Double Your Pleasure

Last week, I promised to show you what else I had made a few weeks ago. I also promised to post on Tuesday...I like keeping promises, so here we go. My friend Heather called to order cake for her twin daughters', Tyla and Taya, second birthday. And in the process of ordering a cake, she decided to order cake pops instead. She didn't care how I decorated them, she just asked for something girly. She also told me that the girls were into dolls, but that was all she could really give me. So challenge accepted and completely fun to do. Right away, my old brain went a working on what I could come up with for the girls' big day. Below you will see what the they got for their 2nd birthday.

Cake pops don't start out looking too pretty, but boy do they taste good. Amazing how you can dress something up with a little chocolate....white and red chocolate as this case may be. So from these not so appetizing balls of cake and frosting I made these for the girls...

Heather and I decided to have two bunches of cake pops for the party. So with that in mine, and the fact that the girls like dolls, I made these flower pots of goodies. I made different shades of pink by mixing white chocolate along with some red chocolate melts that I had. I bought the sugar flowers at my local cake supply store. This help me take care of the girly requirement of the order. To represent the girls interest, I added two more cake pops to the order and created little cake pop dolls. Another friend of mine was kind enough to give me some pretty paper to make the dolls' dresses. Then all I had to do was add the pipe cleaner arms and draw the faces on with food coloring markers.

A doll for Tyla...
and a doll for Taya.
For displaying the cake pops, I got two terra cotta pots along with some floral foam. Then it was as easy as sticking the pops into the foam and making a nice arrangement. After every pop was placed, I added some decorative grass to help hide the floral foam and really finish off the pots. And there you have a fun alternative to a cake.

Hope you had a great birthday Tyla and Taya.

Baby I'm a Star

Yes, I know I said I would be posting every Tuesday. And yes, I know it's Wednesday, and late in the day on Wednesday to boot. But life has just been so busy for me as of late that I totally forgot to blog yesterday. Funny how life gets in the way of blogging sometimes. Anyway, I had two orders again this past week. And once again they were two very different orders. I have one here to show you today. I'm saving the other for next week because as of right now, I have nothing to write about or show you next Tuesday (and I promise I will do my best to post next Tuesday). My friend Aimee asked me to make some cookies for her son Josh. Last week was his star week at his school, and she wanted something to pass out for all the kids to take home with them. So to celebrate Josh being a star, I made him shooting star cookies.





I used the flooding technique to ice the cookies. Here's my outline all ready to go.

I filled the star with white royal icing...but I didn't stop there.

I colored some royal icing and the piped on the different colors in a bulls-eye pattern. But I still didn't stop there.

I then pulled a toothpick through the wet icing to create a spiderweb effect. This is very easy to do and people love the way it looks. Simply start in the center and lightly drag the toothpick through your icing.

To finish off the cookies, I colored more royal icing and filled in the shooting part of the star. When that icing was dry, I used a food coloring marker to add the detail.

Cakes of the Week

So this past week was very busy for me cake wise. I had two separate and totally different cakes for the weekend. The first was for my friend Melissa, who's little girl Nora was turning 2. Melissa was going with a rubber ducky theme and had found this cute bathtub cake for the party. The second cake was for my friend Cecilia's husband Doug, who was reaching the great age of 40 this past week. She requested a martini glass cake with cake bites on the side.
Both cakes had their challenges and both cakes were fun to make. I was pleased with how each one turned out.

To start the bathtub cake, I had to make some rubber duckies. Using yellow fondant, I shaped four balls into three different sizes, one for the body, one for the head and two for the wings. Then I also had a small orange ball to make the beak.

First, take the largest of the balls and shape that into the body of the duck.

Then, keeping the second ball it's original shape, I placed it on the body to make the head of the duck.

I flattened the last two balls a little and shaped them to create the ducks wings. I attached them to the side of the body with a little water.

With the orange ball, I simply shaped it into a beak and once again attached it using water. Then I took a very small paintbrush and some blue food coloring to paint on the duck's eyes, and I had my rubber ducky.

Rubber Ducky, you're the one... You make bath time so much fun...

Now on to the cake...

I used three layers of vanilla cake to create the bathtub because part of the top layer would be cut out to make the actual tub section. I was worried about getting that section out, but thankfully it went a lot smoother then I could have imaged.

After the cake was covered in buttercream, I used blue fondant to create the water in the tub.

Using fondant, a toothpick, edible metallic silver dust, a small paint brush and black food coloring, I made the faucet for the tub.

The duckies were quite content in their bathtub home.

To make the bubble, I rolled out some fondant and then used a large round pastry tip to cut them out. I quickly rolled them and the tossed them in some pearl luster dust.

A little fondant on the cake board to create a tile floor and Nora's cake was complete. Happy Birthday Nora!


Now on to Doug's cake...

With this cake I assembled the layers and then cut out the shape of the glass.

After getting the buttercream as smooth as I think I have ever gotten buttercream, I piped a little detail on the glass and then wrote salutations with melted chocolate to the birthday boy.

Then with a little food coloring, edible metallic dust and fondant, I topped the martini off with the customary olives on a toothpick.

The olives surrounding the cake are actually cake bites, and fun and sweet final touch. Happy 40th Birthday Doug and welcome to the club.

As the Cookie Crumbles

I can not believe that it is Friday already. My week, no make that my year has been flying by, especially as of late. I truly meant to post on Tuesday, but my morning got away from me. Then on Wednesday, I was away basically for the whole day (baseball game). I have two cakes that I am making for friends this weekend, so Thursday was taking up by that and by the kids' new haircuts. So here I am, it's Friday morning and I'm finally putting up my post. My oldest has been on spring break this week, so last week I made cookies for her to take to school and pass out before all the kids left for break. Samantha was so happy to have the cookies and even told one of her teachers that her mom was really talented (I swear I didn't pay her to say that). So later that day, I went to pick her up at school, only to discover that they had forgotten to give out the cookies. Luckily I was one of the first there for pick up, so one of her teachers ran in and got them and passed them out to any of the remaining kids.

When I decided to make these cookies, it was kind of hard to settle on what I was going to do. You see, I had been seeing soooooooo many cute things on the Internet, I just couldn't decide what I wanted these cookies to look like. I finally chose to make them look like baby chicks coming out of eggs. This is the first time I have made cookies completely covered in fondant. I really likes how they came out.

My egg shaped cookies just waiting to be decorated.

I started off by making the chick. I used the same cookie cutter that made the eggs cookies, and then just cut the bottom half of the fondant off.

Next, with the egg cookie cutter in hand once again, I cut out the bottom half of the egg. Using a knife, I cut out the crack of the shell.

Using a large round pastry tip, I cut out the dots for the egg shells. Then, I glued them on the shell using a little water.

I used the same technique to make the chick's eyes.

A little blue food color to help dot the eyes and orange triangle for the beaks and Eggbert was ready for the kids...or at least the kids still there to get one.