishments that were placed on the cake.    I knew it would be impossible to make it look exactly like it had on their wedding day so I decided to create an updated version of the original cake.  Jen found a new cake topper she thought the couple would like and I had fun trying to include little details from the old cake into the new cake.

The bottom tier is german chocolate cake with chocolate swiss meringue buttercream frosting and the next two tiers are chocolate cake with alternating layers of cookies and cream filling and chocolate swiss meringue buttercream.  According to Jen, the cake was a fantastic surprise and the hit of the party. 

I had lots of fun playing with this cake and would have loved to explore different decorating ideas.